Climate 'meltdown', yet fusion lags
The UK government's projections of climate impacts, released on Thursday, claim to paint a probabilistic picture of the country's future climate in unprecedented detail.
In principle, the project allows you to select any part of the country and obtain projections in 25 sq km blocks of how temperatures and rainfall may change at various points in the future, with probabilities assigned to various outcomes based on uncertainties in the modelling process, imperfections in how well we understand the mechanisms behind weather and climate, and guesswork about what the future holds in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
Each of these three areas are sources of considerable uncertainty - and as my colleague Palllab Ghosh detailed, not all scientists are sure it's yet reasonable to try to make projections at this level of spatial detail.
The uncertainties are certainly big enough to open questions over how local authorities, businesses and ordinary citizens will use the projections.
In the south-east of England - already the hottest UK region - the projections are that summer temperatures may rise by between 2C and 6C if the world stays on a "medium emissions scenario". If greenhouse emissions rise faster than that trajectory, 12C is a possibility.
For health services, water boards, railway companies, fire services, farmers - even for you and me - there is a heck of a difference between planning for 2C and planning for 12C.
Despite these caveats, I would suggest UKCP09 is a useful exercise, in two ways.
The first is that some of the "clients", as the government calls them - "users" might be a better term - may find the projections useful; and if it does help them make better planning decisions, that should prove beneficial for communities and the economy.
The second is that by going down this route, the UK (and especially the Met Office that led the climate modelling) has taken a major step along a path that other developed countries are sure to follow in the next few years.
(By comparing the level of detail in UKCP09 with the report just issued by the US administration on US impacts, you can see just how far the Met Office is trying to push ahead of the game.)
Projecting local and regional climate impacts is a nascent science but it is exactly the logical thing to do if you want to a) forecast climate impacts on your own society and b) develop plans to protect against those impacts.
There are of course concerns about the whole issue of projecting the climate through computer models - concerns that flood into my inbox every time I write about the issue - but I would just raise three simple arguments against those criticisms:
•With time machines in short supply, how else is humankind to gain insights into what the future holds?
•Modellers always these days attach uncertainties and limitations to their projections
•Current models may have their flaws, but I know of no way to make a perfect model other than to build imperfect ones, look for the problem areas and use that information to build progressively better ones
As other countries and other groups of climate modellers attempt local projections, they will be taking positives and negatives from the Met Office approach and trying to improve on it - which should, in time, lead to more refined and more accurate projections.
One irony of the project, though, is that the UK is one of the countries where the exercise is probably needed least.
A report last month from the Global Humanitarian Forum - the body chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan - named the UK as one of the 12 countries least at risk from climate change.
The places where something like UKCP09 is most needed are just those parts of the world where weather and climate data is most lacking, notably Africa - although Mr Annan took some cheer this week from being able to launch a novel, low-tech project that will mount automatic weather stations on mobile phone masts across the continent.
Perhaps the greater irony lay in the yawning gulf between London and and Mito, Japan.
As UK environment secretary Hilary Benn was introducing the impact projections in terms that are by now very familiar - "Climate change is the greatest challenge that we face as a world", "we have got to respond, we've got to act", "this is the future we don't want to happen" - Mito was hosting a meeting that went a long way to slowing the progress of the one technology that might solve the world's energy problems (and therefore significantly mitigate its climate problems) in a single hit.
As my colleague Matt McGrath reported earlier this week, escalating costs and questions over the technology are now plaguing the ITER project, the international attempt to prove that nuclear fusion could work on a commercial basis.
The Mito meeting of ITER's council endorsed a "phased approach" that will push back the date for starting fusion in plasmas involving the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium - needed for anything approaching commercial operation - until 2026.
Building ITER is expensive, no doubt - calculated at $6bn originally, now perhaps as high as $16bn - and some experts charge that the international behemoth has pushed research on other designs to the sidelines.
But if Hilary Benn is right - and his words reflect those of just about every other developed country politician these days - why would a few billion dollars hold you back from researching such a prize?
From the US government to straitened banks, $700bn; from the European Central Bank, $500bn; to rescue insurance giant AIG, $85bn... I could go on.
Yet ITER governments feel squeezed by cost overruns amounting to just a few paltry billions on a technology with such potential?
They are happy to see the deadline slip back to 2026 - just about the date by which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends global greenhouse gas emissions should have peaked and begun to decline?
Nuclear fusion was never going to be a short-term solution to climate change but it could have an absolutely huge role to play in the longer term.
As with local climate modelling, you won't know how well it works unless you invest the money and try.
"We've got to respond, we've got to act"? Hmmm...
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Richard, Richard, Richard,
I must admit that I enjoy reading your blogs mostly for the laugh factor. Although, I would agree that Itar and other fusion projects should be funded generously - but not for the reasons you would present. If we could end ethanol subsidies and divert that 10B (US) per year - half to fusion research and half to fuel cell technologies, they would become commercial realities within the next 40-60 years. It was also have the (desirable) effect of increasing food and grain production, bring back down the cost of food paid by consumers (which have risen dramatically as a result of the ethanol program - Thank You Barak Obama and Harry Reid - Senators from the two states who gain most from ethanol subsidies). It would more importantly allow us to provide cheap and abundant, clean energy.
Your three arguments for "believing" the climate models are flawed. I am not suggesting that we abandon climate modeling - only admit that we know so little about the earth's climate system that the models we have today are essentially useless when it comes to making meaningful predictions.
Just because we don't have working time machines nor crystal balls does not mean we should relay upon flawed and simplistic models.
As for uncertainties in the models and the probabilities and uncertainties assigned by scientists - these are all guesses. Consider a model with a thousand variables - if each variable has an uncertainty of just 5% (I would argue the uncertainties are much greater) - but for argument sake, if you calculated the total uncertainty associated with the model using just this 5% figure, you would find the resulting output of the models to be meaningless. (We call this a SWAG Stupid Wild-Ass Guess)
Thirdly, while I agree we should continue to develop better models, the major stumbling block is that the models themselves are kept behind locked doors - only the results of the models are released. In my view, if government funding was used to create the model, then any published results from the model should be accompanied by the model itself. Not only would this allow for real "peer review" of "the science", but would also have a dramatic effect over the next 10 years in development of newer and better models. Until "the science" (i.e. the models) are truly presented in a transparent format, we all have reason to be skeptical. Small perturbations (changes) in the coefficients and probabilities associated with the models can produce significant changes in the results that is why they are called Chaotic Dynamic Systems.
As an aerospace engineer (Texas A&M), in graduate school, one of the "side projects" I was given my my mentor and worked on just for fun - was developing models for playing blackjack - one deck, two deck, four and six deck shoes - with a wide variety of scenarios. Just because I could define a strategy using a model that presented the "big win" result, does not mean I could just go to Vegas and clean them out. While I did develop some strategies that worked (most of the time) - none were foolproof, and we are now talking about a system (blackjack table and players) much more simple than the earth and its climate system.
And yet, the results of these models (models which we are not allowed to look at and review) and presented by as fact by their researchers and that fantasy is continued by ilk such as yourself who present these results as "fact".
As someone who specialized in Chaotic Dynamic Systems at the University and studied them for 20 years, I can tell you without a doubt that the models we have today are too simplistic and immature to produce any meaningful results. We simply do not know enough - both about chaos theory and earth's climate system - to create accurate models.
Consider the "butterfly effect" - a butterfly flaps his wings in China and the perturbations resulting cause a massive outbreak of tornadoes in the US Midwest. A tiny input or change, seemingly innocuous enough thousands of miles away causes massive destruction. Now consider these "models" - models with thousands of interrelated variables. And, we don't fully understand the interrelation of those variables (or drivers, forcing agents, whatever you want to call them) - change one coefficient just a little bit, and your results are dramatically changed. The Met office results were obtained by "averaging" the results of 300 runs of their "new model" with different scenarios (or values used for the variables and their coefficients) As one would expect, the results varied widely and anyone who knows anything about chaos theory will tell you this type of output is completely meaningless. Tweak the variables just a little and you can obtain any result you desireIt appears to me that the research being funded today is really just tweaking the models to obtain the results desired by the researcher. Who can then use those results to make dire predictions and of course, obtain more funding.
Until we know more, we should direct our resources and attention on more pressing problems - like deforestation, better fisheries management, water management and land use. Not all this non-sense around a trace gas - one which I might add is essential for life to exist on this planet - without CO2, we would all be dead - yet, you and your ilk would call it a pollutant. Quit scamming us.
I recently read an article about an Indian company with ties to the UK, which received $28M in carbon credits for installing GHG scrubbers in one of its plants. U2 probably provided the money with the "carbon offsets" they purchased to "make them feel good" about the "carbon footprint" of their upcoming world tour. Well, this money has allowed that company to build two new plants - and all of their plants are big polluters. They have ruined the farmland and drinking wells for miles around. Feel good about your carbon offsets Richard (and U2)??
I have a CHALLENGE for you Richard, become the crusader for transparency. Force the "climate scientists" who would predict Armageddon to "drop their drawers, so to speak" and open up their models and raw data for public scrutiny and real peer review. If I were to present a paper claiming a new and novel solution to Fermat's last equation, and provided only the result of my solution and now how I arrived at it (i.e., the proof) - I would be laughed at, and no one would publish it. This type of thing happens every day with the climate models - well, show me the proof, let us scrutinize the model, as we can't scrutinize the results without the models used to obtain them. Then we will see how little we really know.
Not only will this transparency highlight how simplistic and variable the current models are, it will dramatically improve the science altogether. Scientists build upon the work of others, that is how its done - someone comes up with a hypothesis and another takes that hypothesis and develops his own theories around it, and so forth. By forcing climatologist to present their models with their results, others can build upon those models and develop better models much more quickly than the current "status quo".
I CHALLANGE you Richard - are you up to the task? Or are you really just another smuck who stands to gain riches and/or power from climate hysteria? If we are to commit ALL of our public resources to this one problem, should we not have transparency? Until then, we all have great reason to be skeptical of the dire predictions presented by these models. When there is no room for skepticism in science, it is no longer science, but dogma and religion. So, are you a reporter after the truth or just another religious zealot?
Take a stand - demand transparency and don't present any of the results (nor dire predictions) without the models used to create them. When the climatologists are paid no attention by the media and the journals, without presenting their proofs (i.e. the models), well, then they will be forced to be open and transparent and undergo real peer review. Otherwise, they will lose funding and credibility. It is a publish or perish scientific world - those who do not publish, see their careers perish. In order to receive a Master's degree in Science (or a PhD), one must present a dissertation (or thesis) which "adds to the current body of knowledge of that science". Presenting the results of models without the models themselves is meaningless and adds nothing to the scientific knowledge base.
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Maybe as a journalist you should be investigating the models not defending them.
If you go back and look at their predictions from 10 or 20 years ago what has actually happened falls outside their 90% confidence interval yet the models have not fundamentally changed.
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LarryKealey #1
Strongly agree that Itar should be generously funded. Big issue as I see it is that governments have already made plans for carbon taxing and if new technology relplaces it sooner that's decreasing their long term revenues.
Be ready for the attack dogs here in a while. It could be another fun day for as you say "the laugh factor". Although I must add there are serious and genuinely interesting discussions and sharing when CO2 is off the topic.
Have a great weekend
Cheers...
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"I am not suggesting that we abandon climate modeling - only admit that we know so little about the earth's climate system"
Who's this "we" kimosabe?
"that the models we have today are essentially useless when it comes to making meaningful predictions."
Nope, they make really quite good predictions.
E.g. they cannot predict when a volcano erupts nor how much they will eject. However, if you take the model extant at the time (and so not tuned to give the "right answer") and put in the recorded fact of Mt Pinatubo's eruption, the model predicts what happened to the climate response very well indeed.
An impossibility if they were unable to make meaningful predictions...
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re #2: I take it you've done this then? Why not show us all what you found.
Or is it only for a credulous audience?
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"Force the "climate scientists" who would predict Armageddon to "drop their drawers, so to speak" and open up their models and raw data for public scrutiny and real peer review."
http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/climate_modeling.html
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/ccsm3.0/
http://www.astr.ucl.ac.be/users/matthews/jcm/web/source.html
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
and for the data
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/www/raw.html
Don't even bother looking, do you. Just in case you can't then accuse.
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And from the UK, the data:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/
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There is an interesting article (link below) about the review that J. Scott Armstrong , founder of the International Journal of Forecasting, carried out on the IPCC climate models.
He found that they violated 72 scientific principles of forecasting and that modeling was used to create scenarios (i.e., stories) to represent the scientists opinions about what might happen. The models were not intended as forecasting models.
Full text here.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/28/forecasting-guru-announces-no-scientific-basis-for-forecasting-climate/#more-5370
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Ah, good old watssupwithtat...
Lets see if that site practices Good Science too.
1. No scientific forecasts of the changes in the Earths climate
Well a load of dismissive stuff about how an explanation of what the changes are are somehow "Not Scientific". Wonder how he does when the doctor explained how babies are born...
2. Improper peer review process.
Ah, nothing there. "To my knowledge" but as we've seen here already, there are people who say things that, according to their knowledge are either unknown despite existing, or lied about.
3. Complexity and uncertainty of climate render expert opinions invalid for forecasting.
I notice no science is done to prove that assertion. Yet there are plenty that show value in forecasting. Farmers don't pay for forecasts because they like to give money away, you know...
4. Forecasts are needed for the effects of climate change.
Well, yes. If it's in the future, telling what it's going to be like in the future is what we call "A forecast".
5. Forecasts are needed of the costs and benefits of alternative actions that might be taken to combat climate change.
I thought he said forecasts weren't possible?
6. To justify using a climate forecasting model, one would need to test it against a relevant naïve model.
Yup. A Single Column Model. http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cms/sccm/sccm.html
7. The climate system is stable.
So? I'm stable when standing still. If you push me hard enough, I fall down.
8. Be conservative and avoid the precautionary principle.
Strange he doesn't do this himself. He's *very* certain it's all wrong, isn't he...
I would continue, but this, taken in order shows how infantile his explanations are, only fooling the ones who want to be fooled.
I notice that only #2 and #8 actually have anything to do with the subject the "discussion" is on: violating the scientific principles.
And do you think that maybe a group of scientists would know better than a single scientist?
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/21/8441.abstract
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I'm not sure about the value of ITEA yet. It would, if it works, add to the total amount of heat contained in the earth's system. With greenhouse gases holding it in until they are successfully reduced will that not make the climate yet hotter if even by only a tiny fraction? I would like to see all the balance of the argument there.
However I remain convinced by the Club of Rome's offering over the last couple of years of using the deserts as heat collectors and points of solar electrical power generation. This was, to my mind an important piece of BBC news last year. Has something come up to stop it? The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) seems an ideal solution, especially since none of the technology involved needs to be invented or even developed.
Whether or not we believe in the greenhouse effect, as I do, reduction of the use of oil, gas and coal - and preferably their abandonment altogether will lead us towards a much cleaner world which our descendants will be able to enjoy as they have the right to do
If anything I think even the TREC project is to cautious. We should use the energy from the sun to produce all the energy we need - not just to equal current consumption of electricity but also to drive our transport systems including cars.
Please can someone direct me to any website offering a better solution or tell me why the TREC project has not yet taken centre stage?
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I also note that J Scott Armstrong is not a ***weather*** forecaster.
Just in case you thought he might be...
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John, good question.
Rather than answer, I'll tell you how to do this yourself.
1) Find out what the solar constant average is for the entire earth. Watts per square meter.
2) Find out the surface area of the earth.
3) Multiply out.
4) Find the total energy use of the world.
5) Compare the answer in 4 to 3.
That's how much energy CO2 containment from ITER will matter.
You can check if off against how much warming there is from CO2 currently (so get an idea of how much worse this will make it by replacing (1) with the AGW forcing of CO2 equivalents by the IPCC.
It's a back-of-the-envelope answer, but in finding it, you may find other things that will educate you as to what is know and what isn't.
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Yeah Whatever
The raw data is what was requested. You have provided a link to processed CRU data. The CRU refuses to release the raw data and the code they have used to process it through to the outputs you link to.
Richard as a publicly funded BBC journalist, responsible for covering a critical area of public policy, has a duty to report.
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No few UN officials and others in the water industry, know that there will be wars over water within a few decades.
We talk about Climate Change too much. We need not ignore "Climate Change" theories/issues, however too few people are conscious of problems just as bad or worse - like the billions of people who have poor to no access to potable water, which breeds much disease and death. Further how ridiculous our consumption of water is for Intensive agriculture or manufacturing. Then there are issues of market realities for farmers in the developing world, and so much production/construction still roaring ahead with materials completely unadapted to sustainable modes of life, etc.
More coverage on all the pressing issues please!
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re 13: yes, he does have a duty to report critical areas of public policy.
That doesn't mean he can't critically assess what numpties tell him and find that it's a load of old cobblers.
The raw data is available.
You can get it.
Except you don't want to, because you then have to either admit you don't want to know in case you're wrong or are too lazy.
There's also the GISS data. Unmodified.
Or would you rather go and pick out a place that doesn't do EXACTLY what *you* want it to do and say "See! They must be hiding something!!".
I bet you haven't even looked at the source code for any of the models either, have you? Just in case you have to do some work that will shatter your preconceived notions.
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Ron, do you think extending the droughts will help or hinder finding potable water?
Now when there's no glacial melt to feed the rivers over the summer months, when water is most needed, what do you think will happen?
"Don't look here! Look over there! Over there is where you should be looking! Not here!!!"
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Yeah_whatever
It was of the CRU raw data that Phil Jones, the scientist responsible, notoriously said "I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it."
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
You can assert that it's available, but you have to say where. If the scientist responsible will not hand it over, where on earth should one get it from? A link would be helpful, otherwise you just look like you are bluffing.
There is a clear public interest in having the data available. Do you agree? The public has paid for it and multibillion dollar decisions are being taken off the back of it. I'm sure you will agree that the scientific method demands replication, which is obviously impossible without the data as used.
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yeah_whatever wrote:
Ron, do you think extending the droughts will help or hinder finding potable water?
Your remark barely warrants a reply.
You pick out my main issue but it was not isolated. My point was that our drive needs to concern multiple issues conducive to sustainable living in many areas of life, type of energy use etc. Over-emphasis is not useful.
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re 18: Why? Can't reply? Don't like to?
Please show there is over-emphasis.
The issue of water has been seen to (with some small effect) for decades. And ignoring climate change isn't going to help either.
Since everyone agrees that water is a problem, there's not much to discuss about it. Those who care enough pay charities to make water available. But there's a concerted effort to ensure that nothing is done (at least not done *yet*) about climate change since there are many people who need just a few more years of profit to retire comfortably on the results of over-exploitation.
Given that, there is still a lot to talk about.
So having a lot to talk about, there's a lot of talking about it.
This is not over-emphasis.
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The arrogance - or raher deceit - of mankind to think that we caused or can repair "global warming". Read this - http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/letters/Hoodwinked-by-climate-debate.5375276.jp
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With time machines in short supply, how else is humankind to gain insights into what the future holds?
Richard, gaining insight into what the future holds is impossible. Malthus, Ehrlich, Star Trek, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Tommorow's World, all completely, utterly, fabulously wrong. Think how a person in 1930 would imagine how we live in 2009 - would this be very accurate?
Modellers always these days attach uncertainties and limitations to their projections
It is shocking that they apparently used not to. Climate models are wrong because they use a large number of inputs, each one of which is more or less likely to be wrong. Therefore, they cannot be right. They do have limited uses - guiding policy not being one of these.
Current models may have their flaws, but I know of no way to make a perfect model other than to build imperfect ones, look for the problem areas and use that information to build progressively better ones
Please do not speak of "making" a "perfect model", for the reasons given above.
In this debate hardly anyone changes their mind and everyone seeks out confirmation bias. I know I do. Thank you for considering my points.
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LarryKealey, please note I did not write that I "believed" the climate models - but that I thought UKCP09 was a useful exercise. There is a world of difference.
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UKCP09 (United Kingdom Climate Projection 2009)
I would like to congratulate the Hadley Centre, the Met Office, and the government of the United Kingdom for the courage to present this climate forecast.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/hadleycentre/
I quote:
"The UK Met Office, which led the scientific analysis, says UKCP09 is the "most comprehensive set of probabilistic climate projections at the regional scale compiled anywhere in the world".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8107014.stm
I believe Richard Black is correct in thinking this will lead to the adoption of this methodology for other countries in the world, perhaps the majority, possibly even all.
Someone had to be first - a mountaineer appreciates the 'lead' like no other.
- Manysummits - happy and humbled to have been a small part of this -
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Thank you Larry Kealey for your thoughtful piece which Yeah-Whatever has dismissed and provided links which demonstrated he either does not understand the problem or he wished to deceive other readers of the post.
BishopHill succinctly followed on:-
The raw data is what was requested. You have provided a link to processed CRU data. The CRU refuses to release the raw data and the code they have used to process it through to the outputs you link to.
Richard as a publicly funded BBC journalist, responsible for covering a critical area of public policy, has a duty to report
End of Bishop's Hill Post:-
If the CRU are so happy with their data handling then why cant we be told the methodology?
It took a journalist five years attempting to obtain data on MP's expenses and still she failed, it was a leak which showed why the release of the information was vigourously resisted.
I am sure if during the period people qustioned the non-release of the data then they among other things they would have been accused of believing in conspiracy theories.
Hadcrut do not wish to release the raw data and handling methods because they will be shown to either have not practised proper due diligence or worse data manipulation to support their systemic view of Global Warming.
I may be stupid but the bankers and politicians mislead the people on financial matters and I see many reasons to indicate that is the cause in respect of Global Waring.
But the old adage the truth will out shall be met.
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Sorry for the Typos
Freudian slip "Global Waring"
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Much of the case made in the comments here against models is churlish. In the real world we have to make decisions based on whatever information we have. There is seldom enough, and what there is is often full of noise. That's why the precautionary principal is needed. Failure to act quickly enough on the basis of the partial picture we have can be disastrous. This applies in many walks of life, e.g. medicine, as much as it does in government.
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re 20: the arrogance that we can do whatever we like without worrying about the consequences.
I bet you haven't done even the vaguest working to see if we are enacting changes that are visible on the scale of the entire globe, have you.
No, you'd just like to be able to say it's A-OK and continue with your rapine.
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re 24, how about some content with that spite?
You can get the original climate data. You can get the source code for global climate models of varying complexity. The papers are available for perusal and criticism.
"These are not the papers I was asking for" isn't a response. It's a way to avoid having to see if you're right because you're afraid to be wrong. You are afraid that if you were to work on this that you will not get paid by your masters. You are afraid that if AGW is accepted based on the evidence available that you will be unemployed.
Your partisanship is blatant and obvious.
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I enjoy reading LarryKealey's comments mostly for the laugh factor.
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What bull:
"Climate models are wrong because they use a large number of inputs, each one of which is more or less likely to be wrong. Therefore, they cannot be right."
