Some Interesting Articles On Global Warming

[Oli 1]

Sorry- have been out this evening so didn't get time. Will reply tomorrow.

And note- I've never seen "An Inconvenient Truth". I prefer not to get my knowledge from movies and TV thanks......

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Oooh fight, fight...

I think there are three things here:

- Weather forecasters can't even get it right two days ahead, let alone 100 years and our climate is so complex, anyone who claims to have a working, accurate model of it is a liar. And that is a fact!

- Where is the evidence that global warming is bad? The whole GW philosophy relies on this, yet there is stacks of historical evidence that actually, whenever the earth has had a warm period there have been times of prosperity, less famine, etc. The global sea-rises and dramatic weather are also over-egged. Even if the CO2-induced warming theories are true, we are all working on the "warm earth is bad" model and there is no evidence to suggest this is the case, esp. when it has been warmer (and greenhouse gases have been higher) in the past.

- I still come back to the NASA-fiddled figures - why are they retro-changing data? why are they changing it in a way that appears to favour GW? I'm not suggesting a conspiracy necessarily, but this data modification is a REALLY important point - even if they are just being lame/inept/wrong it has serious implications.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Oh and check this out: http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm

This is the site that is for the first time auditing and capturing pictures/locations/factors affecting US weather stations.

This particular page highlights a handful of example weather stations which are being used to support the global temperature record, yet are being subjected to external heat sources.

This site: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/categ...ather_stations/

...also provides more info on some of the slightly dodgy locations/historic anomalies in the historic temperature record.

So you telling me that the global temperature record is accurate????

[maure 1]

My talk about the scientific consensus is not to prove GW true. To start with, I simply propose that it makes your talk of conspiracies orchestrated by politicians highly unlikely. I don't deny that there are incentives for scientists to relate their work to GW and that biases are introduced that way. Nevertheless, the vast majority of scientists do genuinely believe in GW. They are not 'prostituting' themselves, as you suggest. In my experience, it is the exact opposite: usually it's the scientists who are urging the politicians to do more to reduce emissions etc.

I'm not trying to bully anyone. If you have good scientific arguments feel free to present them. Like Oli, I think I can refute everything Piotr said, and if you consider that post 'the actual details' of GW then I suspect you are more of a 'layman' in this area than you imply.

Finally, I'm far more interested in your views on feminism. Do elaborate when you have time.

The only reason why you keep bringing up a fictitious "consensus" is because you think it proves "GW true". Inspect your previous posts.

I never spoke of conspiracy, you do. I speak of opportunism. Now tell me that you believe politicians are not opportunistic.

Your knowledge of the scientic community is beyond the hilarious. I said earlier that our very employment is on the line when the scientific debate jumps into the political arena. Grants, promotions, publishing are subject to pressure and this pressure is palpable even by those, like myself, that stand on the fringes of the "debate".

The argument for a consensus _is_ a bully tactic and more so when this consensus is nonexistent.

It is you who has to provide "scientific arguments" in order to support YOUR theory. I remain laughing.

I will give you this to chew on. Your view is that you can be either in favour or against GW, you know, like Bush, "it's a fight between good vs. evil", either you are with us or against us. If you really want to understand my position, you are going to need to have to step outside of that small framework. My contention is _not_ that GW is not caused by human activity. My contention is that the situation is far far far far far worse and far far far far more terrifying than that by several orders of magnitude. Pay close attention now, we _don't_ have yet the means to qualify or quantify the real damage human activity does to the planet. Get it? Thus, when I hear certainty [EDIT]pro or anti GW[/EDIT], I laugh.

[Oli 1]

uuuuuuuuu, my FAVORITE topic!

As a geologist, I look at the Earth history from a perspective of millions of years (anything less than a 100,000 m.y. is temporary and insignificant). I love the ClimateAudit.com, becuase they force the GW proponents on a defensive and expose politically motivated "science" (like NASA adjustments).