Modelling a new jet engine is modelling a very large number of inputs. Yet we remain unhindered by falling jet planes.
Tossing a coin 10,000 times means calculating the average is using a very large number of inputs: 10,000 of them to be precise. Yet the average will be about 50% heads, 50% tails. Give or take ~1%.
How can I say that????
An idiot who knows nothing and wants to know nothing will be unable to answer that.
And where the blue blazes do you get that they don't put errors on their predictions??? You haven't read ANYTHING have you. You're parroting what you've read somewhere that you liked or something you've been told to say.
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'Wrapupwarm' wrote in #24:
"I may be stupid but the bankers and politicians mislead the people on financial matters and I see many reasons to indicate that is the cause in respect of Global Waring."
---------------
I've been trying to understand the attitude of the climate skeptics for months now. Your comment seems the only real answer.
Mired as it were in the muck of politics and corporate greed, and with a long and disreputable history of what the revisionist historian Ronald Wright has called "colonial" and "tribute empires", the western world, with few exceptions, is above all cynical, and has lost the ability to separate fact from fancy, truth and honest intention from the machinations of the 'working world'.
It's why half of 'the people' don't even vote - they are either a direct part of this system, or its victims.
Scientists are people, that is to say human, and with human tendencies to greed and power and fame and fortune.
But - not really.
They have voted with their dedication to science all of their lives, and you can usually believe what a person does, as opposed to what a person says.
We had better all relearn this lost skill - of knowing who to believe.
- Manysummits, Calgary -
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Interesting comments about the precautionary principle.
A good idea, in general - it could have avoided the thalidomide tragedy, the tower-block debacles, even maybe the bio-fuels fiasco.
The problem here is this: what is the safe, cautious option ?
1) To completely stop any further emissions of CO2 and other GHGs.
or
2) To make the wholesale changes to our entire society and way of life needed for #1.
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Is this the same Met Office that in September 2008 predicted a 'Milder and Drier Winter'
then in February 2009 had to report the inconvenient facts:
Heavy snow - winter chaos schools closed ... Heathrow closed... trains cancelled ... hospital staff stranded ... worst snow in 15 years...
Was it the wrong kind of snow or the wrong kind of computer ?
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YeahWhatever
The moderators don't seem to want to allow me to post a link to evidence that the CRU is withholding its raw data, but if you put "cru data freedom of information" into Google, the first result shows that this is the case. So contrary to your earlier assertions, the data is not available. (Please provide a link if you think otherwise).
I'm sure we can all agree that this is wrong and that there is a public interest in the data being public.
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So, now we know that the raw station data is being withheld, the six million dollar question is whether Richard is going to probe the issue at all? Richard - as this is publicly funded data being used to support multi-billion dollar decisions, I would say you, as a publicly funded journalist have a duty to expose, loudly, the fact that it is being withheld.
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I wonder if the moderators will let me link to the evidence if it's posted at HM Treasury?
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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"not all scientists are sure it's yet reasonable to try to make projections at this level of spatial detail"
one of the things about models is that they have to show utility in forecasts, and not hindcasts. That has not been done. Indeed, there is not even a sensible framework for establishing the likely errors of the model, and some scientists have questioned these models.
However, Richard argues that users "may find the projections useful; and if it does help them make better planning decisions", so much the better.
This is however the crux of the matter. If users make decisions on scenarios that are completely wrong, it is quite possible that there will be substantial cost to the public purse, and no benefit.
yours
per
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The CRU data story is quite interesting, and is summarised in part here http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=403.
yeah_whatever suggests that jet engine models are just like climate models. There is a difference. Predictions from models of an engine are rigorously and experimentally tested by obtaining experimental data.
In the case of climate models, it is not possible to change the inputs (the sun, gases in the atmosphere) at whim, to see what the effect is on the planet. These models can only be tested by allowing them to make predictions, and seeing if the models give accurate predictions.
per
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You have to wonder about the raw data, especially in view of the ground-based data in the US, much of which seems to come from aircraft runways, car-parks and rooftop locations next to HVAC outlets. This is a bit of a worry, especially when small variances are regarded as so significant...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/05/a-significant-editorial-on-weather-station-and-data-quality/
BTW, what happened to comment 17?
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FJPickett
I'm trying to work this out myself. It appears to be that the moderators don't like the links I've made. I linked to a page at Climate Audit which reproduces a lot of correspondence relating to the availability of the CRU data. This is essentially the same info given in the story peroxisome links to in #38 above. I don't understand why it's OK for per to link but not for me. I also tried to link to the same story on a document posted on HM Treasury's website, but that's been blocked too (#36).
The moderation on this thread is bizarre.
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Perhaps the moderators might like to explain?
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Richard
Sorry, this is slightly off-topic, but in one of your earlier threads you challenged by assertion that the BBC's official policy on climate change was that it was a real phenomenon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/03/whale_week_climate.html
I missed your response and never replied. I was basing my assertion on the BBC Trust's "Seesaw to wagonwheel" report which stated:
"The BBC has held a high-level seminar with some of the best scientific experts, and has come to the view that the weight of evidence no longer justifies equal space being given to the opponents of the consensus."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/review_report_research/impartiality_21century/report.pdf
I asked you if you attended the seminar (one of Roger Harrabin's Real World Brainstorms), but you seem to have missed that part of my question.
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Reading the above thread, one has to wonder whether "yeah_whatever" is the officially-sanctioned "house AGW troll". He/she seems to be indulged and permitted to express levels of abuse and ad hominem far in excess of normal BBC moderation. :-)
Oh, BTW... Modelling a jet engine is child's play compared to climate.
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"All new members"...? I've been registered and an active poster to the BBC HYS site for years!!
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BishopHill at #42
You only quote the first part of that piece from the report. It then goes on to say:
"But these dissenters (or even sceptics) will still be heard, as they should, because it is not the BBCs role to close down this debate. They cannot be simply dismissed as flat-earthers or deniers, who should not be given a platform by the BBC. Impartiality always requires a breadth of view: for as long as minority opinions are coherently and honestly expressed, the BBC must give them appropriate space."
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Simon
The point that was at issue was whether it was official BBC policy that climate change was real rather than their attitude to dissenters.
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It's official BBC policy to report on the science.
The science says that climate change is real and that human activities are the cause of the majority of it.
Where do you see the BBC officially display any attitude to dissenters? Even when those dissenters have been merely denialists?
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"Oh, BTW... Modelling a jet engine is child's play compared to climate."
It is? How do you know?
Did a double in climatology and aeronautical engineering???
The only genuine imponderable in climate is (for as long as they exist), human actions taken that effect it. Will it *be* Business As Usual? Will it be Clean Up Or Ship Out? Will it be Nuclear Or Bust (or should that be Boom?)?
But the climate isn't all that difficult in broad strokes: it's energy balance plain and simple. If more heat is retained than before and the heat coming in stays the same, it gets hotter.
How complicated can THAT be to work out??
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"Perhaps the moderators might like to explain?"
Perhaps the links come up in the automatic filters as "filesharing" or "cracker tools". Not filters as defined by the BBC, but as defined by Net Nanny or Norton Internet Firewall.
Or should the BBC accept any links, even if they lead to a kiddie porn site?
Nah, you'd prefer to be martyred. Makes you feel "cool".
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"You have to wonder about the raw data, especially in view of the ground-based data in the US, "
Funnily enough, there are still unanswered questions on that. Read "Politics-as-usual strains sustainable future".
It seems that data on ground-based data in the US is interesting as long as you don't ask questions about what it means...
And if "it's been cooling since 1998" is true, and that these sites were surveyed without prompting only a few scant years ago, how can their siting be the cause of the warming signal on the ground? Surely AC's would be getting MORE prevalent, not less, over that time, so if these WERE the cause of such a signal being seen up to 1998, it would not be seeming to be cooling like you think.
And what's causing the stratosphere to cool too?
All interesting questions, but ones you don't seem to want to ask.
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"In the case of climate models, it is not possible to change the inputs (the sun, gases in the atmosphere) at whim, to see what the effect is on the planet."
But what you CAN do (and what HAS been done) is to take the model that you've developed, take a snapshot of the past, use that as the starting figure and let the model run.
As, for example, they did after Pinatubo erupted. Climate models don't predict when a volcano erupts, but it DOES predict what would happen if one does.
And then what you do is take that data and then look at the record of what DID happen.
If you predict it right, your model is right. What it gets wrong you can see.
But as to the model itself, what do you think they do to MAKE the models?
a) Take the physical properties of the air constituents
b) Take the physical properties of the ground
c) Take the physical properties of the sea
d) Take the physical properties of the sun's radiation
e) Take the physical properties of the earth's reradiation
f) Run these through a simulation
The simulation is where you apply the maths one step at a time, small enough steps that there are no nonlinear effects taking place over the interval.
The physical properties of the air can be measured in a lab. How it reacts can be run in a lab. How it changes when you change the constituents can be done in a lab.
How is this different from your engine model?
You're checking that your physical description describes the real thing, just like the climate modelers are doing with their model mathematics.
How do you think you know how to run a climate model so well when you haven't done it?
I did this sort of thing in my degree at university, though not on climate, on fluid modelling. I've read up on what is going on, and checked my sources.
Did you check your source of what you "know" about climate models? Or did you just assume that you're right because it "sounds right"?
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"one of the things about models is that they have to show utility in forecasts, and not hindcasts. "
Really? How do you know? Where do you get your information from, or are you just saying this hoping nobody would ask you that?
http://www.ecmwf.int/about/special_projects/ulbrich_investigations_of_storms/index.html
Investigation of storms in forecasts, hindcasts and climate model simulations on daily to seasonal and climatological timescales
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU06/09293/EGU06-J-09293.pdf
The model has been run in hindcast mode forced with NCEP/NCAR reanalysis...
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006JC003616.shtml
Comparison of Arctic sea ice thickness variability in IPCC Climate of the 20th Century experiments and in oceansea ice hindcasts
Uh, 20 seconds googling...
This means that you are horrendously misinformed at best and that anything you say in future must (MUST) be checked against since you've been horrendously wrong before and therefore your every statement is suspect.
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> Reading the above thread, one has to wonder whether "yeah_whatever" is the officially-sanctioned "house AGW troll"
Ah, if you can't attack the facts, attack the man.
Great job!
Got anything substantive?
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"So, now we know that the raw station data is being withheld,"
We do? When did we know that?
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Jack Hughes
"Heavy snow - winter chaos schools closed.."
That's just weather. It's only climate if it's unseasonally warm.. :-)
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"Is this the same Met Office that in September 2008 predicted a 'Milder and Drier Winter'
then in February 2009 had to report the inconvenient facts:"
And what is the average temperature and rainfall rate over Winter?
You DO know, don't you, that winter isn't just 2nd Feb and that the UK isn't just London.
Don't you?
PS if there's this huge conspiracy to hide anything against AGW, why is it there are so many official sources saying things that are being used to "prove" AGW is wrong? I mean, if you're running a conspiracy, you don't give away anything that shows it up, do you!
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Pogo50
"All new members"
I noticed that. We're obviously not to be trusted!
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re 55, 2nd Feb isn't winter, either.
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Excellent blog post Mr black!
You hit the nail directly on the head. A $3M Cruise Missle is far more important to the Developed nations than a world saving technology.
How the politicians and Public can think ITER is not worth huge investment amazes me, the fact is we do not know if it possible but this is definately worth the expense to find out.
And it is not a case of starving other research projects for this, it is a case of starving mundane policies of money in place of more research! That is how it should be done and I can say that the UK alone can contribute another £300M annually simply by telling the Arts Society they will have no more Tax Money to compensate for the worlds lack of monetary interest in the rubbish they make these days.
I don't care how important some people think art is to society, it will never power my lightbulbs and there is no discussion about it!!
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@58... 2nd February is indeed Winter!
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re 60. Wow. You have a short winter.
So 1st Feb is autumn and 3th Feb is spring, I take it?
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@manysummits 11:26
Good to see that you've kept your constructive mindset :o)
I think you're absolutely right about relearning the skill to understand who to trust. The case for science in society was overstated in the past (marketeers used the men in white coats to sell us all sorts of stuff!!). But the backlash has left too many people assuming the views of mainstream scientific bodies are no better than industry lobby groups (like the Heartland). This I think is at the heart (pun intended!) of a lot of the nonsense on these comment boards.
In reporting environemnetal news, Richard is walking a pretty fine line and does it pretty well imo. The core science is sound and the main unknowns in these models are just how stupid humanity is. Sadly, I tend towards the worst case scenario in this respect :o(
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Yeah_Whatever
"You say that `the science says that climate change is real and that human activities are the cause of the majority of it'."
This is disputed. The Pielke/Annan survey found that 25% of bona fide climate scientists thought that the IPCC findings were overdone. This is why I think it is alarming that the BBC has taken a position on the issue.
"Where do you see the BBC officially display any attitude to dissenters? Even when those dissenters have been merely denialists?"
The BBC's Climate Wars programme was a case in point, with soft interviews being given to, for example, Michael Mann, while sceptics were limited to two second soundbites. When the presenter Iain Stewart presented a piece to camera from the crown of a bristlecone pine tree when these have been condemned as unreliable proxies was frankly a case of the BBC taking the mickey.
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Yeah Whatever #49
One of the links I posted was to a document at HM Treasury. Apparently this was too racy for the BBC.
P.S. Please try to be civil.
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Whilst appreciating the caveats, I still have my doubts about the usefulness of this study.
I'm a bit mystified why Richard Black has listed as an argument against any potential criticism, the fact that modellers attach uncertainties and limitations, if there is then no reference to the typical level of uncertainty or limitation used, or whether these are accurately stated in the first place, then this seems a bit like a misplaced claim of the benefit of a piece of work just by saying it is honest done.
Which sounds a bit like advocacy to me rather than certainty.
It also seems a bit superfluous to remind us that there is no such thing as perfect model. A model is not perfect by the definition of the word model. Usefulness is a more useful way of describing models. And the way you find out usefulness is by harshly and rigorously testing the model against reality. The models for engineering projects such as jet engines and buildings have still often found been found to be flawed, and are often evolved by observing the errors and failures that occur in the prototyping stage, and in the worst cases, learning from the real world failures that they still miss.
As may have often been pointed out, it is useful to speculate on the future, and modelling the future is all we can do by definition. However virtually any speculation is a model of the future, we, the public when you consider the huge consequnces, still need to know the usefulness of these models, and be shown that they have been assessed by comparing the unknowns being predicted against the discovered actuality when it arrives. I dont think past scenarios being confirmed on a computer screen would ever impress anyone who really might risk their life on a models' prediction. Within these type of a claim of models accuracy lays confirmation bias at its most subtlest level.
Fusion has been predicted to become a reality in 30 years for at least 40 years in my experience, which shows my age. If the fusion scientists had had a powerful lobby in the 60s that managed to persuade the world that carbon dependency should be wound down in expectation of the coming 'reality' of this imminent wonder, then that would have been clearly wrong. I see a strange comparison with the current claims and scenarios proposed about our climate and their attached influence on economic and social policy.
However in our current case today, we may actually have a situation where a relatively small speciality of science - atmospheric science - has caught the zeitgeist and the attention of our comfortable jaded generation - uninterested in politics or the machinery of the world and we allow the proponents of social change who attach themselves to this science to actually manage to enforce the unprecedented social and infrastructure changes based on nothing more than our current pessimistic fashions and moods. I guess that is why asking about these models in anything like a critical way can seem so wrong to some people, it doesnt feel right.
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@BishopHill 8:12
There is good peer reviewed science out there showing the vast majority of climate scientists accept human-caused climate change (it's easy enough to find if you want to). Of course it proves nothing on its own except that there is a very strong statistical correlation between studying the climate and accepting climate change.
In my 6 years of studying climate science I can honestly say I have never come across a climate scientist that even remotely questions the core science of AGW (and don't try to blow this into some stupid conspiracy or group think, it's not). Clearly there is debate about likely outcomes or economic impacts and some of the precise mechanics in earth systems but the debate you're banging on about just does not exist in the climate science community. You'll only find it on blogs, comment boards and in fringe groupings.
That is why the BBC, sensibly imho, does not give equal air time to 'sceptics'. And that is also why I don't debate the science on comment boards.
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RossGlory
I don't think there's any great difference between your position of "the vast majority of climate scientists accept human-caused climate change" and mine.
I agree that humans cause climate change. Always have done. Always will do. Roger Pielke Snr is always banging on about how land use changes cause climate change. I agree. I also agree that the vast majority of climate scientists accept that human emissions of CO2 are causing climate change to a dangerous extent (which is what I assume you meant). But a significant minority don't (see the Pielke/Annann survey). Among them some very eminent scientists (e.g. Lindzen).
Is it reasonable for the BBC to take a position in these circumstances? I would say not. Should the BBC give equal air time to sceptics. Possibly not. Should the BBC give a fair hearing to sceptics. I would say undoubtedly, and it is hard to argue that the BBC does this (see my earlier comments re Climate Wars). If you are aware of any programme where a prominent sceptic has been given a fair hearing, I'd like to know about it.
We get a lot of propaganda pieces, like the piece Richard is reporting on here, but there is never a chance for someone from the other side to put an alternative point of view.
I think I'm right in saying that nobody has ever produced a climate model that has demonstrated skill at regional levels, yet here we have the BBC reporting straight-faced an attempt to forecast climate on a 25km grid. It's so risible that even global warming promoters like Miles Allen can't bring themselves to support it. This is where the BBC tips over from reporting into propaganda.
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Apparently there's a No10 petition to get the CRU to release their code. (What about the data?)
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CRUSourceCodes/BhauuWC8H9oGBsZR9eAJa0C
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At 8:40pm on 20 Jun 2009, rossglory wrote:
@BishopHill 8:12
There is good peer reviewed science out there showing the vast majority of climate scientists accept human-caused climate change
No,
There is good peer reviewed science out there which shows people protecting their funding associated with the latest fad .
If it is so widely accepted and understood , show me the peer reviewed empirical evidence of CO2 causing an increase in temperature.
And, while you are at it , provide the source codes to support your position.
Don't waste your time, you can do neither.
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@toughNeilHyde 9:10pm
Like I said, I'm not going to waste my time.....doesn't matter how tough you are. If you think you're having a scientific debate here you are mistaken. This is mostly the regurgitation of politically and financially motivated rubbish. The real debate has moved on to what to do about AGW and I'm quite pleased to be a part of it (with some pretty good company).
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Box (1979): All models are wrong, but some are useful.
And For such a model there is no need to ask the question 'Is the model true?'. If "truth" is to be the "whole truth" the answer must be "No". The only question of interest is "Is the model illuminating and useful?
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@toughNeilHyde 9:10pm
Like I said, I'm not going to waste my time.....doesn't matter how tough you are. If you think you're having a scientific debate here you are mistaken. This is mostly the regurgitation of politically and financially motivated rubbish. The real debate has moved on to what to do about AGW and I'm quite pleased to be a part of it (with some pretty good company).
That is possibly the funniest comment I have ever read on here, are you really yeahwhatever ?
Drop the adhom, answer the question !!!!!!!
Please detail my politically motivated rubbish.
Please detail my financially motivated rubbish.
Please answer the question "Where is the peer reviewed evidence of a CO2 signature in temperature increase"
Another question for you , why will no representative of the AGW theory debate in public with someone with opposing theories ? We have lots of warmists threatening to do so , but when push comes to shove they all run scared ( And by the way , I have an email from Richard , looking forward to the debate between Morano and Steig , funny that Steig went walkabout!)
As a final point, the "tough" is the only name I could register with Auntie, even RB had problems registering his own name !!
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yeah_whatever
"The physical properties of the air can be measured in a lab. How it reacts can be run in a lab. How it changes when you change the constituents can be done in a lab.
How is this different from your engine model?"
I think the fact that you have to ask the question, tells us more than enough about your University education. The key unknowns (many of them non-linear) about how climate models work are not simply measurable in a laboratory; or the scientists would already have done it.
"one of the things about models is that they have to show utility in forecasts, and not hindcasts. "
"Really? How do you know? Where do you get your information from, or are you just saying this hoping nobody would ask you that?"
hmm, this is science 101; you must make predictions. Quoting three studies that make hindcasts kind of agrees with my comment that forecasts are the important quality for measuring the value of a model.
rossglory wrote:
"In my 6 years of studying climate science I can honestly say I have never come across a climate scientist that even remotely questions the core science of AGW ..."
you will remember that millenial reconstructions were front and central in the third IPCC report, and prominent in the fourth. If you go to the NAS report on surface temperature reconstructions, it concluded that less confidence could be placed in reconstructions from before 1600. (http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251).
So I guess this all hinges on what you define as the core science of AGW. I would guess that Professor John Christy might take a different view from you as to what that is.
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@BishopHill
I'm not sure we are that close. The likes of Pielke and Lindzen are not 'eminent' scientists at the heart of the climate research, they are very much on the fringe. It's important that the science is constantly challenged, that's how science works, but these guys are not taken seriously enough to be of use (despite what sites like climateaudit may tell you).
And the BBC reporting reflects the current state of the science. I do agree that modelling to this level requires caveats and that's exactly what Richard has done, referring to Pallab Ghosh's piece that contains the quote "But others have warned that the uncertainties in the projections are too great to be of practical use".
I see no problem here.
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MrSkipp
"The only question of interest is "Is the model illuminating and useful?"
who can fail to disagree ? And how would you assess whether the model is useful, as opposed to whether the model is able to make predictions ?
Would hindcasting be your measure ?
per
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Richard Lindzen is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, but you say this doesn't count as eminent. C'mon man, get real! Now I grant you that he may not agree with the majority of his colleagues on certain issues but that doesn't stop him being eminent.
Pielke Snr is apparently an ISI highly cited researcher. Again, if he's so far out, how come he's so highly cited by other researchers in the field?
The problem from the BBC point of view is that sceptics are not allowed to put their case. If 25% of mainstream climatologists think the IPCC's conclusions are overdone, shouldn't we hear what they have to say too? The BBC can make programmes like "Climate Wars" - which was pure propaganda, as I've pointed out above - yet it is inconceivable that they would make a programme along similar lines from the point of view of the minority of scientists who disagree. It just doesn't fit the BBC narrative.
This is a pity, because there are some amazing stories to tell - the Hockey Stick, the Surface Record, the withholding of data and code and so on. But they just keep plugging away, telling us that we're going to fry, perhaps with the odd caveat tucked away near the end of the article, and expect us to believe that this is balanced.
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rossglory:
"The likes of Pielke and Lindzen are not 'eminent' scientists at the heart of the climate research, they are very much on the fringe.... but these guys are not taken seriously enough to be of use "
not only are these comments potentially defamatory, but just look at the publication records of the people who are disparaged:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/about_us/meet_us/roger_pielke/
http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/pielke/pubs/
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen.htm
It is amazing how quickly some people resort to ad hominem attack, rather than address the scientific issues.
"the uncertainties in the projections are too great to be of practical use"
err, that's scientific for 'it is complete tosh'. And still it manages to get massive favourable spreads in the BBC; even the US are going to have to follow the Met Office in this approach to modelling :-)
per
per
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I wonder why when eminent climatologists suddenly diverge from the concensus view and start espousing "denialism" it's always just after they've retired? :-)
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I found an earlier post by a troll quite amusing:
Tossing a coin 10,000 times means calculating the average is using a very large number of inputs: 10,000 of them to be precise. Yet the average will be about 50% heads, 50% tails. Give or take ~1%.
The whole point of the post is uncertainty yet someone states about 50% give or take about 1% without any mention of confidence levels.
Of course if the coin is weighted, well that's another story.
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All very good and interesting.
I don't care whether the 'models' are flawed.
Just do it and insulate.
You know it makes sense....unless you like high oil based energy bills.
Google "German Concerns Solar Sahara"
It's the way ahead what with peak oil, geo-politics and uncertainty.
The argument is now a side-issue. "How many angels on the head of a pin"
Nuclear is only a transitional phase. Fusion still a pipe dream.
If it gets too hot..air-conditioning on solar
My neighbours here in Central Germany (at 2000ft therefore cooler than the lowlands anyway) are putting up solar and insulating like there is no tomorrow and have cut their bills by 60%.
The capital costs are amortised over 15/20 years.
The average UK House is not amenable to that level of saving. (Roofs to small) but could benefit from a full insulation retrofit. The only problem for finance in the UK is the horrendous cost of UK Housing in which too much disposable is swallowed up in variable mortgage payments. Banks make huge profits which removes capital from acting efficiently in the national interest. The capital was (and is) going into overcapacity in commercial development (Dubai), shopping malls all over and thousands of golf courses and holiday developments to maximise short term returns. What a waste of resources.
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How can the Met office project future climate change from a computor when they can not hal;f of the time get the weather prediction right daily on of TV
http://www.coolerchoice.com
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Once again the 'environmentalists' are trying to create a climate of fear with a dodgy dossier.
About 10 years back they predicted desert conditions for UK summers. I remember the met office running a silly media stunt with a cactus garden at the RHS show to tell us all what to plant for the future. I'm still waiting for that to happen.
Fusion - great, lets get on with it. I would like to see an end to these silly conferences with 'binding targets' that everyone then ignores. Lets see some conferences where they pick viable non-fossil energy projects and invest like the manhattan project or the moon landings, bringing them to the consumer in 5-10 years. There are several that could be done quicker than fusion. That would genuinely cut fossil fuel dependence AND allow us to continue some sort of economy without going back to the dark ages.
Realistic approaches will be adopted by business and consumers without any need to manufacture fear.
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" Once again the 'environmentalists' are trying to create a climate of fear with a dodgy dossier.
About 10 years back they predicted desert conditions for UK summers. "
Is this any different than your lying? After all, you don't say WHEN this was forecast, nor even mention that they said "...the UK could see more dryer conditions...".
Then again, you like to throw around insults as long as it scares people off thinking for themselves about this.
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"How can the Met office project future climate change from a computor when they can not hal;f of the time get the weather prediction right daily on of TV"
Because weather is not climate?
I mean, that would be the first thought of anyone *intelligent*, wouldn't it.
Rather like sitting at the top of a rubbish heap with a rugby ball. The slope down is uneven and has large obstacles in the way.
So you let the ball roll.
Where will it go (climate)? Downhill.
What path will it take (weather)? Well to begin with, it will go roughly along there, but when it gets to that lump there, it could go either way, and after that...
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Rob: "The whole point of the post is uncertainty yet someone states about 50% give or take about 1% without any mention of confidence levels."
The IPCC reports are FULL of confidence levels and error bars, Rob.
Where do you get this idea that nobody mentions them?
Heck, the ENTIRE SUMMARY is all "highly likely that X will happen, very likely Y will happen, unlikely Z will happen, etc..".
Try reading the reports.
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re 79: because they don't have to put their stuff up for critical review and they need more money than the modest pension they get will gain them.
PS have a look at this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange
and ask yourself if they're still willing to pay people to prove AGW doesn't exist, rather than pay them to investigate it...
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"The likes of Pielke and Lindzen are not 'eminent' scientists at the heart of the climate research, they are very much on the fringe.... but these guys are not taken seriously enough to be of use "
Is a factually correct and non-defamatory statement.
They ARE on the fringe.
They are NOT taken seriously.
Their statements therefore are not useful to bring up.
PS it's rich to be talking about defamatory when you are saying that the thousands of scientists who worked on the IPCC WG reports and the papers the report was summing are all corrupt and lying and just want to keep a grant going.
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""the uncertainties in the projections are too great to be of practical use"
err, that's scientific for 'it is complete tosh'. And still it manages to get massive favourable spreads in the BBC"
this does presuppose without ANY corroborating evidence, that the uncertainties of the climate models like HadGEM are too great to be of practical use.
That the BBC still gives it time would seem to indicate that this is not correct and that there are no uncertainties making the model outputs impractical.
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"This is a pity, because there are some amazing stories to tell - the Hockey Stick, the Surface Record, the withholding of data "
My, yes, the Hockey Stick IS a good story to tell. Just don't stop at the half-way point like you want to do. Keep going. You'll find that many unrelated papers using different proxies ALSO find the Hockey Stick shape, that the changes that were considered necessary were made to the original dataset and that the Hockey Stick REMAINED.
Yet denialists like yourself don't go that far. It was once called into question and that's all you want to mention. Hoping like mad nobody will check up and find that the questions were included and the data reanalyzed and the Hockey Stick found still correct.
Surface data? I take it you're going on about how there are AC units (many pointing away, which would negate any warming effect on the station, which oddly enough wasn't "on message" for wattsupwithtat so wasn't mentioned). Well, there's no proof that the data used has been corrupted and isn't showing the genuine change. AND it's only 1.6% of the earth's surface you're looking at (and not all of that, either), so making naff all difference to the GLOBAL temperature trends.
SUrface data hiding? Please. You STILL haven't shown that the data is being hidden. Just that any surface data you're given "isn't the surface data you're looking for. Move along."
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
" * 73. At 10:19pm on 20 Jun 2009, peroxisome2009 wrote:
"How is this different from your engine model?"
I think the fact that you have to ask the question, tells us more than enough about your University education."
Nope, I think it's quite germane.
"The key unknowns (many of them non-linear) about how climate models work are not simply measurable in a laboratory; or the scientists would already have done it."
And the fluid flow of air through the engine is nonlinear and the chaotic non-lamellar flow through the engine components of both air, fuel, oil and combustion products cannot be simply measured in a laboratory either.
In fact, the constituents of combustion themselves are the result of imperfect chaotic processes and the precise nature of its constituents cannot be measured in a laboratory either.
I ask again:
How is this different from your model of an engine?
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""Really? How do you know? Where do you get your information from, or are you just saying this hoping nobody would ask you that?"
hmm, this is science 101; you must make predictions. Quoting three studies that make hindcasts kind of agrees with my comment that forecasts are the important quality for measuring the value of a model."
Those studies are using hindcasts and assessing whether the hindcasts work.
You haven't read them, have you.
They agree with your position that hindcasts are useful and even necessary, but they blow out your contention that such work isn't done.
Strange how you missed that, isn't it..?
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"Pielke Snr is apparently an ISI highly cited researcher. Again, if he's so far out, how come he's so highly cited by other researchers in the field?"
Uh, you can be cited but if that cite is in a paper that appears only on a blog, it doesn't count.
And many denialist papers are produced solely on a blog, so that they won't be assessed by scientists, merely have the headlines read by the denialist choir to be repeated ad nauseum.
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"Another question for you , why will no representative of the AGW theory debate in public with someone with opposing theories ?"
Funnily enough, a question asked of the denialosphere:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/global-cooling-wanna-bet
Why not, indeed!
"Please answer the question "Where is the peer reviewed evidence of a CO2 signature in temperature increase""
here
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
and here
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
and here
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.es.21.110190.001123
and many citations in the IPCC reports here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Or are you not going to look?
PS since you don't give your real name, we can't detail your monetary renumeration for astroturfing, but it's the only rational reason for your postings and it's either that or you're irrational.
Pick whichever one you like.
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"There is good peer reviewed science out there which shows people protecting their funding associated with the latest fad ."
I take it you have citations for this peer reviewed scientific statement?
No?
Ah, you're making it up.
Awww.
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"If you go to the NAS report on surface temperature reconstructions, it concluded that less confidence could be placed in reconstructions from before 1600. (http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251)."
And if you go there, you notice that the paper is 8 years old.
Do you think they haven't done anything on the subject in the intevening 8 years?
Ah, no, you don't, but you don't want to mention it just in case someone doesn't take your useless pontificating at face value, and look behind the corporate mask you wear...
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"Is it reasonable for the BBC to take a position in these circumstances? I would say not. Should the BBC give equal air time to sceptics."
It is, as long as these skeptics place their work under the same level of scrutiny as the working climate scientists.
Which would be excluding the papers they "produce" and only appear on a blog.
Taking all that away, and taking the talking points that were, once, maybe, relevant but have been talked and addressed (like, say, the perennial denialist favourite, the Hockey Stick, just skip the later history where it's proven robust...) leaves them with nothing to say.
It would be kind of embarrasing to have them appear on screen and have nothing to say, wouldn't it.
So the BBC are being overly biased in their favour, really, stopping them from making a fool of themselves to a public audience.
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Re 90: "My, yes, the Hockey Stick IS a good story to tell. Just don't stop at the half-way point like you want to do. Keep going. You'll find that many unrelated papers using different proxies ALSO find the Hockey Stick shape, that the changes that were considered necessary were made to the original dataset and that the Hockey Stick REMAINED."
Oh, really??? The Wegman Report to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations appears to have come to a very different conclusion...
"Findings:
... In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus independent studies may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface.".
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"I think I'm right in saying that nobody has ever produced a climate model that has demonstrated skill at regional levels..."
YOU ***THINK***???
Well, that and 45p will get you a mars bar.
I think you're wrong.
So does the BBC.
So does the National Academy of Science.
So does the UK Met Office.
And ECMWF.
Meteo France.
etc, etc, etc.
Now which is more likely: what one person THINKS is right, or what thousands of people have proven?
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Funny how posts saying someone is a corporate shill and denying AGW for money is marked as "sent to the moderators" but these same people didn't have a problem keeping "AGW scientists are just lying to get grants".
Mind you, hypocrisy would be expected from such people.
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It is also strange that, when answering someone plaintively bewailing "Why aren't the BBC showing the *other side*???" a riposte of "Where is the *other side* in the debate on child porn"? is marked by the people who didn't disagree with the first poster to be censored.
It seems for some things, even asking if there IS another side to the discussion is to be verboten.
Makes the denialists plaintive whines seem puny indeed!
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Pogo, I'll quote back:
More recently, the National Academy of Sciences considered the matter. On June 22, 2006, the Academy released a pre-publication version of its report Report-Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, supporting Mann's more general assertion regarding the last decades of the Twentieth Century, but showing less confidence in his assertions regarding individual decades or years, due to the greater uncertainty at that level of precision.
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes ...
Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. The substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large-scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that "the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium" because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods, and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales."
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And Wegman's report itself has errors:
* The report was not subject to formal peer review [44][45] At the hearing, Wegman lists 6 people that participated in his own informal peer review process via email after the report was finalized and said they had no objection to the subcommittee submitting it.
* Dr. Thomas Crowley, Professor of Earth Science System, Duke University, testified at the committee hearing, "The conclusions and recommendations of the Wegman Report have some serious flaws."
* The result of fixing the alleged errors in the overall reconstruction does not change the general shape of the reconstruction.
* Similarly, studies that use completely different methodologies also yield very similar reconstructions.
* The social network analysis is not based on meaningful criteria, does not prove a conflict of interest and did not apply at the time of the 1998 and 1999 publications. Such a network of co-authorship is not unusual in narrowly defined areas of science. During the hearing, Wegman defined the social network as peer reviewers that had "actively collaborated with him in writing research papers" and answered that none of his peer reviewers had.
* Gerald North, chairman of the National Research Council panel that studied the hockey-stick issue and produced the report Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, stated the politicians at the hearing at which the Wegman report was presented "were twisting the scientific information for their own propaganda purposes. The hearing was not an information gathering operation, but rather a spin machine." In testimony when asked if he disputed the methodology conclusions of Wegman's report, he stated that "No, we dont. We dont disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report. But again, just because the claims are made, doesnt mean they are false."
* Mann has himself said that the report "uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and a mineral-exploration consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton's 'panel'. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago."
Funny how you don't mention errors in a report when using that report to highlight errors in a report...
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To rossglory #62:
You wrote:
"In reporting environemnetal news, Richard is walking a pretty fine line and does it pretty well imo. The core science is sound and the main unknowns in these models are just how stupid humanity is. Sadly, I tend towards the worst case scenario in this respect :o("
------------
I think the knives are out in force because the significance of the Hadley Centre's climate projections, fully endorsed by the government, are clear to those who would retard substantive mitigation and governmental policy changes. With Russia on board, there is new hope.
I too see little point in debate any more. Virtually every week now there is new empirical evidence coming out, almost always indicating that the situation is worse than the concensus views.
I was just reading the latest issue of Scientific American 3.0 on the new measurements of methane coming out of lakes in the far north - Siberia and Alaska I believe, by a young woman with a newly minted Ph.D. who is making a big splash in the climate science community. I believe she was reporting something like a sixty-three percent increase in CH4 emissions over a several year time period (read it quickly while food shopping). I remember thinking that once again, the feedbacks are worse than the concensus, conservative model parameters.
I would normally give accurate sources etc..., but it is meaningless to the 'knives' in any case.
Just wanted to say "Hi", and best of luck in your work.
I had an inspirational conversation yesterday with a gentleman from Sri Lanka, and he got me thinking about writing again - this time a small free newspaper about mountaineering, climate science, and civilization, geared towards youth and families.
Maybe I would call it: CLOUDRUNNER, after my son.
It is surprising?/coincidental? how many are the ties between modern alpinism and climate science - from Horace Benedict de Saussure, father of alpinism (1760) and his hygrometer, and on.
It is also personally curious to me, and this is a recent insight, that a mountaineering excursion is in effect a return to the ice-age world, a world I now believe we left reluctantly to become farmers and city dwellers, i.e., civilized.
As we are now all civilized, and perched as it were on the brink of collapse if not extermination, it seems to me my personal longing for the days of the Mammoth Hunt may become more widespread.
Perhaps in the youth there is more potential for a future?
- Manysummits, on a rainy day in Calgary -
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Addendum to #105:
And "Happy Fathers' Day" to all the dads out there!
- Manysummits -
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BishopHill: I did not go to such a seminar.
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" 64. At 8:21pm on 20 Jun 2009, BishopHill wrote:
P.S. Please try to be civil."
Ah, where is your censure for other posts that state categorically that Climate scientists are all liars?
Why be civil when your side isn't?
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Cool. Someone has put Richard's comment to the moderators.
And all it said was he hadn't been to a conference.
Wonder how that fails the rules...
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@ Yeah_whatever
Yeah whatever? Keep up the verbal assault as it does your case no good.
The projections now make interesting reading. Let us assume some of the following scenarios:-
Q1 Hey Guv how much will my roof extension cost.
A1 Either £180 000 and £400 000
Q2 You have decided to offer me a job could you tell me my basic salary
A2 It will be either £28 000 or £43 000
Q3 What will the rise in temperature in the uk be in 60 years time
A3 Somewhere between 2C and 8C
Questions 1 and 2 would be treated with incredulity yet Question 3 is treated with almost religious zeal by our politicians. I think they have spent too much time browsing through their expenses.
I have been a great supporter of the BBC for many years but you have a complete and utter blind spot regarding this latest Pyramid scam?
Sorry, its a pyramid scam because every year all th outcomes go up.
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Richard Black at #107
It's a pain when you get moderated on your own comments thread isn't it!!
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wrapupwarm, what (if any) actual content is there in your post?
None.
Where is YOUR proof that 60 years will not have had an increase of 2C over the pre-industrial average for the UK?
Anything? Or is this just The Big Lie running around the world before the truth gets its' boots on?
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reQ1. If you have a two-up-two-down it will cost £100K. If you have an 8-bedroom mansion, £400K.
reQ2. If you're a plumber, your salary will be 18K. If you're applying to be the CEO of a moderate company in the UK with international contracts, it will be 48K.
Why does the range seem so untenable to you?
Because "Nobody says anything about the uncertainties" complaint isn't working so you're going to have to try the "Well if they don't know what it's going to be, that PROVES they don't know what's going on!" schtick?
Tell me, how does one win when you get to change the rules when you aren't winning?
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I must say that I'm enjoying this thread a great deal. Yeah_whatever's (ahem) excitable tone is probably doing more damage to the warmers' case than anything I could write. It's particularly amusing when he says those who disagree with him are accusing IPCC scientists of lying, when the only mentions of lying on the thread are his own ones.
To take up a couple of YW's points:
There are indeed lots of other reconstructions that come to broadly similar conclusions as the Hockey Stick. They also by and large use the same bristlecone proxies as the Hockey Stick (plus a handful of others like Polar Urals and Tornetrask which are laughable from a scientific perpective). The bristlecones are widely agreed to be flawed proxies - the NAS panel said they shouldn't be used in temperature reconstructions. Even one of the Hockey Stick authors, Malcolm Hughes, said that their twentieth century growth spurt was "a mystery". Even more surprisingly, one of Hughes students, Linah Ababneh, updated one of the most important bristlecone chronologies, Sheep Mountain, and couldn't reproduce the twentieth growth spurt that Graybill had found in the 1980s. I guess my question to you YW is: do you believe that bristlecones are valid proxies, and if so why are the NAS panel wrong?
You say that Pielke Snr's ISI citation rating should be ignored because "if that cite [sic] is in a paper that appears only on a blog, it doesn't count."
What are you talking about? ISI doesn't count blog citations.
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There's an amazing post at Climate Audit on the subject of CRU data at the moment. The trend for the Hawaii gridcell per CRU is 2 degrees per century higher than per one of the other major temperature indices, GHCN. And yet YW throws abuse at me for questioning the surface temperature records. It's hilarious.
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Funny how the flaming rhetoric against AGW doesn't have the same effect...
Maybe AGW people are more tolerant and open-minded...
Bish, on 116, the climate audit site is incorrect and making up their figures to show what they want to have shown. The rigorous analysis of their work will show that truth up as soon as any *skeptic* tries to apply skepticism to their "works".
Please, stop with the "I Is a Martyr" schtick. It doesn't gel with your aggressive stance.
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"They also by and large use the same bristlecone proxies as the Hockey Stick"
And so there are many cases where bristlecone proxies were not used, correct?
Yet how could they show the same picture if the ONLY reason (as your insinuation describes) for the hockey stick is because bristlecone proxies are wrong.
And I take it you've worked heavily in the utility of bristlecone pines and have papers peer reviewed in substantial accredited journals showing how they don't work?
Or are you parroting the same old carp?
I smell something fishy...
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"Even one of the Hockey Stick authors, Malcolm Hughes, said that their twentieth century growth spurt was "a mystery"."
Cite?
We've already seen how you misquote and even outright lie when saying what someone else said, if it helps your religious cause...
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You say that Pielke Snr's ISI citation rating should be ignored because "if that cite [sic] is in a paper that appears only on a blog, it doesn't count."
Link?
How can anyone answer your queries when nobody knows what the heck you're talking about?
Or is that your deal? Ask questions that take hours to answer because they have to work out what you're saing and THEN work out what the response is, whereas you just have to make some unsunstantiated claims with half-statements and unquestioning loyalty to The Cause of Denialism.
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Looking at the first few papers Pielke's produced, I can't see where you think he's got anything to say, Bish:
-1 Pielke, R.A. and H.A. Panofsky, 1970: Turbulence characteristics along several towers. Bound.-Layer Meteor., 1, 115-130.
R-2 Pielke, R.A., 1974: A three-dimensional numerical model of the sea breezes over south Florida. Mon. Wea. Rev., 102, 115-139.
R-3 Pielke, R.A., 1974: A comparison of three-dimensional and two-dimensional numerical predictions of sea breezes. J. Atmos. Sci., 31, 1577-1585.
R-4 Mahrer, Y. and R.A. Pielke, 1975: A numerical study of the air flow over mountains using the two-dimensional version of the University of Virginia Mesoscale Model. J. Atmos. Sci., 32, 2144-2155.
R-5 Pielke, R.A. and Y. Mahrer, 1975: Representation of the heated-planetary boundary layer in mesoscale models with coarse vertical resolution. J. Atmos. Sci., 32, 2288-2308.
R-6 Cotton, W.R., P.T. Gannon, and R.A. Pielke, 1976: Numerical experiments on the influence of the mesoscale circulations on the cumulus scale. J. Atmos. Sci., 33, 252-261.
All six are numerical models.
But don't you all say that numerical models aren't science???
Then again, I don't expect any sort of consistency in the Church of Denialism.
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@yeah_whatever
I know its been a lovely warm day maybe you need to lie down and cool down.
The error bands with the model projections are so large that their findings are meaningless, conveniently the projections are always so far into the future that no one will ever be accountable. There has not been one long distance computer model on global warming which has been shown to be true.
The hypothesis that man made co2emissions will cause dangerous global warming is not proven and is proven false when studying C02 emmission with temperature changes.
Anyway you seem to be the font of knowledge on global warming so please answer two simple questions, what caused the end of the last Ice Age and in modern geological times what percentage have been Ice Ages?
I won't hold my breath.
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To peroxisome2009 #75
Virtually everything in my message #71 was a quote from George Box - most of the quote marks disappeared in the moderation!
Firstly stochastic testing, then hindcasts. Haven't read the reports, but presume these have been done.
Then, it's really a matter of whether the decision maker thinks the results are worth gambling on. In my view it's too soon now. If I personally risked being affected I would consider the results very seriously, taking into account whatever testing had been done. If I lived near a river basin that looked at risk I would think of selling up some years down the road.
Modelling is science, but decision making is haphazard.
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YW
You are right that not all the reconstructions the IPCC refers to use bristlecones and this is why I said "by and large". The others all use Tornetrask and Yamal instead.
Why should I need to be an expert in bristlecones? I can read the NAS report just as well as you. You have been arguing fulsomely about climate models. Are you a climate modeller? What about surface stations? Do you compile surface temperature indices for a living?
You say Climate Audit is wrong about Honolulu? Could you pinpoint the probalem for me, or is this a statement of faith on your part? At the moment the best information we have is that there is a problem with this gridcell. I'm happy to change my opinion if you can provide me with evidence to support you alternative point of view.
The Hughes citation is Hughes MK, Funkhouser G, Frequency-Dependent Climate Signal in Upper and Lower Forest Border Tree Rings in the Mountains of the Great Basin. Climatic Change, 2003; 59: 233-244.