Here are a few thoughts (not necessarily connected to each other):

[*]Most news proposing a potential "proof" of GW gets the headlines, while the retractions are not published or get a paragraph on page 32 (examples - the hottest decade of the last 100 years was the 1930's,

In the USA it was, yes. You're assuming that trend is reflected worldwide, and it isn't.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/before-and-after/

the 'hockey stick" diagram showing increase in CO2 vs global temp is statistically dead wrong,

Yes, the principle component analysis technique used by Mann et. al. is wrong. But the same study has been repeated dozens of times since then, and it has been shown that this error really doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the results.

http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=18#_ednref23

the increase in CO2 in atmosphere usually FOLLOWS GW, not causes it,

Have dealt with this one- this has been explained.

Katrina was only Category 3 when it hit New Orleans, etc, etc).

Can't see how that's relevant. I've explained how hurricanes and GW are not necessarily linked, and why this cannot be used as an anti-GW argument.

[*]We are still (temperature-wise) on a rebound after the latest ice age. We are nowhere NEAR the temperatures from before the Ice Age.

Doesn't matter. The world has changed- it doesn't matter what the temperatures were 100,000 years ago. Just because prehistoric proto-man could survive high temperatures doesn't mean our structured society will.

[*]Earth is either cooling, or warming - there never is an "equilibrium." Just look at the temperatures of the last million years.

True- this neither confirms nor denies GW.

[*]If we are so powerful that we could cuase warming of the ENTIRE PLANET, should we worry that things like Kyoto protocol could cause a new Ice Age???

Then we can always stop implementing the Kyoto policies and it'll rebound again. Right?

[Oli 1]

[*]When on August 21, 2008, we can accurately predict weather in Paris for August 15, 2009, I may start looking at the climate models predicting GW. When on this topic, there is roughly the same number of models predicting global cooling, as there is predicting GW, but only the later ones are cited by the IPCC and the press. WHY???

This is a really odd argument. You are focusing on a specific section of a system and trying to extrapolate it to a whole. Imagine an exams board who set an exam one year, and a slightly easier exam the next. You would be able to predict that average result will go up, but you couldn't possibly be expected to predict an individual's result.

Just for giggles, show me a climate model that can explain the observed temperature spike of the last 80 years or so without including an increase in global CO2 in the equation. As far as I know there isn't one.

[*]When you start questioning the basis of the whole GW science, the proponents, instead of trying to defend it, resort to the standard "well, so you thing we should just keep polluting the Earth?" or, my favorite of late " so, you are a Bush supporter?" (???).

Irrelevant.

[*]The Earth climate works on cycles ranging from 11-year Sun Spot cycles to a 140,000 orbit cycles ( I also heard of 650,000 cycle, but don't remember what it is off hand). Insisting that GW is caused by the "green house gasses" emissions of the last 50 years is assinine.

Non-argument. Saying something is "assinine" (sic) is just another form of the argument "I don't know how it happens so it can't be true", often used equally errantly in anti-evolution arguments.

[*]If the "majority of scientists" (aka "consensus") claims my lawn mower causes GW, what is the actual number (%) of these scientists??? I challenge you to find that out. You will not be able to do so. Al Gore used that phrase when citing a study by a historian (?) of 965 climate articles published between 1998 and 2003 (presumeably none disagreed with GW). On the other hand, the latest study (using the same methods) of over 500 articles published 2003 -2007 found that 55% of scientists either disagreed or claimed there is not enough data to support the GW hypothesis.

Nope- the 55% figure you are referring to is that of scientists who made no statements one way or the other, i.e. their position was neutral. This is expected since it's unlikely most of the studies would be intended to address such a broad question.

[*]Yes, I did know that the GW was invented by Margaret Thatcher to support her push for nuclear power. At that time it was contradictory to a "consensus" among scientists regarding the fact that pollution may/will cause global cooling and ice age.