Re the ISI citation index, you said that Pielke wasn't eminent. I pointed to his ISI citation rating. You said "if that cite [sic] is in a paper that appears only on a blog, it doesn't count" (Your comment no 94). And I said ISI doesn't cite blogs. Therefore Pielke's is "eminent", based on his ISI rating. Not sure where the confusion is here.
I haven't discussed models.
Where have I told any lies? You do seem to like accusing people of lying. That's what? The third time now?
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yeah_whatever (101)
"AGW scientists are just lying to get grants"
That's a direct quotation is it? Funnily enough, a quick text search on this thread reveals that the only person who has used the word "lying" is you!
Fifteen consecutive posts (84-98) seems a bit incoherent, even for a troll...
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The important factor in all IPCC 'Hockey Stick' temperature reconstructions is that one data set matches the instrumental record over the chosen calibration period. These methods will give hockey sticks even with random data so long as one random data set matches the chosen instrumental series. Put enough random data sets in and you are guaranteed a hockey stick.
By calling the random data sets proxies and giving them exotic names you can create your own personal hockey stick to impress environmentalist friends.
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Look! we must all love yeah_whatever's comments because I, like a lot of other people have revisited this page and seen many of his/hers postings.Lets face it, it is a statistical certainty...
Do yourselves a favour and work out how much yeah_whatever has talked about the actual claimed nugget-etal points in this article. Notice that yeah_whatever has offered no real defence of anything by the original author. Or even offered any evidence that she/he has understood Richard Black at any level.
He/she has had many wonderful words of obfuscatory differences with other posters, but nothing substantially dealing with the points on this page why?
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Hey, given Bish doesn't like people being nasty and thinks that doing so will weaken their case, how does he feel after these events:
Personal attacks on Ben Santer in the 1990's (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Santer"
Barton being unpleasant (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/sci;309/5739/1301)
Attempts to get a reviewer who wasn't obsequious enough sacked (http://historyweb.ucsd.edu/oreskes/book%20reviews/Republican%20War%20On%20Science.pdf)
Anthony Watts (of whatsupwithtat fame) trying to get James Hansen fired from NASA.
And the time Steve McIntyre tried to get Lonnie Thompson (of ice core fame) disciplined by his university.
Will he consider that these events shatter his faith in the denialists' mantra?
I suspect not...
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re 126, you say that you will get a hockey stick from any dataset? You have proof? It should be easy to furnish since you say that this is proven. And you won't say that unless you've SEEN the proof, would you?
Come on, don't be shy!
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re 125, no it wasn't a direct quotation.
If you say "they are saying whatever needs to be said to keep the grants coming in" then this means "they are lying to get the grants", despite the former not having the word "lying" in it.
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"You are right that not all the reconstructions the IPCC refers to use bristlecones and this is why I said "by and large". The others all use Tornetrask and Yamal instead.
Why should I need to be an expert in bristlecones?"
Because you are saying that they are no good.
The NAS doesn't say so.
And they are still used by people who HAVE checked their utility as a temperature proxy.
Yet you maintain that you know better than they do.
So either you've published some papers on the utility of bristlecones as a temperature proxy or you're full of it.
The NAS doesn't say using bristlecones is wrong.
You maintain that using bristlecones means you can't get an answer and therefore wrong.
What do you know that they don't?
Nothing?
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"The error bands with the model projections are so large that their findings are meaningless, "
They are, wrapupwarm???
What did you do as a postdoc then to make you able to make this decision that has not been accepted by the scientific committee?
What statistical test did you make to make this judgement? Or was the judgement pulled from the alimentary tract?
I am all agog to hear of your findings. Unless the second option is the correct one, in which case I'd rather not see the state it is in...
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"Anyway you seem to be the font of knowledge on global warming"
Strange, you seem to have set yourself up as a font of all knowledge (even knowledge the science people don't know about..!)
"so please answer two simple questions, what caused the end of the last Ice Age and in modern geological times what percentage have been Ice Ages?"
1) Orbital changes. See "Milankovich cycles. And the feedbacks therefrom, including release of stored CO2 in the oceans by virtue of the sea losing its ability to hold CO2 as it warms.
2) Uh, what period do you consider modern geological times? After all, I could use the past 1000 years and say "0%".
I hope you're better at answering questions than you are asking them. I hold little hope, since often the asking of silly questions is much easier than answering them.
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And for those who want to cite Peilke, Junior agrees with the IPCC conclusion:
"The IPCC has concluded that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity are an important driver of changes in climate. And on this basis alone I am personally convinced that it makes sense to take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions."
And Senior says:
"the evidence of a human fingerprint on the global and regional climate is incontrovertible as clearly illustrated in the National Research Council report and in our research papers"
So Bish, do you want to kill off his pedestal since he agrees with the IPCC as does his Son?
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further re 125: See post 67 by tough.
Doesn't have the word "lying" in there, does it. But how else would you interpret it?
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And here's a link of the most influential scientists by citation of their peer reviewed papers for climate research:
http://esi-topics.com/gwarm/authors/b1a.html
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@Yeah_ Whatever
2) Uh, what period do you consider modern geological times? After all, I could use the past 1000 years and say "0%".
Part of post
I am not going to respond in detail to the first part of your post other than to say that Milankovich was a civil engineer and mathematician. He would know what he is talking about not like the so called climate scientists.
The second part as above is priceless. The earth is approx 4.5 billion years old and you posit that maybe a 1000 years is modern geological times?
I think you are trolling?
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YW wrote:
re 126, you say that you will get a hockey stick from any dataset? You have proof? It should be easy to furnish since you say that this is proven. And you won't say that unless you've SEEN the proof, would you?
I did not say you will get a hockey stick from any dataset I said the important factor in all IPCC 'Hockey Stick' temperature reconstructions is that one data set matches the instrumental record over the chosen calibration period
Rather than 'one' I should have said 'at least one' but this is why data sets known to have problems as temperature proxies, such as bristlecones, have been given such prominence. Of all the thousands of data sets put into these reconstructions only a few make it through to the last round and it is a choice from the same few every time, hardly global.
As for do I have proof. Not only have I seen proofs but I have confirmed this for myself by producing my own hockey sticks from random data.
To prove this for yourself simply ask a hockey stick manufacturer for their data and methodology then replace their proxy data with random data, follow their methodology and you too can have your own hockey stick.
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yeah_whatever wrote:
"Why should I need to be an expert in bristlecones?"
Because you are saying that they are no good.
The NAS doesn't say so."
The NAS report, page 52.
"While strip-bark samples should be avoided for temperature reconstructions, attention should also be paid to the confounding effects of anthropogenic nitrogen deposition ..."
the bristlecones are the strip-bark samples.
"(http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251)."
And if you go there, you notice that the paper is 8 years old."
err, the NAS report was published in 2006, or three years ago.
It is also difficult to argue with someone who quotes this:
"And Wegman's report itself has errors:"
and then this !
"In testimony when asked if he [North] disputed the methodology conclusions of Wegman's report, he stated that "No, we dont. We dont disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report."
so this quote from Gerald North actually backs up the Wegman report as being correct !
Finally, from yeah_whatever:
"And the fluid flow of air through the engine is nonlinear and the chaotic non-lamellar flow through the engine components of both air, fuel, oil and combustion products cannot be simply measured in a laboratory either. In fact, the constituents of combustion themselves are the result of imperfect chaotic processes and the precise nature of its constituents cannot be measured in a laboratory either. I ask again:
How is this different from your model of an engine?"
that is simply so stupid, and at such an elementary level, that I find it very difficult to believe that you have university level training in fluid dynamics.
per
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I guess free speech includes freedom to be an incoherent troll...
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YW
I have defended Pielke from several attacks on his record including one from you where you said he was "fringe" and "not taken seriously". Yet now you have discovered his views are much closer to your than you previously thought, you seem to want rehabilitate him.
Pielke's views are nuanced and are a valuable antidote to the scaremongering that comes out of so many of the warmist camp. His views need more airing, alongside those of people like Lindzen and the rest of the 25% of climatologists who think the global warming scare is overdone.
Thanks for the list of top global warming authors. I note Ulrich Cubasch's name near the top - like McIntyre, he was also unable to reproduce the Hockey Stick, which he described as a "can of worms".
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Yup, you said Pilke.
You didn't say senior or junior.
But yes, they aren't taken seriously since they've both descended into curmugeon. Junior doesn't even do science, he's doing political.
It's not uncommon for a well respected scientist to go weird in age. Fred Hoyle still thinks that the steady state theory is the right answer to how the universe works.
NOTE: neither name came out on the top 25 list I linked to)
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"that is simply so stupid, and at such an elementary level, that I find it very difficult to believe that you have university level training in fluid dynamics."
That is so stupid a statement I don't think you actually managed to get into university at all.
Just yelling out "that's stupid" doesn't make it stupid. You have to explain.
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"I note Ulrich Cubasch's name near the top - like McIntyre, he was also unable to reproduce the Hockey Stick, which he described as a "can of worms"."
And 24 out of the 25 think otherwise.
So, unless you've checked yourself, why are you believing one rather than 24?
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"is also difficult to argue with someone who quotes this:
"And Wegman's report itself has errors:"
and then this !..."
Yup, it's difficult for you because you maintain that the AGW is a great big conspiracy and all the data is being monitored to make sure the "lie of AGW" is kept alive.
Yet strangely, when you get to official quotes, the pro AGW side all come along and include what they don't know, don't like or might have wrong about the situation.
Yet when denialists like yourself make a quote, you don't mention the errors or uncertainties about it.
When you read an IPCC paper you read about the errors and where things could be wrong.
When you read a denialist paper, you read only how it is right and the IPCC wrong.
Strange, isn't it, how the denialists
a) Say that IPCC consider only one thing
Yet maintain that it's got one cause (the sun!, the siting of weather stations!)
b) Say that the IPCC never say what the error bars are
Yet never have error bars in their own report
c) Say that they don't consider anything where they may be wrong
Yet don't consider where they may be
d) Say that there's a lot of personal attacks
Yet are the ones howling for AGW proponents to be sacked
And when their blog posters quote, they quote mine.
Yet I don't.
The quotes I put down show the admission of where the uncertainty lies while their quotes in support of the denial of AGW show no admission whatsoever that they are uncertain about anything.
It's called "projection" when you accuse the IPCC of things that you yourself do.
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This
"While strip-bark samples should be avoided for temperature reconstructions, "
doesn't say you must, nor does it say that it makes the temperature reconstruction wrong.
Read the entire document.
You quote mining again?
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"As for do I have proof. Not only have I seen proofs but I have confirmed this for myself by producing my own hockey sticks from random data."
OK, since you also ask:
"To prove this for yourself simply ask a hockey stick manufacturer for their data and methodology"
I ask you for your data and methodology.
You say you've created one, so let's see it.
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"The second part as above is priceless. The earth is approx 4.5 billion years old and you posit that maybe a 1000 years is modern geological times?"
Uh, you said modern.
1000 years goes back quite a long way before modern times (which would be around the beginning of the Renaissance period).
You didn't say what you considered modern geological record.
I gave you exactly enough information to see why I said 100%.
So rather than guffawing, would you like to say what you consider modern geological period to be?
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Bish, your second quote comes from his blog, does it not?
What did we agree about blogs?
They don't count.
And that sort of thing needs to be in a paper, where scientists can see what he did to come to that conclusion and check to see if he's right, not on a blog, where he doesn't have to do anything rigorous other than type with a spellchecker.
And that sort of thing, saying one thing in their reviewed papers and another thing on a blog is one reason why Pielke Sr isn't well regarded in climate circles. He's avoiding having his work checked by those skeptical of his position.
Kind of closed-minded of him, really.
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YW
"Just yelling out "that's stupid" doesn't make it stupid. You have to explain."
Calling Pot! Kettle on line 2...
Plus eight more consecutive posts! Have you ever thought of composing off-line, or do you get paid by the comment? :-)
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"Plus eight more consecutive posts! Have you ever thought of composing off-line, or do you get paid by the comment? :-)"
Nope. To both.
I answer one point per post. Sometimes I notice I've left a part out that ought to have gone in earlier, but then again, there's no "Edit my post" option.
And I explained why. It's even your quote.
How dumb is that????
:-P
(PS I take it using a smiley is how you stop a comment from being abusive, yes? :-D )
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According to "yeah_whatever" - "It's not uncommon for a well respected scientist to go weird in age. Fred Hoyle still thinks that the steady state theory is the right answer to how the universe works."
That would be a tad tricky... Sir Fred Hoyle died on August 20th, 2001.
Is all your "research" of the same standard?
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Two quotes why blog debates are worthless for deciding scientific proofs (both from the BBC on Hate 2.1):
"These sites aren't about the discussion of ideas; they are about getting people to subscribe to the ideal of hate."
But speaking to the BBC, Douglas Murray, director of think tank The Centre for Social Cohesion, said that society should be able to accept any point of view, even if that view was proven to be false.
"You have to allow different opinions, even lies, as long as they don't incite violence." he said.
So look to the peer reviewed papers.
If you believe there is a conspiracy to remove papers, there should be proof of this misconduct. A reporter asked for proofs and mailed several scientists who said they had heard of scientists being silenced. He got nothing, just second-hand reports that "they knew someone who had", but nothing concrete.
But if you can find some proofs, use it. Don't go on blogs: after all, we don't report child porn on blogs, do we? We don't run twitter and say "someone is burgling my house!!!". Facebook doesn't turn up as the first option when we are involved in a car accident.
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"That would be a tad tricky... Sir Fred Hoyle died on August 20th, 2001."
Aye, and his theory is still being used.
I was looking for citations of people quoting his work, not his life history. Very few blogs say "Although he's dead...". They use his arguments like he's still here and so I use the same phraseology.
So it depends on what I'm meant to be researching, doesn't it.
Relevancies or irrelevancies.
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YW
I said Pielke Snr in my first comment. Jnr is nothing to do with this. If you want to continue to claim that he is not eminent, well, I think that says more about you than it does about him.
You're quite big on citations. Can you provide me with some evidence that Pielke Snr says something different on his blog to what he says in his published work?
I'm not quite sure which quote you are referring to when you mention my "second quote". Do you mean Cubasch? He doesn't blog to the best of my knowledge. The quote was from a magazine interview. This is a perfectly reasonable source for demonstrating that the idea that Mann's Hockey Stick is broken is a view that is shared by some mainstream climatologists. (No, it doesn't prove that it is broken, just that this view is not restricted to a fringe).
You seem to want also to argue that when the NAS panel said that bristlecones "should be avoided for temperature reconstructions" that they meant something other than "don't use them". If you want to argue that black is white, go right ahead, but I think it's fair to say that you are going to convince nobody except yourself.
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Pogo50:- "That would be a tad tricky... Sir Fred Hoyle died on August 20th, 2001."
"yeah_whatever" said...
>Aye, and his theory is still being used.
But that's not what you claimed, which was "Fred Hoyle still thinks that...".
>I was looking for citations of people quoting his work, not his
>life history.
So, you've changed your position, not terribly consistent in debate are you?
>Very few blogs say "Although he's dead...". They use his arguments
>like he's still here and so I use the same phraseology.
But upthread you've stated, quite unequivocally, that "blog debates are worthless for deciding scientific proofs", shouldn't you have been looking at peer-reviewed papers?
Not, of course that "peer review" is quite the "Gold Standard" that many assume it to be. I remember my old Prof. at a reunion dinner grumbling that "nowadays, peer-review seems hardly any better than GCSE pupils marking their friends' exam papers".
>So it depends on what I'm meant to be researching, doesn't it.
Not blogs, presumably...
>Relevancies or irrelevancies.
Inconsistencies mayhap?
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YH
":-P
..I take it using a smiley is how you stop a comment from being abusive, yes?"
Not really. Especially if the smiley is sticking its tongue out.
"Fred Hoyle still thinks" I'm sure that whatever else he's doing, it's not that.
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First the blog's author has his own comment (107) spiked, and now 157 has disappeared altogether. Curiouser and curiouser...
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""Fred Hoyle still thinks" I'm sure that whatever else he's doing, it's not that."
did he change his mind?
And why is ;-) making an insult OK, but :-P not?
Where are these rules on how a smiley changes insults written?
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"Inconsistencies mayhap?"
Funny. Where were you when Bish said he thought nobody did hindcasting?
Where are you when Plimer says that underwater volcanoes were causing the warming yet there wasn't enough volcanic activity?
Where were you when people said all the inconsistent things they put on these blogs?
Silent because they said that AGW wasn't real?
Isn't that inconsistent with your statement of skepticism?
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"You're quite big on citations. Can you provide me with some evidence that Pielke Snr says something different on his blog to what he says in his published work?"
I did.
And you read it.
He said it's proven that AGW is happening from his published papers.
It's on his blogs that he says that "things are a lot more complicated". Such things should have been in his papers, not on his blog. On his blog, he doesn't have to submit his work to the scrutiny of his peers. On his research papers, he does.
Why would he pick one over the other if he has nothing to hide?
PS have a look at Sir Isaac Newton: as a young man made many insights into science. As an older man, tried to convert lead into gold.
Just because you do good in the past doesn't mean you can't lose your way.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
See also page 116 of the report (at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676).
The other big elephant in the room is that that wasn't global temperatures, so doesn't really change a thing with the ***global*** picture, since things like the MWP and LIA were very regional (as opposed to global) phenomena, expanded beyond their true effect by reporting bias (the Aboriginies were not too fussed with Stephenson Screens and met recording, for example).
And the NAS saying that the records are scientifically sound doesn't seem to support the use of brsitlecones makes the dataset wrong, unlike Bish's parroted phrase.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Post 163 contained too much text for the solicitors at the BBC to countenance.
Despite being the summary.
The short of it is, go read the summary of the report at http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=1
And read up. It's only four pages for the summary.
Short of it is:
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes the additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and documentation of the spatial coherence of recent warming described above"
Which puts the lie to Bish's attempt to make Mann's work invalid by insinuating that his conclusions were made wrong by using bristlecone proxies.
Mann's report is supported.
And the change to analysis makes no significant difference to the conclusion as shown by the 2006 paper from Wahl and Ammann I've given a link to previously.
Again, the denialists complain that uncertainties in AGW is hidden and there's proof the uncertainties are NOT hidden, and worse yet, their counters to AGW contain nothing about uncertainties in their professed statements of proof of error in AGW.
Projection.
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Well, seems you can't even put out a link if it's to a PDF.
So for the amman paper in 2006, you'll have to look it up.
Reference:
Wahl, Eugene R.; Ritson, David M.; Ammann, Caspar M. (2006), "Comment on "Reconstructing Past Climate from Noisy Data"
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Another link for Bish.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/refs
Read it.
There you go, Richard. No link to a PDF.
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Re-Posting:
"yet it is inconceivable that they would make a programme along similar lines from the point of view of the minority of scientists who disagree"
Maybe because they aren't scientific in their disagreement?
I mean that would preculde ANY scientific programme about them, wouldn't it.
(whoever the sissy is who doesn't like analogues can consider whatever they like to be an analogue. E.g. Flat-earthers aren't given time or the positive effects of murder in today's society remains unsaid)
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YW
"And why is ;-) making an insult OK, but :-P not?"
Are you really asking why sticking your tongue out at someone is different from winking at them?
I didn't say that smileys negate insults - an insult is an insult, but a smiley can indicate which way a remark is intended, if it's open to interpretation.
I was about to say that I'm surprised you don't know this, but on reflection, I'm not.
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"Are you really asking why sticking your tongue out at someone is different from winking at them?"
No, I'm asking what the rules are on this being rude being negated by smilies was.
Don't you know? Or just you make up whatever fits your needs as the occasion demands?
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And old movies are full of "cheeky kids" (note: not nasty kids, nasty kids throw things) sticking their tongues out at people, giggling and running away.
The little scamps!
Give there's no "giggle" smiley, you must be quite oversensitive to see it ONLY as rude.
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YW
"I'm asking what the rules are on this being rude being negated by smilies was"
I didn't say that, and I've already said that I didn't say it!
I didn't say that sticking your tongue out was rude, either, but even you must know it doesn't mean quite the same thing as ;-)
Perhaps you're just a bit rusty with them.
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re 174, I asked in 160 if you could tell me where the rules were.
You never said you didn't know. Just changed what you wanted to be the question:
"I didn't say that smileys negate insults - an insult is an insult, but a smiley can indicate which way a remark is intended, if it's open to interpretation."
So where is this indication? Where's it written down.
Or are you insane ;-)
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"Are you really asking why sticking your tongue out at someone is different from winking at them?"
And if there's nothing bad about sticking the tongue out (and from your use, nothing wrong with a winking smiley), what difference can there be? It would be like saying "you don't understand what the difference is between waving hello and saying hello??". Well, they both mean "hello", don't they?
Can you not make your mind up what your problem is ;-)
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fjpicket (more further to post 125)
"pass a law based upon the venal outpourings of climate "scientists" who's whole raison d'etre and continuing source of lavish funding depends on "proving" anthropogenic "global warming"
A quote from pogo50 on a climate thread.
Bish, (as per his disdain for vitriolic rhetoric), does this shiver your timbers over the plant of denialism of AGW?
If not, why not?
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It is little wonder that the likes of YW remain so thoroughly, or is that wilfully, ignorant of fundamental problems with temperature reconstructions when they deliberately avoid simple tasks that might lead them to question their beliefs.
Regarding a request for proof of the ability of prominent temperature reconstructions to produce hockey sticks from random data I remarked:
To prove this for yourself simply ask a hockey stick manufacturer for their data and methodology then replace their proxy data with random data, follow their methodology and you too can have your own hockey stick.
Since YW claims that all data and methodologies are freely available this should be a trivial task which could prove educational.
Instead YW writes:
I ask you for your data and methodology.
Firstly, if YW can't look at data and methodology already claimed to be freely available then there is little point in providing more and secondly it is not my methodology that creates hockey sticks from random data and in asking for my data YW even shows an inability to grasp the meaning of the word random.
Then again perhaps YW has found that some of this information is less readily available than first thought, after all we are still waiting for a link to the readily available raw CRU data!
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" 178. At 7:03pm on 22 Jun 2009, RobWansbeck wrote:
It is little wonder that the likes of YW remain so thoroughly, or is that wilfully, ignorant of fundamental problems with temperature reconstructions when ...
... we don't have any proof of it.
Oh, sorry, did I interrupt you there?
"still waiting for a link to the readily available raw CRU data!"
Ah, so you're not looking for raw data, you're looking for data you have checked (I haven't, one data set is as good as another, as long as it is genuine) isn't available and have decided that no other data will do.
Why MUST it be CRU data?
GISS have all the data you could want.
There are plenty of other places for it, most of them in the US (where the information is public domain in the US). Why is the US available data no good?
Why do you wave your arms and say "This is not the data we are looking for. Move along"?
It doesn't work except on the weak-minded.
And this:
"Instead YW writes:
I ask you for your data and methodology.
Firstly, if YW can't look at data and methodology already claimed to be freely available then there is little point in providing"
Uh, you said that you'd done this. You *say* you have created such a dataset and have a methodology.
Why do you not tell us? Why are you hiding your raw data and your methodology?
You say you have it. You say you've done it. So where is it?
How can you complain about data being unavailable when you don't make yours available either? Lead by example. Show us and stop waving your hands.
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YW
Your post at #166 brings us right back to where we started. The NAS panel has said that bristlecones should not be used in temperature reconstructions but that there are other studies that give the same result as Mann. We know the other studies use bristlecones too, but Gerry North made clear that the panel didn't look at the proxies used in the other reconstructions (although they were apparently aware of some commonality). (That's four times you've accused me of lying now).
Can you clarify for me what the point you're trying to make with your citations at #167 and #168. I think the explanation must have been in your moderated comment #163. Are we talking bristlecones here? Or something else?
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My post in 166 shows that there is no problem with a dataset of past temperature reconstructions even when it includes bristlecones.
I thought you said *some other studies used bristle cones*, or are you lying by omission and trying to leave an incorrect implication by it?
The answer to your ending point is in the summary. Go there.
See what the summary says.
It says what I posted in 166: Mann's conclusions are valid.
Brsitlecones being used didn't change it.
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YW
OK, so something in the papers you link to proves your point, but you can't say what. Fine.
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I can't reproduce.
There's the link right there. Here it is again: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=1
Does your browser not work?
What you do is you hover your mouse over the bit that starts with "http" and click on it with the left hand side button on the mouse.
It's in there.
And did it not render the post at all, since there was a short version there too:
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes the additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and documentation of the spatial coherence of recent warming described above"
Which is the NSA report's conclusion. The conclusion that says that no matter what bristlecone data was used, Mann's basic conclusion was right.
Another link for you (if you have problems, read the instructions above):
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/06/national-academies-synthesis-report/
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If you want something with movies, google for "crock of the week" and look for the medieval warming period track on Youtube.
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yeah_whatever #183.
"I can't reproduce."
evidently..
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""I can't reproduce."
evidently.."
Yes, the evidence is that
"# 163. At 2:44pm on 22 Jun 2009, yeah_whatever
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules."
Which was a cut and paste of a large section of the summary section of the NAS report on the Mann et al paper.
So if you go to the link (is yours broken too?) you'll read it.
Go and read it.
In case you missed it: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=1
See it?
It's called a "hyperlink".
It's quite popular on the internet. But you DO have to click on it...
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Because jr has problem with his thinking head:
re·pro·duce (rpr-ds, -dys)
v. re·pro·duced, re·pro·duc·ing, re·pro·duc·es
v.tr.
1. To produce a counterpart, image, or copy of.
See now:
copyright
/kpirat/
noun
1.the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc
Hopefully that didn't tax your fragile little mind, all that learnin'
;-)
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What I see in the NAS report: "The possibility that increasing tree ring widths in modern times might be driven by increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, rather than increasing temperatures, was first proposed by LaMarche et al. (1984) for bristlecone pines (Pinus longaeva) in the White Mountains of California."
So this is about modern times, not ancient.
Well in modern times, we have
1) Instrument readings
2) Glacier lengths
3) Ice borehole data
4) Other trees
Which see a large increase of temperature in that period themselves (see page 2, graph S-1).
This doesn't seem to help Bish's point, really.
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davblo2 #190.
nice one. ;)
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Once again YW asks for my data which I have stated is random. Hmm!
Once again YW asks for my methodology for creating hockey sticks when I have stated that it is not my methodology but the methodologies of prominent hockey stick manufacturers that create hockey sticks.
You want a methodology? Mann has been mentioned many times, try his.
You want data? Just make it up by replacing the proxy data with red noise.
Watch and learn.
You can also run with the original data and then try experimenting e.g. miss some series out.
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dav blo and junior, enough now. Richard has enough on his plate without us playing silly buggers.
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rob,
"Once again YW asks for my methodology for creating hockey sticks when I have stated that it is not my methodology but the methodologies of prominent hockey stick manufacturers that create hockey sticks."
So you're saying you lied in 139 when you said
"As for do I have proof. Not only have I seen proofs but I have confirmed this for myself by producing my own hockey sticks from random data"
???
Or are you saying you used someone else's methodology? In which case, give it.
Why are you hiding your data and your methods?
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Also, rob, doesn't this:
"it is not my methodology but the methodologies of prominent hockey stick manufacturers that create hockey sticks."
Put a lie to this:
"To prove this for yourself simply ask a hockey stick manufacturer for their data and methodology ...
Since YW claims that all data and methodologies are freely available this should be a trivial task which could prove educational."
Since it is actually YOU who claim this methodologies freely available.
And refutes Bish:
"If the CRU are so happy with their data handling then why cant we be told the methodology?"
And wrapup's statement:
"Hadcrut do not wish to release the raw data and handling methods "
?
I mean, the methods of analysis is available. You have some. You said so.
You haven't been telling us porkies, have you..?
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I just ran gnuplot on a series of random values between 0 and 1.
No hockey stick resulted.
So what do I do with my random data, Rob???
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Red noise is a random walk. You add a random number to the the previous value and so on.
You make a number of these series and then you use them to replace the proxy data in a temperature reconstruction.
If you produce several of these random walks you will see that some of them have a similarity to the instrumental record. Some reconstructions give these series a high weighting overiding most of the other series hence the concerns over a few proxies dictating the result.
I'm really glad to see you have gave it a start.
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BTW Mann's original recontruction was reverse engineered by two guys whose names can't be mentioned ;)
A brilliant bit of mathematics.
Mann later released the code following a congressional hearing but has 'moved on' since then.
It's a warm night here; I'm away down the pub now.
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Uh, isn't that, like, maths?
Add positive numbers together and you get a bigger positive number.
Unfortunately, you get a number that is linearly increasing, not exponentially, so you get a very bad fit indeed.
That's what I get. To two decimal places, with a random number between 0 and 1 and and 100 values, I get a least-squares fit of
y=(0.50 +/- 0.06)x
Which isn't the same as the fit of temperature over time.
What did you get for your best fit line?
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PS I don't get any dips either when I use random numbers. At no point does the graph go *down*.
This is VERY different from the hockey stick.
Not even if I run it several times and pick out the one that looks closest.
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" * 206. At 10:29pm on 22 Jun 2009, RobWansbeck wrote:
BTW Mann's original recontruction was reverse engineered by two guys whose names can't be mentioned ;)"
What? Donald and Mickey?
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further to 209, did they do it by asking Goofy to give them a random number until they got the same value as they got in the graph (and thereby prove that it was all random data)?
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YW...
Kudos for going to the effort of generating random numbers and plotting same. However, you seem to have missed out one vital step in the process... In order to get them to produce "hockey sticks" you have to use them as input to the MBH98 model.
I see also that you've dug an old comment of mine out of a "Have Your Say" thread. I don't know whether to be honoured or concerned that I appear to have acquired a stalker.
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YW
"Just changed what you wanted to be the question"
As I said before, pots and kettles.
Your sarcasm (not to mention your pseudonym) undermines any authority your posts might have. Sorry.
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Just back from the pub after a swift half. (imperial gallon that is)
YW, apologies, I should have made it clear that the random number should be centred around zero. If your random number goes from 0 to 1 you can subtract 0.5 to give a number between -0.5 and +0.5. Some functions allow you to do this within the function.
As pogo50 points out you would need to enter these into a climate reconstruction to get a 'full blown' hockey stick but to get a feel try 100 points and compare them to 100 years of instrumental data. Recalculate a few times and see how the shapes vary. Some will look nothing like the instrumental record but the occasional one will; these are the ones that temperature reconstructions weight highly. With some reconstructions even the sign doesn't matter, if the proxy has the right shape but is falling rather than rising it will be automatically inverted.
To take this one step further try 1000 points to represent the years from say AD1000 to AD1999.
Compare steps 851 to 951 with the record for 1850 to 1950 (it's late, I might be one out there but I'm sure you'll get the idea).
Every now and then you will get a good match to the instrumental data but if you look at the rest of the data it will be very different.
In effect some temperature reconstructions use these data sets to give a good match to the instrumental record but the other different parts, before the instrumental record, 'average' out to zero giving the flat shaft of the hockey stick. I say 'average' because climate scientists are prone to use 'novel' (their word) statistical analyses for their reconstructions.
It is strange that no one is allowed to question climate science unless they are professional climate scientists, i.e. paid for it, but climate scientists can indulge themselves in novel statistical methods even though they are not professional statisticians.
This is how mistakes are made.
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"As pogo50 points out you would need to enter these into a climate reconstruction to get a 'full blown' hockey stick but to get a feel try 100 points and compare them to 100 years of instrumental data. Recalculate a few times and see how the shapes vary."
But if you're selecting the data it cannot be random, can it.
", but climate scientists can indulge themselves in novel statistical methods even though they are not professional statisticians."
Uh, this is weird. You say it can be created by random data but that you have to keep running until you get something like the graph you want to fit. What happens when the next 5 random numbers (since time goes on) don't match the next 5 numbers you get? Do you throw the last set of random numbers away and start again, or do you just keep rolling the 5 numbers again until you get the graph you want to "prove" is just random data?
Isn't this just self selection of data, the thing that you accuse the climate models of being (tuned until they fit the data)? Is it OK when YOU do it?
And how do you manage to get this random proxy data to just "happen" to get matched with the satellite data and the other instrumental readings? Keep rerolling your numbers until they match?
This isn't random, is it.
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"Kudos for going to the effort of generating random numbers and plotting same. However, you seem to have missed out one vital step in the process... In order to get them to produce "hockey sticks" you have to use them as input to the MBH98 model."
So you did this.
So you must have the MBH98 model.
Can you share it with us? Or are you
a) lying
b) afraid to share your work
?
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"To take this one step further try 1000 points to represent the years from say AD1000 to AD1999.
Compare steps 851 to 951 with the record for 1850 to 1950 (it's late, I might be one out there but I'm sure you'll get the idea)."
OK, I did this with my random number list. Doesn't take long to generate 1000 random numbers.
And the difference is -0.430 between 851 and 951.
This doesn't compare to the difference between 18050 and 1950. That looks to be on Mann's graph +0.2.
I still don't get a hockey stick, all I get with just the random numbers here is a fairly straight line (-0.01 +/- .04).
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Hey, Bish, you've gone quiet.
So do you have anything on bristlecones and how they are bad even though the NAS report you quoted say that they are possibly (note the possibly) affected by CO2 increases recently and yet say that the errors in the graph are low in the last 400 years on that graph and statements over that time (which includes the period when bristlecone pines may have some issues with CO2) are solid science?
Did you read the 2006 paper that worked on the effect CO2 could have on those measurements, made the reductions possible to apply to that data and then found that the graph had no significant change?
Did you?
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Just wanted to thank and congratulate Yeah_wattever for finding the time and having the energy to refute some of the nonsense that the climate change naysayers come up with (copy + paste). Im really glad that someone has the time to do it.
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tom, the problem is it's hard to use logic against someone to whom logic is all a situational thing.
First it wasn't warming.
Then it was warming, but it wasn't us.
Then it was warming, it was us, but it wasn't much.
Then it was warming, it was us, but it was going to be good.
Then it was warming, it was us and it was inevitable.
Then it was warming, but it's cooling now.
Then it was it wasn't warming because the sites are poorly placed (OK, you have to forget that this measurement was also showing cooler earlier...)
Then it is all just a random number (and you have to forget all the previous stuff about what was or wasn't happening, because there's no "happening" in a random number).
I wonder what it will be next.
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"Your sarcasm (not to mention your pseudonym) undermines any authority your posts might have."
And your chopping and changing of what your argument is whenever there is an attempt to pin you down undermines any rigour you attempt to garner.
Your parroting of unquestioned rhetoric and adamant refusal to look at what you say (heck, even to SAY what you say!) is either indicative of monetary renumeration to fake a grassroots campaign (funny how your posting history is so short...) or that you have some problem with your faith in market non-interference being questioned. Under the current climate, this doesn't seem likely, but WOULD explain why you are so aggressive in your defence and so dismissive of anything that isn't "on message" for you.
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"I wonder what it will be next."
Coffee beans grown on the slopes of Ben Nevis in the Medieval Warm Period (which they know about from the temperature record reconstructions that they also allege are unreliable).
BTW, have you visited the DenialDepot website for light relief? You will get it, but the naysayers will probably mistake it for a useful resource (copy+paste). ;-)
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"Coffee beans grown on the slopes of Ben Nevis"
Now where will the people who used to live where coffee was grown going to live?
And compare Ben Nevis to Columbia.
And compare the soil quality on a MOUNTAIN TOP to the coffee plantations in Brazil.
Is that really the best you can do?
PS The MWP is a small scale phenomenon and the temperature now is higher than then anyway. And do you want to go back to living in wattle-and-daub huts? Sheesh, you complained enough about cutbacks of carbon use, how much will you complain when we don't even have flushable toilets!!!
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Sorry tom, the freakish system for this site is bumming me out.
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YW (225)
"Is that really the best you can do?"
I think Tom's on your side!
FYI, the best coffee *is* mountain grown - e.g. Jamaican Blue Mountain. Something to do with good drainage...
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"FYI, the best coffee *is* mountain grown - e.g. Jamaican Blue Mountain. Something to do with good drainage..."
Ah, how good is the drainage on Ben Nevis?
PS look at a contour map. There's quite a lot of difference there.
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"185. At 8:27pm on 22 Jun 2009, jr4412 wrote:
yeah_whatever #183.
"I can't reproduce."
evidently.."
This is the same sort of "evidently" that you use to "prove" AGW is false? I.e. no evidence, just wishes?
Why are you so adamant at looking at any site (like wattsupwithtat) that only discusses how they are right and AGW is false but won't read links where the science is discussed WHICH INCLUDES the unknowns and uncertainties.
And, more whacko than all the above, accuse the science that explains where it is right AND WHERE IT MAY BE WRONG of what your preferred scientists do, ignore any error bars, ignore any possible alternatives, ignore anything but the ONE TRUE MESSAGE.
I mean, that's some projection going on there..!
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Dear Yeah_whatever,
I find your posts to be inflamatory, aggressive attacks upon those who do not agree completely with your "beliefs" and positions. Clearly you demonstrate a lack of understanding of both the science and the tenets of good science (i.e. the scientific process). Making personal attacks upon those who do not agree with you completely does not bolster your position...not does it add to meaningful scientific debate.
regarding your statement:
"PS The MWP is a small scale phenomenon and the temperature now is higher than then anyway..."
There are a number of scientists and researchers who would disagree with that statement. Both from examination of "natural climate proxies" as well as record keeping around the world related to crop yields. If you examine the first IPCC report, you will find graphs derived from proxies which clealy show two things: One that both the MWP and LIA were global in nature (as temperature graphs from New Zealand very closely match those of Europe during both of those periods). Secondly, the graphs presented from the proxies (as well as anacdotal data such as historical crop yields)would indicated that temperatures today are still lower than during the MWP.
Open your mind man, and do the research. And please stop the personal attacks upon those who do not agree with your (dubious) positions related to the "science".
Kindest Regards.
L Kealey
Sugar Land TX USA
PS - why not post your name? - I have and I am very easy to find.
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"185. At 8:27pm on 22 Jun 2009, jr4412 wrote:
yeah_whatever #183.
"I can't reproduce."
evidently.."
And this is with the same "evidently" that you use in your stance that AGW is wrong? I.e. "no evidence evidently means evidently.." sort of thing?
You're not wanting the truth, you're wanting to be right. Wanting not to have to do anything. You aren't looking for information, you're looking for confirmation.
After all, why else would you be so adamant at looking at any site that only discusses how they are right and AGW is false but won't read links (or cannot read links? Maybe your company browser won't let you go to realclimate and so on) where the science is discussed WHICH INCLUDES the unknowns and uncertainties.
And, worse than all the above, you accuse the science that explains where it is right AND WHERE IT MAY BE WRONG of what your preferred scientists do, ignore any error bars, ignore any possible alternatives, ignore anything but the ONE TRUE MESSAGE.
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"I find your posts to be inflamatory, aggressive attacks upon those who do not agree completely with your "beliefs" and positions."
You do?
Just mine?
Have you READ these threads?
"pass a law based upon the venal outpourings of climate "scientists" who's whole raison d'etre and continuing source of lavish funding depends on "proving" anthropogenic "global warming"
Sound nice to you?
Or junior's badly thought out schoolyard insults?
Nay, you just want to go "He's oppressing us!!!".
Well, it works in a Monty Python sketch.
Doesn't work in real life.
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"There are a number of scientists and researchers who would disagree with that statement."
And a greater number who don't.
If you're going to use "scientists say" then use the most scientists. This is logic, not homoeopathy.
"Open your mind man, and do the research."
I have. Most denialists haven't. See for example, Bish's comments on bristlecones. Quoted from a report, but he hadn't actually READ the report. Else he woudn't have been caught out like he was.
But he probably got it from a denialist site and didn't do the investigation, didn't open his mind to whether this was a full and correct quote, just ran with it.
And having been found out, goes quiet.
Or Roy's "model" that doesn't actually work. If he'd been "open minded", he would have checked whether he could do what he said he'd proven. It's not difficult.
And yourself on other threads just STATE (no proof, no reasoning, just state as self-evident truth: hardly an example of "open minded"ness) that climate is a chaotic system and that we can't predict anything from it.
Done the research on that?
No. You haven't.
Projection again. Accuse others of what you do.
Sad.
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"If you examine the first IPCC report, you will find graphs derived from proxies which clealy show two things: One that both the MWP and LIA were global in nature"
Nope.
That change is what started the whole "hockey stick" off.
The quotes from the NAS report is that this was a northern hemisphere feature.
The southern hemisphere was colder than normal during the MWP. Since the globe is a sphere and that consists of TWO hemispheres, the MWP was not a global phenomenon.
Have you done the research, or did you just pick all that up from a denialist site without checking its provenance?
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Larry Kealey
President - Big Business SUGAR LAND TEXAS
from congo.com ("Stay connected")
?
And is your company *called* Big Business?
Yup, all looks kosher to me!
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"ignore anything but the ONE TRUE MESSAGE"
Lest we poor sinners perish in the flames! Or drown in the flood, of course...
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Well you do seem to hold to your belief that AGW is wrong. No matter what the reason. If someone else thinks it's wrong for one reason and you think it wrong for another reason, you don't ask the other to prove their reason, you both just say AGW is wrong and ignore the elephant in the room: you can't BOTH be right.
Very much like religion.
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yeah_whatever:
I was President of a Consulting Company - no, it was not called "Big Business" - and I served at the leisure of the Chairman and Board of Directors. At present, I have resigned from that position as am currently undergoing my third round of Chemo since last November.
Unlike most "Climate alarmists" and the journalist and politicians who subscribe to that point of view - I have nothing to gain, either way. I am not funded by, nor seek funding from ANY source related to energy, the environment or climate change.
You can respect my views, or deny them. I hold no illusions that I could possibly sway your opinion in any way. My position is pretty simple: we simply don't know enough to make accurate and meaningful predictions about the future of climate change nor the effects of CO2 emissions on future climate changes.
Regarding your statement "Well you do seem to hold to your belief that AGW is wrong" - tell me do you mean "AGW is wrong and we should put an end to it?" or that the Theory of AGW is flawed? Please be less ambiguous. Your reasoning that if one person thinks (the theory of ) AGW is wrong for one reason and someone else thinks it is wrong for another reason - you BOTH can't be right...not so fast - just because two individuals examine the theory from differnt points of view and point out inconsistancies, does not mean that they are in contradiction with each another...ergo, they both CAN be right...or conversly, they could both be wrong.
The whole point is that the science is far from "settled" as Al Gore and Prince Charles would have us believe. Examine your own reference (wikipedia - not a source I would choose, but nonetheless...) and you will see graphs from the Vostok Ice Cores - which show dramatic decrease in temperatures at the end of the last interglacial, while CO2 levels were higher than they are today - and that CO2 levels lagged behind temperature changes by approximately 800 years. How do the climate models of today account for this? As I posted many times: open the models to real peer (and public) review and we shall see just how simplistic and flawed they are - additionally, we can examine the base assumptions built into the models.
The whole point here is that the science is far from settled and modelling technics are far from predicting the climate in the next 100 years. There are simply too many climate processes, mechanisms and feedbacks that are too poorly understood. And as I have pointed out in other posts (in particular check out comments to: Why the Climate is not a model citizen) - in my view, we will probably never have the capability to create meaningful predictions related to climate change - other than blanket statements like: if we have a large volcanic eruption or nuclear war, it will be followed by a period of cooling...
Yes, please call me a "skeptic", brand me a "denier". Far better (in my feeble mind) to question and be skeptical, than to "follow the herd over the cliff". When there is no room in science for dissent (or skepticism), it is no longer science, but religion. The whole climate change / AGW / CO2 emissions "science" has become so politicized as to stifle meaningful debate.
As I have stated many times in these posts - the more I learn, the more I realize how much more there is to learn and how much I really don't know. I don't have the arrogance to believe that "I know it all" nor that we can predict the future of climate change, much less the audacity to think we can "control climate change". Do you? In reality, man made CO2 emissions could be catastrphic (a probablity which I believe is low), beneficial (don't know) or negligable...we simply don't know enough. Until we have more definitive knowledge, I would argue that there are more pressing environment and ecologies issues which demand more immediate attention. Just because a lot of people (with vested interests) state the AGW and Climate Change are the only environmental issues of the day does not make it so. While you sit in your cozy home blogging on the internet, there are millions in Africa who live in squalor, raping their environment because they lack cheap energy, cheap food and potable water. Again, I ask the question: which is better for the environment (both short and long term) - providing the people with cheap (i.e. coal) energy and have one coal plant, or 100,000 people burning everything they can scavenge and destorying their natural environment? Even if "CO2 emissions" where the only factor here - I would submit that one coal plant is much more effiecient (and emits less Co2) than 100,000 people burning everything in sight to cook and stay warm. Will no one do the analysis? Then take a broader look at the impacts these people have on their environment in living this way - providing cheap energy (yes, coal) and cheap food and you will go a long way to allowing those people the opportunity to do a much better job of preserving the environment and eco-systems. There are no easy answers, only difficult choices.
Unfortunately, I am overdue for my nap and very tired. So Cheers for now.
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yeah_whatever.
#235. "And this is with the same "evidently" that you use in your stance that AGW is wrong?"
#232. "This is the same sort of "evidently" that you use to "prove" AGW is false?"
since I have not ever posted an argument to "prove" AGW is false/wrong, nor, to the best of my re-collection, any post in which I take an explicit position on AGW, I take it, you either confuse me with someone else or you are attacking me for the sake of listening to your own voice.
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very quickly,
in response to #238 (yeah_whatever) - please look at the First IPCC report, this was before he famed "hockey stick" and you will find temperature graphs from England and New Zealand - both showing the same thing: MWP and LIA. The first IPCC report, in my view was probably the least politicized. Also note that the hockey stick and all references were dropped for all subsequent reports issued by the IPCC - why, as McIntyre and McKindrick showed (using the monte carlo method) that even feeding random data into the model would produce similar results: i.e. a "Hockey Stick". Its funny, we don't hear much from Mann anymore...lol. Also, it is true that McIntyre, et al, submitted their findings to Nature, who refused to publish their analysis and results. Could it be that the editors of Nature were Mann supporters? I really don't know, but it certainly sounds plausable.
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reposted without contact details:
Dear Richard,
Unfortunately, Elvis is dead, and I don't feel so good myself...my mind is certainly not functioning at 100% today, but I felt I should respond to your statement (in reponse to my post)...
Richard wrote:
"LarryKealey, please note I did not write that I "believed" the climate models - but that I thought UKCP09 was a useful exercise. There is a world of difference."
Quite correct Richard; however you did not expicitly state that you do not "believe" the climate models - but you did state that UKCP09 was a "useful exercise". I would disagree with you as to it being a useful exercise.
Consider - what is worse? No projection or bad projections? Unfortunately, this type of modelling (while havnig no bearing in reality), will be used as a "policy tool" - resulting in influencing the spending of great sums of money. Averaging three hundred runs of a flawed model produces no meaningful results. Please read my post to "Why the Climate is not a Model Citizen" - I would post a link, but I am sure you can easily find it - you certainly appear to be a "bright guy".
We simply don't know enough about the earth's climate system to make these types of predictions with any simblance to reality. Additionally, due to the nature of the problem, we probably never will. Oh, we can certainly predict that when the great volcano we call Yellowstone Park erupts (as it does regularly - appoximately every 650,000 years - and we are overdue) - it will induce global cooling for at least several years due to all the particulate matter ejected into the upper atmosphere. Thats an easy one - one based upon real world observation and real scientific research. But this is a broad prediction.
To release predictions of the effects of climate change on 25km scales is not only meaningless, but irresponsible. It is a very bad idea. Whilst I believe the technics being developed for "climate modelling" have value, that value is not in predicting climate change - but in the transfer of that technology and those modelling technics to other disciplines where the systems are "modellable" with some degree of accuracy.
Most all of the models I have seen are predicated upon the following three assumptions:
1) That the earth and its climate system can accurately be modelled (and thus accurate predictions can be made).
2) That the ONLY FIRST ORDER FORCING AGENT is CO2 Concentrations in the atmosphere.
3) That feedback from CO2 forcing is highly positive. Thus small changes in CO2 (through very poorly understood mechanisms) cause large (positive) feedbacks in the energy/water cycle of the atmosphere - and will induce armeggedon.
As a scientist and mathmatician, I find these three assumptions to be very difficult to accept without much more real world research. The first assumption (that we can predict climate change) I belive to be patently false - I believe I layed out the reasons why very clearly in the post I referenced above. Certainly, we can predict that the world will experience a cooling period following a major volcanic eruption - but that is not the same as making the predictions or projections as presented by the Met Office, nor those made by the Obama Administration.
These predictions will serve as policy tools, like it or not - again directing untold amounts of monies and resources. There are so many other issues which require more urgent action than the dubious science of "climate change" - but I digress.
I posted a challenge to you Richard, will you not respond? Will you not stake a stand and state that releasing results and interpretations of models is meaningless without presenting the models and assumptions themselves (for real peer review - yes, by skeptics)?
How about more on the many other (more pressing, I would argue) issues related to the environment? Without mention of "climate change"? Land use and management, balancing exploitation of our forests for economic gain with long term sustainability, better managing our fisheries to restore them to levels of 300-400 years ago - if we could to that, we could obtain sustainable yields much greater than the unsubstainable yields we get today. So many other important environmental and ecological issues are needing of attention.
How about doing a piece on what is really better for the environment - building a coal plant in Africa and providing a hundred thousand people with (relatively) clean, cheap energy - rather than forcing them to burn dung, forests and whatever else they can find to cook and warm their huts? What is really better for the environment? Both in the short term or the long term? Providing these people with a coal plant would of course mean CO2 emissions - but how would those emissions compare to the emissions of today - when people are burning everything in sight? Including the forests. What is better for the environment and the ecology of the planet?
While I did not prove Fermat's Last Equation, I spent many years investigating the problem and number theory in my spare time - I do believe I was getting close at the time a proof was presented. One thing I did prove, is that the number of solutions to Fermat's Equation is "countably infinately many" where n=2, as opposed to "uncoutably infinately many". The proof utilized a technic known as induction - that is to say, I take my hypothesis (that the solutions are countably infinatly many) and assume that it is false, then follow the mathematics until I reach a contridiction (i.e 2=1). When I set out on this endeavor, I "knew" (perhaps intuitively) that I was right, but I didn't wave my flag and yell out "this is true" - until I had done the work and had my proof reviewed by other respected mathematicians.
That is not the case with "climate science" today. I see people waving their flags every day - without the "proof" to back it up. Yes, the earth has warmed somewhat over the last 150 years and certainly man has had "some" effect - I think most people would agree with those statements - but whether the changes we have seen or how much of that has been caused by man is a matter of great debate. Those who would use models and predict doomsday should step away from their models and go out and do real "field work" to better understand the processes that drive the earth's climate. I would also argue that land use is probably a more significant driver for climate change than CO2 emissions.
I would also argue (see the post referenced above) - that we will never be able to make accurate predictions of how earth's climate will change in any meaningful way. How about doing a story about that? The arguments I presented are certainly considered valid tenets of Chaos Theory.
Richard, you are certainly an intelligent individual. Please step back and question your assumptions (as most of your writings appear to present a "climate doomsday" bias associated with CO2 emissions). It is not a "one issue" environmental world. One of the cornerstones of good science is to constantly question our assumptions.
In reality, I have no "vested interest" in what will happen to the environment 50 years hence. I won't be here, have no childred... In fact I have serious doubts about seeing next summer (as do the doctors) - but for some reason, I care. Do you really care for the truth - while I realize that true objectivity is an illusion, I believe you could do a much better job of presenting all the arguments...
Richard, perhaps I digress too much in this post - but my hope is that my thoughts and words will provoke you to question your assumptions and those who would predict doomsday. Invoke thought.
Cheers.
L Kealey
Sugar Land TX USA
Will you not accept my challenge? I would be happy to assist in your research if you like, in an objective manner. I shall send my contact details to your BBC email. Cheers
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#242 - jr4412
Right on. Couldn't agree with you more. It is interesting to note that "yeah_whatever" has posted more to this blog than anyone else, and has had more posts removed by the moderators for violating the rules than anyone else (by far). Please note, this is just an observation. I did have one post removed [for including my contact details - an email address on hotmail)] but it has been reposted without the email address and passed the moderators.
Please carry on with your intelligent discourse and viewpoints.
Cheers.
L Kealey
Sugar Land TX, USA [Personal details removed by Moderator]
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"It is interesting to note that "yeah_whatever" has posted more to this blog than anyone else,"
So what? Is there an "allowed" number of posts?
"and has had more posts removed by the moderators for violating the rules than anyone else (by far)"
Ah, but that's like the USian corporate fluffers going on about how the 9th Circuit is the most overturned Circuit in the US.
Then when you find out that they also see the most cases and that they are pretty solidly in the upper half of the ***percentage*** overturned, you realise how ridiculous their claims against the 9th is.
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"3) That feedback from CO2 forcing is highly positive. Thus small changes in CO2 (through very poorly understood mechanisms) cause large (positive) feedbacks in the energy/water cycle of the atmosphere"
Uh, they may not be well understood but there is plenty of observational evidence of how the climate changes with CO2.
OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE.
And quit with the hyperbole. "armageddon" is how the denialists want to put it so they can polarise the discussion by making crud like that up.
Where has the IPCC used "armageddon"?
EVER?
"That is not the case with "climate science" today. I see people waving their flags every day - without the "proof" to back it up."
Uh, have you READ the IPCC reports?
No, apparently not.
Here you go:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
The proof is in there.
Read the reports.
Read the papers referenced in the reports.
If you looked (and you haven't) you would have seen plenty of proof.
You didn't look.
"I would also argue (see the post referenced above) - that we will never be able to make accurate predictions of how earth's climate will change in any meaningful way"
Well you can. You'd be wrong, since accuracy needed here is enough accuracy to derive a policy.
I.e. you don't need to know the windspeed is 3.1320433 knots from 92.93547 degrees from magnetic north. A light wind from the east is enough to tell you whether you'll be flying your kite.
"How about doing a story about that? The arguments I presented are certainly considered valid tenets of Chaos Theory."
Yes. Their appliccability to climate prediction is extremely limited.
And that would be a reason not to do that story on a blog about climate and environment.
"How about more on the many other (more pressing, I would argue) issues related to the environment?"
What? Like whaling?
Done.
"Do you really care for the truth - while I realize that true objectivity is an illusion, I believe you could do a much better job of presenting all the arguments..."
Uh, what arguments? There are arguments that are right, arguments that are possibly OK and wrong arguments.
Most of the denialism is wrong arguments. Like, for example, the warming trend is because the US has several weather stations within 10m of an AC vent.
It's an *argument* but barely stands up to even cursory inspection.
a) Why then is it cooling? AC not allowed any more?
b) What about the match between these instruments and others without this problem
c) What about QC removing bad sites?
etc.
It's an argument, but one that is so far from reality it's not worth spending time on it.
"but my hope is that my thoughts and words will provoke you to question your assumptions and those who would predict doomsday."
Is it? Is it really? Your postings under your moniker all go on about how nuclear is the "only option". Predicting doom and gloom and poverty for all if it isn't taken.
You don't want doomsday predicted even if it's true? So if you're walking along the road and a bus is coming toward you, you'd rather not hear "look out!" because it's a doomsday scenario?
No.
I don't buy it.
"Yes, the earth has warmed somewhat over the last 150 years and certainly man has had "some" effect - I think most people would agree with those statements - but whether the changes we have seen or how much of that has been caused by man is a matter of great debate."
Uh, only "great debate" amongst those who don't check their sources or their theories. On blogs where making an argument is more important than presenting the proofs. Like your arguments here.
But there is debate and you can see it. It's in the scientific papers released after peer review.
Read them.
Don't read blogs and especially don't read pdf's that are formatted like science papers but aren't released as science papers. You don't have the capacity yet to understand whether the blog or pre-release is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
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"Most all of the models I have seen are predicated upon the following three assumptions:
1) That the earth and its climate system can accurately be modelled (and thus accurate predictions can be made).
2) That the ONLY FIRST ORDER FORCING AGENT is CO2 Concentrations in the atmosphere."
And that's only proof you haven't looked at many models and no modern ones.
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"lok at the First IPCC report, this was before he famed "hockey stick" and you will find temperature graphs from England and New Zealand - both showing the same thing: MWP and LIA."
Yup.
Now why is it you believe a graph from very early information taken ENTIRELY from a limited area with very poor coverage but you don't believe a graph that uses THAT dataset ***and*** more data spread over a larger area?
Google for "Crock of the week".
Look for the youtube links for greenman3610. Look for the episode on the medieval warming period.
It should be at a level low enough to tell you what you are getting wrong.
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"Unlike most "Climate alarmists" and the journalist and politicians who subscribe to that point of view - I have nothing to gain, either way."
Yup, you can be a neocon and DETEST government interference in the corporate right to Do As It Likes.
"Far better (in my feeble mind) to question and be skeptical, than to "follow the herd over the cliff". "
But you AREN'T a skeptic. You believe McKitrick and ignore any papers discussing that methodology and finds it wrong, but don't believe Mann beause of a paper that discusses that methodology bad.
You're not skeptic. Your a credulous.
Your sham in saying you're just interested in the truth is belied by everything you've produced here.
"Even if "CO2 emissions" where the only factor here - I would submit that one coal plant is much more effiecient (and emits less Co2) than 100,000 people burning everything in sight to cook and stay warm. Will no one do the analysis?"
Sigh.
What makes you think that hasn't been done?
You're sadly mistaken in your assumption that there is any utility in asking the question either. It doesn't make CO2 less of a warming gas if it's burned in a coal station than in a peat bog fire. Show me where that makes ANY difference to how CO2 we produce changes climate.
That you make queries about how bad the science is when that question has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the science you're questioning again shows you are not neutral and that you DO NOT want AGW to be considered real and that any method of muddying the water will do.
"There are no easy answers, only difficult choices."
Why then are you trying to delay the choices? Do you think they will get EASIER the longer we wait?
Either you are SERIOUSLY confused or you're deliberately obfuscating.
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"Could it be that the editors of Nature were Mann supporters? I really don't know, but it certainly sounds plausable."
Why does it sound plausible?
Multiple editors. So it would have to be a conspiracy amongst many people.
The reviewers would have to too.
And the ENTIRE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCE.
Why does that collusion sound more plausible than "McIntyre and McKindrick didn't show Mann wrong"?
That only requires TWO people to be wrong. It doesn't even need collusion.
It can only be plausible if you are CONVINCED (without proof) that AGW is wrong.
You are not balanced. Not in the least.
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"As I posted many times: open the models to real peer (and public) review and we shall see just how simplistic and flawed they are - additionally, we can examine the base assumptions built into the models."
And as has been posted MANY TIMES (can't any of you idiots google???) they are available. I've linked to them several times on this blog.
The response "Oh, that's not the model I wanted"!!!
And the models ARE opened to peer review.
You a peer reviewer for climate models?
No?
Well why do you think you should review it?
Heck, ask your government to tell you what's in ACTA.
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For those who've tried to kid on they're "just wanting to see what the proof is" and say that there's nobody who disagrees that there is warming, here's one message from a very new HYS on "should we do more to prevent climate change":
+++++
Prove to me that there actually IS global warming and that it isn't part of a natural cycle and maybe we should start looking at it.
[BostinJack]
Recommended by 15 people
++++
It hasn't even got one full page yet.
Out of the list of 14:
SEVEN say that there IS NO SUCH THING.
Three say there's nothing TO be done.
Two say "kill all humans".
One says it's irrelevant.
One says "Stop breeding". Yeah, people are snarky enough when you tell them they can't drive an SUV. How are they going to feel when they tell you to put it back in your trousers and KEEP it there?
50% say "No Such Thing".
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"Very much like religion" (241)
Not really. Religion is based on a belief in something, like AGW. Most of us here are agnostic.
Larry Kealey
It's a pleasure to read your civil posts - the first was particularly good, IMO. I do hope you have a full recovery.
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If you want to read about stuff that's real, look for this paper:
Knutti 2008, Why are climate models reproducing the observed global surface warming so well?
"Religion is based on a belief in something, like anti-AGW."
Fixed that for you.
You don't bother reading or understanding or even comprehending it's been said if it doesn't say AGW is false.
Have you read ANY of the IPCC reports?
Why, when you say "someone has a paper" you never look to see if there's any criticisms of it. Heck you never look to see if it's had any critique AT ALL. If it says AGW isn't real, you believe it.
Show me ONE POINT you've made against any quote that AGW is wrong. JUST ONE.
Show me ONE PLACE where you've said the IPCC got ANYTHING right.
Not.
One.
This is not balance.
Not in the slightest and you're only fooling yourself and those who believe with the same vigour that you do that AGW is just plain wrong. So strongly that anything that says it may be right MUST be wrong and anything supporting it proof of a conspiracy.
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fjpickett #255.
"Larry Kealey ... I do hope you have a full recovery."
second that, best wishes.
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YW, excellent work. You are so close to understanding a major problem with temperature reconstructions. You mention 5 random numbers; how about 1000 extremely noisy proxy data series. You don't need to pick the series yourself, the reconstruction algorithm does that for you.
The instrumental period is represented by 'a few good proxies,' i.e. proxies whose noise content matches the record, then for the really pointy bit at the end (where the chosen proxies fail to match recent instrumental records) simply stick on the record itself making sure to avoid the past 10 years which is only weather.
For extra effect stretch the Y scale to make the rise look more dramatic, oh, and don't forget to paint the end red.
Far from these novel methods extracting a signal from the noise they actually search for noise that looks like the instrumental record.
Now for the next step. Take a look at some of the data series used in prominent temperature reconstructions. Notice how few of these, just like your red noise, have any resemblance to the instrumental record. Hardly a hockey stick in sight.
If you compare your red noise to real proxy data you may notice a difference. A problem with a random walk is that you may end up a very long way from home. With white noise every data point is independent of all previous data points; there is no persistence. With a random walk data is added to the sum of all previous data points; the effect of each entry lasts forever. The real world is somewhere in between; think about it.
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"You mention 5 random numbers; how about 1000 extremely noisy proxy data series. You don't need to pick the series yourself, the reconstruction algorithm does that for you."
Uh, a noisy proxy data series isn't random data, Rob. You said it was possible to do with random data.
So where's the reconstruction algorithm you used to show random data makes a hockey stick?
"If you compare your red noise to real proxy data you may notice a difference."
Uh, a difference isn't what you said I'd see.
"A problem with a random walk is that you may end up a very long way from home."
If you add them, yes. But you get a lumpy incline, not a hockey stick.
"With a random walk data is added to the sum of all previous data points;"
Nope, with a random walk, data adds or subtracts. And the expected distance moved in a random walk is the size of the step times the *square root* of the number of steps taken.
Which isn't a hockey stick.
"the effect of each entry lasts forever. The real world is somewhere in between; think about it."
Yes I have. Seems you haven't.
Do what you've said here EXACTLY.
Random numbers. Between 0 and 1. Add them together and you see a linear noisy increase. And you NEVER see it go down. Not a hockey stick.
Random numbers. Between -1 and +1. Add them together and you see a deviation from the previous average that doesn't change: divvy it up into quarters. Each quarter's average from the previous [the first quarter deviates from nil, the starting point] will not be increasing as you refer to each quarter. Not a hockey stick.
Take noisy proxy data. You get a hockey stick.
This would seem to be to be a good proof that random data is NOT what the proxy data is.
You seem to think so too: "The real world is somewhere in between". So it isn't random data either? Since if it were, it wouldn't be "somewhere in between".
But maybe the algorithm you used when you proved to yourself that random data could create a hockey stick will show me where I'm going wrong.
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Larry's unfortunate health can, however, show us something about decision making.
Larry doesn't assume that doctors know EVERYTHING about illness. I'm sure he knows that doctors can't even cure the common cold.
Yet when his doctor says he has a problem, he asks "what should I do" and does it.
And pays his doctor. Probably quite a lot of money, since he's in the US. Healthcare being dreadfully expensive there (not a good place to be ill in).
No "well, is there something else wrong and you've misdiagnosed". No "Hah! You're just trying to get money out of me!". No "It's all a conspiracy!".
Remember, healthcare is tax income too. All the politicians have to do is say there are new cures and new diseases.
But such a VERY different approach by people.
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YW
"Religion is based on a belief in something, like anti-AGW.
Fixed that for you."
Just saying something doesn't make it so. I think you'll find that scepticism is the opposite of faith. Probably why it's often described as healthy...
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"Just saying something doesn't make it so. "
Funny. I would have said that to you, but it didn't look like you believed it.
And what you have isn't skepticism.
Ever critically looked at the papers you cited? No? Then that's not skepticism.
You have denialism or directed credulism. And its decidedly unhealthy.
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YW
"Ever critically looked at the papers you cited?"
Where? I think you'll find I haven't cited anything here, which rather suggests that you barely read what other people write. Perhaps we should reciprocate...
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Nope, it rather suggests that you all sound alike.
"It's not AGW!!!!"
So how do you know fj, if you haven't read any of the proofs?
Mind you, you did give THIS link in another thread:
http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/397959_murdockonline30.html
Which is titled: Murdock: Even left now laughing at global warming
I don't see any critique, just a demand that someone look at it.
In the same thread you ask:
"Are the wheels beginning to loosen on the AGW bandwagon?"
And link to an El Reg blog.
So *on this thread*, no, but you HAVE cited sources and uncritically offered them. NOT ONCE asking queries about their validity. Just assuming that AGW is wrong and these sources are somehow proof of this.
(posting history is a bummer, isn't it?)
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YW
Check Wiki on rational skepticism as part of the scientific method
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_skepticism
Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism) sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a scientific or practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence.
Fits pretty well within the ongoing debate surrounding the premise that AGW is a potentially serious threat.
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"a scientific or practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence."
But when you don't apply it to the evidence you have read somewhere (and therefore not proven to yourself) then you're not skeptical.
Take McIntyre's paper. It's still brought up time and time again as "proof" there is no warming. Yet the criticisms made the NAS produce a report and that report stated that Mann's work was correct.
Yet STILL that paper is brought up as if the NAS report were never written.
This is not skepticism.
And more investigation on the subsequent works (you know, scientists DO work you know, and if someone complains about their methods, they WILL work on them if the complaint has some validity) shows a new paper by Rutherford in 2004, demonstrating nearly identical results to those of MBH98, using the same proxy dataset as Mann et al (1998) but addressing the issues of infilled/missing data raised by Mcintyre and McKitrick, and using an alternative climate field reconstruction (CFR) methodology that does not represent any proxy data networks by PCA at all.
(title of Rutherford's paper is "Proxy-based Northern Hemisphere Surface Temperature Reconstructions: Sensitivity to Method, Predictor Network, Target Season, and Target Domain")
But the claim of McIntyre and McKitrick are repeated as if they have no problems in their report at all.
This is not skepticism.
Skepticism is asking any source "Have you tried X?". And if they have tried it or proved X ineffective then you STOP asking "Have you tried X?".
But those who bring up the denialist papers do not check to see if those papers are right. They just assume they are.
Is assuming the paper is right questioning "the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence."?
No.
So it isn't skepticism.
It's partial credulitiy or denial. The difference between them is that denial isn't about any PRO argument (where you say "this is what's going on" and then work to see if it is), it's just ANTI an argument (where you say "you're wrong" and don't care what, why or how, anything that says it's wrong is kosher).
"Fits pretty well within the ongoing debate surrounding the premise that AGW is a potentially serious threat."
Yes, it does, but not the debate going on here. The debate here is tired old talking points not looking to see what's going on but to deny that one theory is what's going on.
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PS "the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence."
Uh, there's plenty of empirical evidence.
Care to say where you think there is none?
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YW
Bring on the empirical evidence for the premise that AGW is a potentially serious threat.
Max
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"Bring on the empirical evidence for the premise that AGW is a potentially serious threat."
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm
Two papers are cited in there. Read them.
Annan 2006 "Using multiple observationally-based constraints to
estimate climate sensitivity"
Solar-Cycle Warming at the Earths Surface and an Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity.
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The paper by 'Rutherford' mentioned by YW which supports the MBH98 (Mann, Bradley, Hughes) temperature reconstruction is actually by Rutherford, Mann, Bradley, Hughes and others. Independent indeed.
The difference in the method is to ignore geographical location. This allows some periods to have 75% of the proxy data represented by North American tree-rings, hardly the whole of the northern hemisphere.
One guess for which tree comes up favourite?
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Sorry YW,
It was a good try, but
There is evidence that humans are emitting CO2.
There is evidence that atmospheric CO2 is rising.
There is evidence that it is warming (for some as yet undetermined natural or anthropogenic reason, or a combination thereof), at least until year 2001.
But there is no empirical evidence that AGW is a potentially serious threat.
Keep trying, YW.
Youre not there yet.
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"But there is no empirical evidence that AGW is a potentially serious threat."
Uh, you see all that ice that is between 0 and -3 C at the moment? That's gonna melt.
You think that the Sahara getting bigger is going to be fun? How about the Dustbowl? How much warmer was the US under those conditions? Guess what, it's starting again there.
You think they are going to be moonbeams and lollipops?
You saying they can't potentially happen with a 3C increase, an increase we're not going to avoid unless we start something meaningful now?
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If you have a problem with the paper, explain it.
PS I'm still waiting for your algorithm.
Not found it yet?
(PS read the paper. See what the difference is between that one and the 1998 paper. Don't let your knee knock you out again.)
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manacker, when was the last time the planet was 3C warmer than the pre-industrial era?
How many humans were alive then?
Do you want the same number of people living when 3C happens?
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"There is evidence that it is warming (for some as yet undetermined natural or anthropogenic reason, or a combination thereof), at least until year 2001."
Uh, that 2001 thing. Care to prove a trend down since then?
Care to prove that the CO2 production of human activity isn't enough to produce the CO2 change? And given that link (that you didn't read, it seems) shows ~3C per doubling, why isn't the 50% increase in CO2 measured not enough to make the difference in temperature that we see in the measurements?
Because without that, you don't have any "unknown reason", just the antropogenic one.
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YW
"just a demand that someone look at it"
That sounds more like you. Still, I'm flattered that you dug through my posting history to try and sustain your point!
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And YOU say YOU are a skeptic. I don't label myself as one all the time. YOU DO.
However, it now seems you agree with me that you aren't a skeptic since you DO post links and your only defence was "I never have posted links".
But where I post links to, fj, it HAS science in it, it HAS the things known and the things unknown. YOUR links are just innuendo and presented with NO MENTION of how they could be mistaken and YOU treat them as GOSPEL TRUTH.
So the stuff I read mentions its flaws and it's possibilities. The stuff I do know fits and the stuff I don't know doesn't change the big picture, just the detail.
The stuff you link to you just snide "So I guess AGW must be a load of baloney then..." as if you understand what it's saying and have checked (as a ***skeptic*** would) that its proposition is valid, its conclusions solid and that it hasn't been superceeded.
As I said, you're not a skeptic. You're a credulous.
At best.
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"Still, I'm flattered that you dug through my posting history to try and sustain your point!"
Uh, YOU told me to:
"I think you'll find I haven't cited anything here, ..."
Which is rather amusing, since you only "think" you haven't cited and yet you have...
You don't even know what YOU'RE doing!!!
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YW
You disappoint me with an avalanche of rhetoric about what is going to happen but no empirical evidence for the premise that AGW is a potentially serious threat.
I am still waiting. It must be out there somewhere.
Max
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"Yeah_whatever" is obviously a very angry man - what is required in this multi-billion pound/dollar debate is cool clear science with maximum transparency.
Your original post is really just a list of modellers - the first thing that is needed is ANY evidence that GW is caused by Man-made CO2 emissions. Up to press there isn't any (now shout at me for not understanding!!!) and models are not evidence.
Once you close your mind to opposing views in science, once you start to believe you are absolutely right, you move to the realms of dogma and religion - ask Charles Darwin.
There is enough lack of transparency and proper peer review plus contrary evidence to make scepticism ( or at least an agnostic position ) a valid one. Until the models start to show real skill in prediction, the jury is out.
Personally (as someone with an interest in environmental issues most of my life) I have always thought it a good idea to scare politicians into cleaning the planet up, but we are at the point where what money we have left will have to be spent wisely. There is no room in science for people who compete with each other to repeat often wild assertions, which are not validated by current reality. Much is said about ice melt, sea levels and air/sea temperatures that are simply not aligned with observations.
The loudest voices at the moment often know as much about climatology as I do about brain surgery. A genuine open debate is what is needed with science as its basis.
I have put on a steel helmet ready for your blast.
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YW
"the stuff I don't know"
Do tell!
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Glad to see you're finally admitting you don't know what you're talking about.
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"what is required in this multi-billion pound/dollar debate is cool clear science with maximum transparency."
Which is happening if you read the journals. It's only on blogs where denialists don't care WHAT the reason is, as long as it ISN'T humans, or don't care WHAT is done, as long as it isn't done YET.
"Once you close your mind to opposing views in science"
Which is what the denialists do. They say it isn't AGW because of X. Then X is proven wrong, and instead of changing their minds, they say it isn't wrong because of Y. or Z. And in any case, it isn't happening, and if it is, it isn't us and if it is, it'll be good and if it isn't it's too late, and, and, and....
"the first thing that is needed is ANY evidence that GW is caused by Man-made CO2 emissions."
Yup. Check up basic chemistry. Combustion of a hydrocarbon in an oxygenated atmosphere will create CO2.
Now what do you think petrol is? Coal? Gas?
Are humans burning them?
So there IS EVIDENCE. You seem to have closed your eyes to any evidence. Strange that you complain that what's bad is being closed to other ideas. You are closed to any idea that there's anything to AGW.
"but we are at the point where what money we have left will have to be spent wisely."
Uhm, money is just a way of keeping track of work done. When are we going to be unable to do work?
"There is enough lack of transparency and proper peer review plus contrary evidence to make scepticism "
There isn't. There's EXACTLY the same level of transparency and peer review as there has been for hundreds of years. Just ask Charles Darwin. There's just as much (nay, MORE) transparency and peer review for climate works because the Big Business fluffers DO NOT want government doing ANYTHING if it stops business making a buck.
And where is the transparency and peer review of the contrary evidence?
Is that contrary evidence actually evidence or made up rhetoric? Just saying "It's not AGW" isn't proof, but it IS contrary. And this is the level of evidence presented here. See, for example, Bish's demands that the Hockey Stick is wrong because bristlecones were used as proxies, quoting a report. Yet when you read WHAT is wrong about bristlecone proxies you find that the problem there is where other evidence is stronger and the uncertainties much lower, so the bristlecone problem is no problem.
Then he disappears.
He had "contrary evidence". But on further investigation (which is what a ***skeptic*** would do), that evidence turned out not to disprove the Hockey Stick.
"Much is said about ice melt, sea levels and air/sea temperatures that are simply not aligned with observations."
There isn't?
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20081002_seaice_pressrelease.html
?!?!
You didn't even think of going to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre when talking about "measurements of ice"?????
And you say that *I* am closed? You're not even leaving your own brainpan!
"I see no ships!".
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> You disappoint me with an avalanche of rhetoric about what is going to happen
Nope, I showed you evidence of CO2's effect on temperature.
> but no empirical evidence for the premise that AGW is a potentially serious threat
Please show how a 3C rise in global temperatures will not ever be a threat.
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PS CAncerkid, don't you mean put your tinfoil hat on?
"It's all a conspiracy I tells ya!!!"
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Still colder than usual at the North Pole, I see. Isn't that where the models tell us that warming will be most apparent?
http://tinyurl.com/mwnszb
(my first link posting on this thread, BTW)
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YW
As a rational skeptic, I am still waiting for your empirical evidence that AGW is a potential serious threat.
Max
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re 286, why did you link to wattsupwithtat? Are they tasked with measuring the ice volumes at the north pole?
And again, another link that you take as "proof" that AGW is wrong with no reason as to why.
Weather != Climate.
But you're credulous to any claim that says AGW is wrong, no matter the source, no matter the truth.
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Sorry, that might not work. Try the whole URL..
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/25/arctic-temperature-is-still-not-above-0°c-the-latest-date-in-fifty-years-of-record-keeping/
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And on the link in 286, Even wattsupwithtat say that page isn't there...
Seems like even Watts doesn't believe it!
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"As a rational skeptic..."
Uh, you have shown no skepticism and no rationality.
I have given you evidence of the power of CO2.
Do you maintain that the stupendous energy required to heat the atmosphere by that magnitude is BENIGN?
You have been given evidence.
The last time we were 3C higher than the pre-industrial global temperature was when there were a fraction of the humans. We will have a fraction of the human race again if we warm back to that level. Or do you think that 4000 years ago, there were 6 billion humans on the planet?
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Well at least I've found Bish's pony in this: his site links to "Lineral Vision" (Looking forward to Freedom). Anything a government does is automatically bad.
He also loves to fluff himself (Oh Noes!!! I's Bein Oppressed!!!). And loves to link to hosting sites and doesn't ask where their information is or how it is arrived at. Hardly skeptical...
Poor deluded kid.
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YW
"why did you link to wattsupwithtat?"
So witty. I linked to it (or attempted to) because that was where I read the information! You shouldn't really let your prejudice get in the way - the info was from the Danish Met Office who have recorded a slower than usual summer melt in the Arctic. The unseasonal cold in Canada and the US has also delayed crops, whose yield is expected to be much lower this year.
I hope you're being paid for this stuff.
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Now, if I give you a list of numbers:
14
17
15
20
16
20
23
25
28
23
25
27
Has the value of the numbers gone down? 27 is, after all, lower than 28.
It would be a surprise if you could, since that was a list of random numbers between 1 and 10 with 10 added and then another value monotonically increasing by 1 to each.
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"I linked to it (or attempted to) because that was where I read the information! "
You read what?
That temperatures on one year is lower than an earlier year? But that's got nothing to do with a trend. A trend is what things are generally doing, not what spot elements are doing.
Reading that line, there are lots of places where one year was colder than another. But there are more places where the temperature went up, or it went up more than it went down. THAT difference is ***trend***.
Let me ask you, does ice melt when it gets colder? Because the amount of ice up there is less than it used to be.
Have a look at the NSIDC site.
And why didn't you even attempt to question the conclusion? Did not melting ice not show you you were wrong? Did you not even try a statistical analysis? Do you even know what statistical analysis IS?
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"The unseasonal cold in Canada and the US has also delayed crops"
Hang on, how do you know it was unseasonal?
There are LOTS of years that were colder than this in the past. Therefore (according to YOUR understanding of statistics), this isn't unseasonally cold.
Another pointer to you bein a credulous rather than a skeptic. You take one stance (this spot value is lower than other spot values, therefore it's going down) in one place and another stance in another case (this spot value is lower than many but not all values in the past, therefore it's going down) depending on which one supports your pre-conceived conclusion.
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YW
"And on the link in 286, Even wattsupwithtat say that page isn't there..."
And yet you still managed to comment on it. Quelle surprise.
The bad link was my mistake and the BBC can't handle the full version. Still, I'm sure someone with your Googling skill can find it.
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294 should have said trend.
Since I made the trend and knew its value, the trend was the same. Just added some variability on top.
Since I didn't change the trend, you cannot say that the trend was changed, but you CAN say that 28 is higher than 27. And in fj's book that means the trend has changed.
Showing how fj's book is wrong.
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PS see the graphs here:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/06/the_australians_war_on_science_40.php
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Especially illuminating is this quote on that site:
++++
It is misleading to talk of a cooling trend because, to quote Bob Carter:
this trend is most likely produced by the single exceptionally warm 1998 El Nino year.
That was Carter in 2004 saying that 1998 shouldn't count if it produces a warming trend.
+++++
See how denialists "forget" what they say if it isn't "on message" any more?
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"And yet you still managed to comment on it"
Nope, I managed to comment on your unquestioning stance toward it.
I looked at the NSIDC site. Reading that observational record there and *assuming* that wattsupwithtat was printing the same graph but spinning it, I commented on the REAL picture as the NSIDC.
But you saw a conspiracy. What a surprise.
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Who said that the artic temperature would be above 0C this year anyway?
And it looks like that article is even more useless than I gave it credit for. It has one year's worth of data. From one site
And thinks it can draw a picture of artic trends from that one site over one year.
I bet he thinks that the 100m sprint takes months too, since they are all crouched over at the beginning there, and you can't go very fast like that...
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YW
Sorry, but you are still mixing up rhetoric with empirical evidence.
As a rational skeptic, I am still waiting for your empirical evidence that AGW is a potential serious threat.
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yeah_whatever.
no reply to #243?
I am not surprised. emotionally and/or mentally immature people tend to be unable to apologise when at fault (or even deal with the issues raised).
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Is this the five minute argument of the full half hour?
What a boor.
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manacker, your inability to think or even read isn't my problem.
So get lost.
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"emotionally and/or mentally immature people"
You mean people who say things like:
""I can't reproduce."
evidently.."
?
Or do you consider that "mature"?
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junior, I notice that YOU haven't retracted your incorrect statement on the "Sound science on the whaling grounds" either about Larry getting it COMPLETELY wrong on CO2 increases.
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"As a rational skeptic,"
Uh, you have shown no skepticism and no rationality.
I have given you evidence of the power of CO2.
Do you maintain that the stupendous energy required to heat the atmosphere by that magnitude is BENIGN?
You have been given evidence.
The last time we were 3C higher than the pre-industrial global temperature was when there were a fraction of the humans. We will have a fraction of the human race again if we warm back to that level. Or do you think that 4000 years ago, there were 6 billion humans on the planet?
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yeah_whatever #307, #308.
unable to deal with the issues, proof positive.
oh, and SHOUTING is also something emotionally and/or mentally immature people tend to do (too) often.
yeah, whatever..
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yeah_whatever #308.
"..incorrect statement on the "Sound science on the whaling grounds".."
quote:
"yeah_whatever #11.
"..increase of CO2 from 280ppm to 390ppm is a 4% increase. This is not even ATTEMPTING to be right."
390 is 139.28% of 280, ie. an increase of 40% approx. I'd say it was a typo."
incorrect? how so?
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re 310. Proof has been given.
CO2 can drastically affect the temperature. One reason why we can't live in the Sahara is because of the deadly heat.
This is not a potentially serous issue to you?
And the SHOUTING is NECESSARY because idiots will try not to listen.
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"incorrect? how so?"
Because it wasn't a typo.
He really MEANT 4%.
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and maybe the reason you haven't admitted you were wrong there with the typo thing is not because you are infantile but because you don't think you're wrong.
Then again, that statement that maybe there's more than one reason for a situation is only possible because of the higher brain functions.
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I paged down a bit quickly and read the text for 310 as belonging to 309.
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yeah_whatever #312.
"re 310. Proof has been given.
CO2 can drastically affect the temperature. One reason why we can't live in the Sahara is because of the deadly heat."
'proof positive' refers to your as yet outstanding reply to #243 (where I made clear that I have not taken a position on AGW).
are you trying to obfuscate the debate? or are you simply confused?
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yeah_whatever #312.
"One reason why we can't live in the Sahara is because of the deadly heat."
shame no one told the people in Timbuktu of your opinions.
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So you think that humans don't die in the Saharan sun?
Strange world you live in.
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and why should they know?
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And why would they care?
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And what was the point?
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or was there no point just a need to lash out in an infantile manner?
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"246. At 8:34pm on 23 Jun 2009, LarryKealey wrote:
#242 - jr4412
Right on. Couldn't agree with you more. It is interesting to note that "yeah_whatever" has posted more to this blog than anyone else, and has had more posts removed by the moderators for violating the rules than anyone else (by far)."
We only have your word for that, Larry.
And your intimation is that removal of my posts is for some evildoing on my part Else why "observe" it. After all, lots of juniors posts were removed in quick succession.
I mean, it's definitely an OBSERVATION that you had your very first post (#233) removed by the moderators. And we'll never know how bad a boy you were in that posting.
PS most of my posts were removed because you can't link to PDFs here. Is that somehow bad of me?
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yeah_whatever #318.
"So you think that humans don't die in the Saharan sun?"
no. I think shame no one told the people living in the Sahara of your opinions, after all, you asserted that "One reason why we can't live in the Sahara is because of the deadly heat."
"Strange world you live in."
yes, entertaining too.
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Ah, so those NOMADS live permanently.
Ah.
Weird dictionary you must have.
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And what does the Sahara (desert) have to do with Timbuktu? It's on a river. And right on the edge of the Sahara. It would be rather like saying that you don't have any problems living in the North Sea because you've seen houses in Dundee.
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re. 'the power of observation'.
yeah_whatever writes (#323):
"..it's definitely an OBSERVATION that you had your very first post (#233).." (my emphases).
Larry Kealey's "very first post" to this debate is actually #1.
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YW
I am still waiting for empirical evidence from you that AGW is a potential serious problem.
As a rational skeptic, I have asked you for this several times, but you have only delivered a bunch of meaningless rhetoric about the "power of CO2" what would happen if temperatures increased by 3C, but no empirical evidence that AGW is a potential serious problem.
So I can only assume that you are unable to deliver this evidence, thereby confirming the validity of my rational skepticism of the premise that AGW is a potential serious problem.
To carry on a further discussion with you seems rather pointless.
Max
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"a need to lash out in an infantile manner?" (322)
...(speechless)...
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"CO2 can drastically affect the temperature. One reason why we can't live in the Sahara is because of the deadly heat" (312)
Those pesky nomads must have been opening too many carbonated drinks..
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YW
I've explained to you that the NAS panel have said that bristlecones are not suitable for use in temperature reconstructions and that they didn't look to see if these were used in the other reconstructions that they say support the Hockey Stick.
I am familiar with all the papers you cite. However you have just said "the answer is in there". Unless you tell me the specific arguments you are referring to, I can't respond.
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Yeah_whatever
Oh Dear!
I tried to post a reasoned plea for you to calm down and stop shouting at people. In several of your posts you accuse others of not listening, but that seems to be as much your problem as anyone else. If I said I give up, you are obviously right - will you still shout at me?????? Name calling should never be part of a scientists toolbox.
Nowhere in my post did I say I was a "confirmed" sceptic. I merely said that until AGW can be shown to definitely be the main cause of any GW - that the jury was out. I didn't say I knew their decision in advance.
It was simply a plea to have an adult discussion based on science.
Like you I use a Nom de plume not my real name. I like my anonymity in my old age, but appreciate those who post here (who have forgotten far more than I will ever know), and are prepared to put their name to it.
My advice is to stick to the NdeP because you may be wrong (sorry I know it is hard to contemplate)- the last few years have not brought much good news for warmists observationally, but who knows the next few will make things clear one way or the other. BUT let's have transparency and full peer review.
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@yeah whatever,
you may want to add your name to this ( so may RB):
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CRUSourceCodes/
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Cancer, you also made up a load of tosh.
If you just wanted to say "cool down", then just say it. Don't say "cool down, by the way AGW is a load of codswallop and I don't think it's happening and there's no data and they're all hiding it and I know it cos I've read that people don't agree so they must have something wrong else there wouldn't be anyone saying its wrong, so it's got to be, yeah?".
Because in the second case your message of "cool down" gets kind of lost in the whole load of wasted intelligence you think is an argument.
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tough, do you want copyrights and patents and contractual NDA's briken just because you can't the the version of code you say you want? It's not like there aren't global climate models and raw data enough to run with, is there.
There's plenty and you ask for ONE.
Why?
What are you expecting from that one that isn't in all the other GCMs out there?
Or are you wasting everyone's time with whiney "aaaw I wanna!!!"?
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re 329, you weren't speechless for long, were you.
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re: 328
Uh, you have shown no skepticism and no rationality.
I have given you evidence of the power of CO2.
Do you maintain that the stupendous energy required to heat the atmosphere by that magnitude is BENIGN?
You have been given evidence.
The last time we were 3C higher than the pre-industrial global temperature was when there were a fraction of the humans. We will have a fraction of the human race again if we warm back to that level. Or do you think that 4000 years ago, there were 6 billion humans on the planet?
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PS re 332, "Oh Dear!".
Why "Oh Dear!"?
You ended your rambling tirade on how it's all a conspiracy and how you haven't seen any evidence (because you haven't looked) with "I have put on a steel helmet ready for your blast."
If you expect a blast, why the surprise?
"Gosh, and I was being SOOOO reasonable!".
Yeah.
Whatever.
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Here's some news for those who went "interesting" to the surfacestations.org site.
A report from NOAA on the effect of siting on the temperature trend signal from instrument records:
"Two national time series were made using the same gridding and area averaging technique. One analysis was for the full data set. The other used only the 70 stations that surfacestations.org classified as good or best. We would expect some differences simply due to the different area covered: the 70 stations only covered 43% of the country with no stations in, for example, New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee or North Carolina. Yet the two time series, shown below as both annual data and smooth data, are remarkably similar. Clearly there is no indication for this analysis that poor current siting is imparting a bias in the U.S. temperature trends."
Not quite so interesting for Watts.
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YW
Reur #337
You bring repeated rhetoric about "the power of CO2" and the impact on the human race of the postulated future warming of 3C, but still no empirical evidence for the premise that AGW is a potential serious threat.
Can't you do better than that?
I'm disappointed.
For someone who puts out thousands of words of talk on this blog, you are unable to bring any empirical evidence to convince this rational skeptic that your premise is valid.
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http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update29.htm
Then again, you've not answered my queries as to what sort of thing you'd consider evidence.
All I have is that you don't think there is any.
Which makes it kind of hard to answer.
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I have given you evidence of the power of CO2.
Do you maintain that the stupendous energy required to heat the atmosphere by that magnitude is BENIGN?
If you can't answer that question, then the CO2 can warm the planet and (in YOUR words) potentially be a serious problem.
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"I've explained to you that the NAS panel have said that bristlecones are not suitable for use in temperature reconstructions "
They didn't look because bristlecones didn't affect the picture much or the conclusions at all.
And the hockey stick conclusion EVEN WITH bristlecones was solid.
Unlike your assertion that the Hockey Stick wasn't solid and bristlecones are the reason why.
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YW
You are waffling, but you have still not provided anything other than rhetoric.
Bring empirical evidence that supports your premise that AGW is a potential serious threat.
If you do not even know what empirical evidence means, you are highly unlikely to be able to bring such evidence to support your premise against rational skepticism.
Get with it, YW.
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manacker #340.
"..repeated rhetoric..", "Can't you do better than that?"
#337 is straight copy'n'paste from #291, as is #309; says it all.
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Yeah, jr4412 (#345).
Looks like YW has only one line of rhetoric (but no empirical evidence) to support his premise of a potential serious threat from AGW.
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And all manacker posted was "there is no evidence that AGW is a potential threat".
Why should I work any harder than he does?
"I see no ships" is all he has.
Denial, in other words.
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"And the hockey stick conclusion EVEN WITH bristlecones was solid" (343)
It's like nailing jelly, isn't it?
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Well, what do you mean by "potential serous threat"?
I've clarified what the proof of CO2's effect is. It is significant.
Do you think widespread flooding is going to be no threat?
Do you think that increasing deaths from heatstroke will be no threat?
Do you think that moving the breadbasket of the US Midwest to Canada is not going to be a serious problem? At least for the US and probably the canadians if the USians don't like to rely on Canadian farmers?
But you don't say anything, just parrot "you haven't any empirical evidence" time and time again.
It's easy to say, isn't it.
Justify it.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
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re 348.
What is?
The Hockey Stick was good.
End of story.
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YW
You are apparently confusing talk (which you are good at) with empirical evidence (which you have been unable to provide).
Talking about future floods, droughts, hurricanes and other horrible things to fierce to mention is no empirical evidence that AGW is a potential serious threat. It's just talk.
Max
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Proof has been given.
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"Talking about future floods, droughts, hurricanes and other horrible things"
The Paleocene/Eocene change is, to you, in the FUTURE????
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And if a serious problem has already occurred, it is no longer a *potential* serious problem, it is a serious problem, no potentiality at all.
Do you know what English is?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
Which isn't in the future.
What is a consequence of warmer air? Dryer continental interiors.
What does a dryer continental interior make? Drought.
Is that not a problem?
Not if you hate humans.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave
Which shows that warming on a regional (so, by being a superset, global) scale causes drought.
We have empirical evidence that we are increasing CO2.
We have empirical evidence that CO2 concentration increases produce somewhere around 3C warming per doubling.
But this isn't evidence, it's all just talk, if you're a denialist like Max.
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"We have empirical evidence that CO2 concentration increases produce somewhere around 3C warming per doubling"
Who's we?
"somewhere around" doesn't sound very scientific, either.
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You have it too. It's in the Annan paper. Of course, you'll have to find a grown up to read it for you.
Then again, your lack of education isn't my problem to fix.
It's yours.
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"It's in the Annan pape"
Do you mean Amman? At least I had an education...
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Apparently not.
You couldn't read it.
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Hey, if the CRU data is all hidden and unavailable, how come Bob Carter got hold of it so he could say it tells him that the temperature has gone down since 1998?
If it's not available, Bob's lying.
If it is available, some people here are lying.
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And while here, many people have said it is cooling (since 1998, or 2001, or last seven years, or 10, they never say the same period).
Can someone who says that please supply the data they used to show this.
In decimal figures, rather than off the graph, so I can check it for myself.
And then also tell me what they consider to be the rate of cooling per year over their period. They should have this, since they've said it's cooling.
So that would be the 10 temperature numbers they used to say it's cooling and the number they consider the annual cooling rate to be.
And if you have them, the error bars you're assuming on any number supplied.
Since Max doesn't like just talking, lets to some MATHS!
Get your figures out here and lets do some REAL SCIENCE! Not with models, but with real hand crafted science!
After all, we SHOULD be more open with our data and methods, yes?
So lets start in a small way here.
Data, gentlemen, please!
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YW
You continue with lots of rhetoric but no empirical evidence that AGW is a potential serious problem.
There is a very simple reason why you are unable to cite this empirical evidence.
It is because there is no empirical evidence that AGW is a potential serious problem.
And, as a rational skeptic, I will continue to ask you to provide this empirical evidence to support your premise, rather than just a bunch of hot air.
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You've never been rational, Max.
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You know, Max, I bet you're a real pain when the gas tank is low.
"There's no proof the gas tank is getting empty".
"Nope, that's just a needle pointing to 'E'. That's not proof".
"There's no proof the gas tank is getting empty".
"OK, the gas tank is empty, now lets drive to the nearest petrol station..."
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http://ncas-cms.nerc.ac.uk/html_umdocs/UM55_User_Guide/UM_User_Guide.html
If you want to read what a climate model does.
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http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
For those USians who want to get their own model.
Source code and all.
But if you're not serious, don't expect any free help from NASA on how to compile it.
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YW
Talk is cheap. Gas tank analogies are silly.
Empirical evidence is a bit more difficult to provide.
Keep trying, YW. You are not there yet.
Max
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YW
Climate models outputs are not empirical evidence. Climate models are nothing more than multi-million dollar equivalents of the old slide-rule of the past. They are only as good as the assumptions that are fed in.
Empirical evidence is based upon actual physical observations in the real world, not upon outputs in the virtual reality of the climate models.
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"They didn't look because bristlecones didn't affect the picture much or the conclusions at all."
How could they tell without looking?
"And the hockey stick conclusion EVEN WITH bristlecones was solid."
You've said this before and I've explained why it is not valid (ie the argument was based on the HS having a similar answer to the other studies. But these also used bristlecones). We also know that the verification R^2 for the HS in the AD1400 step was ~0. This is not "solid".
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"the Annan paper" (359)
Oh, you mean Kofi Annan. I thought you were referring to a scientist.
"Data, gentlemen, please!"
I thought that was what Max was asking *you* for. All the ad homs and shouting only emphasise your inability to answer a simple question.
CO2 is a small contributor to the greenhouse effect and our contribution is a small part of that. The climate changes like it always has done, and it seems unlikely that anything we do (or stop doing) will affect it one way or the other. If you can provide real (as opposed to conjectural) evidence that shows otherwise, please do so.
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"Climate models outputs are not empirical evidence."
And what I gave you if you'd bothered to READ THEM were evidence based on OBSERVATION.
Therefore they are for your request empirical evidence.
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"I thought that was what Max was asking *you* for. "
And that's what I gave him.
But he didn't read it and neither did you and so you didn't find out that that had actual observational results in it.
Or do you think the 1930's dustbowl was merely a section of US black and white film archive, made up on the hollywood lot?
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"You've said this before and I've explained why it is not valid (ie the argument was based on the HS having a similar answer to the other studies"
Nope, you've said it was not valid.
But you're wrong.
Or are you saying that you know better than the entire National Academy of Science what their report said?
I gave the link.
Read it.
They say the Mann conclusion in the 1998 paper was correct. Their only issue was that there was greater uncertainty in the decadal averages in the early part of the record. The later part of the reconstruction in Mann's paper was of higher certainty.
You bring up the bristlecones, but that non-temperature related issue is based on CO2 increases being a possible reason for bristlecone pine data to be changing. But that this would only affect the later part of the reconstruction.
The later part of the reconstruction is the part of the data that was of better quality anyway.
So bristlecone data isn't affecting the reconstruction, since there is other high quality data that is used there.
So the NAS in their summary (which you didn't quote, but I did) say that the Hockey Stick is correct.
And subsequent papers agree with that paper whether they used bristlecone pine data or not.
Now, if someone gets the same answer whether they use bristlecone data or not, what do es that tell you about the effect of including bristlecone data?
It tells you that it isn't affecting the output.
If you say it does, please prove it.
The NAS disagree.
So do I.
So prove your case.
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"CO2 is a small contributor to the greenhouse effect"
Prove it. ***Observational*** ***evidence*** says otherwise.
"and our contribution is a small part of that."
Hmm. ***Measurement*** would say otherwise.
1850 CO2 MEASUREMENT: 280ppm
2000 CO2 MEASUREMENT: 390ppm
>100ppm is not a small part.
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You know, this may have been a great demonstration of what denialists are really like.
max and fj are SO CONVINCED that there is no empirical evidence that they don't even bother to look at anything that someone points them to when they ask for such.
And they demand that others be open minded and consider AGW may be wrong.
They haven't really shown the way forward on THAT score, have they.
And Bish's quote mining to make the point he wants to be heard. Another classic tactic. And better yet for showing his kind up, he refuses to read the rest of what he reports. Or only remembers reading the bit that he wants to remember.
Unwilling to think that maybe he's wrong and AGW is happening.
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This has certainly been a great demonstration of what warmists can be like!
"100ppm is not a small part"
Well, it is when you know that the relationship with the GE is logarithmic. I know you know this, but you are choosing not to mention it when doesn't suit your argument.
And I'd be a bit more careful about locking horns with the Bishop over the hockey-stick. I think he might know more about it than either of us:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
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""100ppm is not a small part"
Well, it is when you know that the relationship with the GE is logarithmic."
It's still not a small part.
a 40% increase is a 40% increase no matter that it has gone log.
Did you not do maths at school either?
log (1.4) - log(1) = .336
log (1400) - log (1000) = .336
and a 40% increase is not small.
And if you're using Bish using Climate Audit as a primary source as proof of his capabilities, you're sadly mistaken in thinking that is impressive.
It's an impressive lack of judgment.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
"380. At 11:36am on 27 Jun 2009, fjpickett wrote:
It's a decreasing exponential, as you well know."
Nope, it's not a decreasing exponential. It's logarithmic.
The science says it's logarithmic.
You can fit a curve of decreasing exponential to a logarithmic curve over a very small section, but curve fitting isn't science.
Motl's equation is curve fitted and ignores any science.
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"You bring up the bristlecones, but that non-temperature related issue is based on CO2 increases being a possible reason for bristlecone pine data to be changing. But that this would only affect the later part of the reconstruction.
The later part of the reconstruction is the part of the data that was of better quality anyway."
This is very funny because you demonstrate conclusively that you don't have the faintest clue how the Hockey Stick reconstruction was put together. The hockey stick shape of the bristlecones was overweighted in the final reconstruction because the twentieth century uptick in ring widths correlated to the instrumental record. The better the correlation, the higher the weight. Because of this, the flat medieval sections of the bristlecones largely determines the equivalent part of the final reconstruction. Everyone agrees that the twentieth century growth pattern of bristlecones is not climatic, so the correlation can't be anything other than spurious. Your assertion that the CO2 effect couldn't affect the medieval sections of the reconstruction is therefore hilariously wrong.
You can repeat ad nauseam that the NAS said what they said; it's irrelevant because I haven't disputed what was in their report. They argue, as you rightly point out, that Mann appeared to have arrived at the right answer (despite having used incorrect methodology and unsuitable proxies) since in very broad terms his reconstruction had the same shape as other reconstructions. I have pointed out that they had not examined the proxy databases of the other studies and they hadn't therefore considered the possibility that these used bristlecones too. I don't think you are disputing that this is the case.
This is the flaw in what the NAS panel did and if you want to refute my argument, it is this you need to address. I think this is what you are trying to do in the rest of your comment. You say that other papers also get a hockey stick "whether they use bristlecones or not". Could you clarify exactly what you are suggesting. Is it (a) some other study has done a sensitivity test of removing bristlecones or (b) studies with bristlecones give hockey sticks and studies without bristlecones give hockey sticks. It would be helpful if you would cite the studies you are referring to.
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Hey, I notice that nobody who says the record PROVES cooling has put their data up.
Why?
Do they have somethnig to hide?
It's not like there's a lot of data to pass, so ISP upload limits may be hit, is it.
It's only 15 values for the temperature for the last 15 years (or 8 or 10 or 7 or whatever the figure is today) and one number for what they consider to be the cooling rate per year for that period.
Heck, you could fit all that in an SMS message.
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And you Bish have no idea how to read.
Did the report not say:
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence"
?
Doesn't sound like they say it's wrong to me...
And that's the Mann et al of 1998. That's WITH the bristlecones.
Now, care to say where the change from bristlecones comes into the hockey stick?
You must have the raw data for you to draw out that one proxy amongst many, so lets hear what effect it has on the results. You MUST have them, or you're lying.
"This is the flaw in what the NAS panel did and if you want to refute my argument, it is this you need to address."
Nope, if you believe them for the bristlecone thing but don't beleive them for anything else, you're cherry picking.
And YOU have to prove YOUR assertion that the bristlecone data ruins the result of the 1998 paper.
YOU make the assertion.
YOU prove it.
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You accuse me of not being able to read, but then you say "Doesn't sound like they say it's wrong to me..." when I have said just moments before that I am not disputing what they said....
Strewth. It does look as if you not only don't understand how a temperature reconstruction works, but you have literacy problems yourself.
Regarding the rest of the point, the NAS panel said that Mann's results were "strongly dependent" upon bristlecones. (93% of the variance in the PC1 is bristlecone)
Now, about the clarification of your meaning about these other papers (and the citations you were going to give me)....
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
"You accuse me of not being able to read, but then you say "Doesn't sound like they say it's wrong to me..." when I have said just moments before that I am not disputing what they said...."
Yes you are.
You're saying they are wrong.
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fj, all you have made here are vitriolic attacks. This sort of childish ranting doesn't do your arguments any good.
You also fail to answer any pertinent questions.
All you have are vacuous statements that models aren't science, that climate models are just curve fitting, then to TOP IT ALL you use some weirdo's "decreasing exponential" that doesn't have any science behind it and is picked to fit a curve.
And THEN you get all hissy in 387!
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Bish
And the science is still sound. The conclusions are correct and the bristlecones haven't changed the data.
Come on, either you have the data or you're just believing one person over another AND a group of scientists set together specifically to look at the objections.
Why?
Because you prefer the idea of AGW being wrong?
It seems to be the only reason available.
You have no proof and the source you originally used to bolster your unproven claim that the Hockey Stick is incorrect doesn't agree with you. And so you select only the things they say that you want to be heard.
Cherry picking.
That isn't science.
So odd. You started off with DEMANDING science, not rhetoric. Yet after all this time, all you have is rhetoric. No science.
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I made an earlier post attempting to explain YW's apparent misunderstanding of how the hockey stick was constructed but fell foul of the moderators, probably quite justifiably.
I attempted to reply to the moderators asking which portions of my post they objected to but the email bounced.
While I will happily concede that my post was a teeny bit naughty I am now confused how numerous posts accusing people of lying are passed.
The example below where yeah_whatever appears to knowingly confuse adjusted and raw data is one of many:
'Hey, if the CRU data is all hidden and unavailable, how come Bob Carter got hold of it so he could say it tells him that the temperature has gone down since 1998?
If it's not available, Bob's lying.
If it is available, some people here are lying.'
Any answers?
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"And the science is still sound."
This is an assertion not an argument.
"The conclusions are correct"
Another assertion
"and the bristlecones haven't changed the data."
I think you mean that they haven't changed the result. This appears to suggest that, to add to your lack of understanding of how Mann performed his Hockey Stick reconstruction and literacy issues and not knowing the difference between raw and processed data, you don't understand the difference between data and results.
This is going to be a long haul isn't it?
You clearly don't want to provide a clarification of what you are saying about the other papers, or to provide citations. Or have you given up this line of argument?
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"This is an assertion not an argument"
Nope, it's the result of scientific investigation into the issue.
You know, the NAS who were put to the task of seeing if the complaints about the hockey stick were valid?
They didn't make any effect on the conclusions.
And you yourself admit that not all the subsequent papers had bristlecone data in it, yet they too showed the result.
Now how do you get from there to "the Mann paper is wrong because it included bristlecone data"?
By mere assertion, apparently.
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re 391: "Any answers?"
Yes.
After all, there was no question there apart from "Any answers?" And no would be an answer but negate itself by being so, so "yes" both answers the question and makes itself true.
Now is there anything you'd like to say on your model of how the Hockey Stick comes about?
I've done a -1 to +1 calculation and got the reverse of a hockey stick: the hundreds of runs I plotted (and plotting them took a DARN sight longer than to come up with the 1000 random numbers and add them) came out to no hockey stick but to a champagne glass from where it STARTS to flute out to the bowl.
This is not a hockey stick.
A hockey stick looks very different.
So I need your methodology, since I don't get what you say you got.
Get your methodology. You said you did it yourself and proved it to yourself, so passing it on will get others to check your working out.
It's called "scientific review" and it's a big thing with real science.
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And still no data from anyone who thinks it has gotten colder.
It's not many values to bring up.
Why so shy?
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"The example below where yeah_whatever appears to knowingly confuse adjusted and raw data is one of many:"
But if Bob Carter is using meddled data, how can he say that he's seen cooling? It's not raw data!
Or does he think it's not necessary to have raw data either to draw valid conclusions?
If so, why don't you tell him he's wrong because he hasn't got the raw data.
PS I've seen some satellite raw data. It looks like this:
23 F4 9C 11 00 00 4F
and so on.
So I guess when you get the raw data, it'll not be raw enough if it doesn't show what you want it to show.
Why don't you go to the GISS website. They have the figures they use and it's freely available RIGHT NOW.
Seeing as the US climate research is seeing the same effects as the UK climate research, the data is just as "wrong" (to your way of thinking), so should be just as valid to work with as the UK data (which may be under copyright: remember, the cut and paste I did of the NAS summary was removed because of copyright. This despite copyright not holding for processes of critique or where the copyright holder allows, both of which are true in this case, yet the BBC copyright lawyers reckoned that this couldn't be allowed because it breeched copyright. UK doesn't have "fair use" nor any format-shifting laws like the US).
But I guess if you get the raw data, you'll say it's not right and it's been doctored if it doesn't tell you that you're right.
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"# 380. At 11:36am on 27 Jun 2009, fjpickett wrote:
It's a decreasing exponential, as you well know.
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# 382. At 2:23pm on 27 Jun 2009, yeah_whatever
This comment has been referred to the moderators. Explain.
"
For some reason the response has been put in to moderator by fj.
Probably because I said that it wasn't a decreasing exponential, that it was logarithmic and that Motl's equation had no science and just had picked values to fit the curve in a small area.
fj doesn't like it when his lies are shown up...
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""The conclusions are correct"
Another assertion"
Yes, but it's not my assertion. It's the assertion of the NAS report that YOU brought up as proof that the Hockey Stick was broken.
If you didn't think they were any good, why did you cite their authority?
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If you want to see how the "reason" for global warming changes quickly, have a look at this:
http://www.theboywhodeniedwolf.com/2009/04/google-timeline-reveals-triumph-of-denialism.html
A different day, different reason.
They're flinging muck and hoping some will stick or at least get in your sandwich...
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Un69RMNSw&feature=channel
The denialists he talks about there sound a lot like some of the recent names on here. Especially Max...
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YW
Clarification? Citations? (Third time of asking...)
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"Clarification? Citations? (Third time of asking...)"
Yes it is. When are you going to come up with them?
The only source I've pointed do is the one you brought up to begin with: the NAS report.
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"YW claims to understand mathematics. He could easily find the truth for himself by working through Mann's method. "
So give me Mann's method.
You've said you solved it for yourself personally.
So if it's possible if you take Mann's method, and you've done the check to see it, you must have Mann's method.
So lets have it.
I mean, I have you here, you want me to use it and you have it.
So let's have Mann's method.
Because the one you've given me so far doesn't do what you say.
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"Once more I shall repeat. It is not my methodology that produces hockey sticks but the methodology of prominent hockey stick manufacturers that produces hockey sticks."
And once more I must remind Roy of his words
++++
139. At 00:56am on 22 Jun 2009, RobWansbeck wrote:
As for do I have proof. Not only have I seen proofs but I have confirmed this for myself by producing my own hockey sticks from random data.
+++
You have confirmed it yourself.
So lets see how you did it.
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In #375 you said "And subsequent papers agree with that paper whether they used bristlecone pine data or not."
In #383 I asked you to clarify what you meant by this claim and to cite the papers you refer to.
Could you at least clarify your claim. Or do you not know what you mean?
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"In #383 I asked you to clarify what you meant by this claim and to cite the papers you refer to. "
These are also in the NAS report.
You didn't read it at all, did you...
tut tut.
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YW
I think it's fair to say that I can't be expected to argue with you if you won't say what your arguments are.
To recap: you don't know how a temperature reconstruction works, you don't under the difference between raw and processed data, or between data and results, you have a literacy issue and now you don't know what your arguments are.
If you find out what your arguments are, let me know.
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BTW, thanks to Bishop Hill for recently pointing me to a blog presently discussing hockey stick creation. I won't mention any names to avoid abuse although ironically it was YW's post on realclimate that alerted us.
I made my first hockey stick from random data several years ago. How things have improved since then. This time I downloaded R and a script that automatically downloads the data and method and away I went. I had to download a few additional R packages but was up making hockey sticks in no time.
So YW not only have I made hockey sticks in the past using early temperature reconstruction methods (not, repeat not, my method so don't ask for it) and random data I have now in less than one hour produced hockey sticks using the latest methods. (just to make it clear; not, repeat not, my method so don't ask for it)
I also like the way that you can enter arbitrary data for the instrumental period and the reconstruction automatically selects proxies to give a good match. (really skilful)
Wonderful stuff!
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Rob
You're welcome. It is a good site - well worth a regular visit.
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"For some reason the response has been put in to moderator by fj." (398)
I'm not sure how you would know that, even if it were true, but it's not my style to complain to moderators. If they're happy to let stuff through, I prefer to argue with the author, assuming it's worth debating. I notice that my earlier post (380) has now been spiked - was that you?
The only other times I seem to get into trouble are when I mention Gavin Schmidt's blog, or talk about beer.
BTW, I do know that logarithms are the inverse of exponential functions - I was simply trying to use a generally understood term to explain the non-linear effect of CO2 concentration on warming.
"fj doesn't like it when his lies are shown up..."
No - I don't like it when you falsely accuse me (or anyone else) of lying. Given the amount of posts you fire off in all directions, I doubt you have much time to assimilate what other people say. Shouting everyone with a different point of view down doesn't accomplish much, except perhaps to massage your own ego. And if you think that's "vitriolic", you should try reading some of your own stuff.
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" 410. At 9:11pm on 27 Jun 2009, RobWansbeck wrote:
BTW, thanks to Bishop Hill for recently pointing me to a blog presently discussing hockey stick creation."
Funny. I thought you already had done the work yourself to prove to yourself how the Hockey Stick was made?
The algorithm you used may not have been one you created, but it's one you used to prove it.
So what is it?
Where's the method you used to prove to yourself that you can get a hockey stick from random data?
All I get is something that's not a hockey stick.
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"No - I don't like it when you falsely accuse me (or anyone else) of lying."
Well stop lying, then.
"Shouting everyone with a different point of view.."
The fact that there are multitudinous views shows how there is no theory for something explaining the system, just theories on how AGW is wrong.
That's not science.
It's denial.
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"I think it's fair to say that I can't be expected to argue with you if you won't say what your arguments are. "
If you think that is so bad, what is your proof that bristlecone pine data has tainted the results of the Mann Hockey Stick?
You haven't yet said anything about your proof of this assertion. An assertion that isn't in the NAS report YOU listed.
You accuse others of not revealing their raw data.
Yet you show none for even as simple a question as "What data is it that makes you think the climate is cooling now".
You accuse others of not revealing their methods.
Yet you don't care that Rob isn't saying what method he used.
You accuse people of being closed-minded.
But you never consider that AGW may be right.
You accuse others of what you do.
Then again, you're no scientist.
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I notice that nobody has said anything about the links to the source code for a GCM.
Yet earlier, there was a whole yelling brouhaha about how it was all kept secret.
Seems like they didn't care enough to do any work on it. All they wanted it for is another talking point in the hope people would rather not read up on their assertions.
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"So YW not only have I made hockey sticks in the past using early temperature reconstruction methods (not, repeat not, my method so don't ask for it)"
So what method did you use?
Give the method you used.
Or are you lying and you didn't use any method?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I wonder if fj has checked to see whether Motl's decreasing exponential fits with observational data.
Such as in the paleoclimate record.
Does the heating effect of CO2 under Motl's model create the temperatures in the record with the recorded CO2 levels?
Has he even done the test?