Wrong again. The "Global Cooling" of the 1970s was just a nice story dreamed up by the media. It never had any consensus (or even any serious backing) as a credible scientific theory. The business about Thatcher is just teenage nonsense.

[*]Can we finally agree if the GW is responsible by higher or lower number of hurricanes? At the present, the GW proponents seem to claim both.

Nope. As discussed this is a contentious issue. You can't bundle it in with the question of whether Global Warming is primarily caused by man.

[*]No geologist that I know of can seriously propose any data supporting the idea that the recent (10-20 years?) warm trend is nothing more but a blip in geological scale. In fact, the opinions of geologists are pretty much divided along the ideological lines, with the GW enthusists rarely citing any geological record (which cleraly shows GW is a bunch of politically motivated hysteria).

Geologists and climatologists are not the same. But even if they were I can't see how this proves anything. If the proponents of an argument are idiots, how does this prove that their argument is wrong? Unless you can prove that it's false, the debate continues.

[Oli 1]

Why, again, is GW bad? The last one (Holocene Optimum, or the Middle Ages warming - with average temperatures higher than today) "caused" two crop harvest cycles per year that resulted in so much food, people had time for art and science and that calamity called rennaissance happened. Are we to believe that cold climate that almost killed humanity off (aka Ice Age) is better???

So, did the Vikings caused Global Warming of 850AD to 1050AD????

Could you also clarify why warming of the last 100 years is so unusual and as compared to what (see graph above)???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Ye..._Comparison.png

This is quite a good diagram actually. Yours above MASSIVELY overestimates the errors in Mann's study. The one above is a combination of ten studies and clearly shows a very unusual temperature spike from about 1920 onwards.

The point to remember is that you cannot simplify the climate of the earth in the way that you have done. In such a system, there are positive factors and negative ones, in other words some factors cause the temperature to go up and some for it to go down.

In the past solar activity has been the primary factor in effecting the regular temperature variations visible on any graph of historic global temperature. However this correlation ceased in around 1975- solar activity started to decline, but global temperature continued to go up. Any climate model we come up with has to explain the unusual rise in temperature without resorting to "natural cycles", since those cycles are contraindicatory to the current trends.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Just for giggles, show me a climate model that can explain the observed temperature spike of the last 80 years or so without including an increase in global CO2 in the equation. As far as I know there isn't one.

So you are placing your faith in:

* A historic temperature record that is:

- Known to be based upon temperature stations which are affected by external heat sources

- Known to contain made up information

- Known to contain information which has been generated mathematically (and is subject to question)

- Allegedly containing data which has been and is still being manipulated

- Not necessarily representative of the real globe as it is centred around areas of population

- Is at odds with satellite data

* A climate model that is

- Not yet proven

- Does not sufficiently take account of solar variation

- Does not sufficiently take account of atmospheric turbulence

- Does not sufficiently take account of the effect of cloud formation

Would you bet your money on this?

Hell no.

[Oli 1]

So you are placing your faith in:

* A historic temperature record that is:

- Known to be based upon temperature stations which are affected by external heat sources

- Known to contain made up information

- Known to contain information which has been generated mathematically (and is subject to question)

- Allegedly containing data which has been and is still being manipulated

- Not necessarily representative of the real globe as it is centred around areas of population

- Is at odds with satellite data

* A climate model that is

- Not yet proven

- Does not sufficiently take account of solar variation

- Does not sufficiently take account of atmospheric turbulence

- Does not sufficiently take account of the effect of cloud formation

Would you bet your money on this?

Hell no.

Providing a few pictures of temperature sensors near hot places isn't enough to debunk the tens of thousands of other temperature sensors all over the world I'm afraid. Nor does it explain the satellite data, with which it is NOT at odds (see links relating to this in my first post on the subject).

The urban heat island effect you allude to is well known and adjusted for. In addition it can't explain the satellite data, nor the ocean temperatures etc etc.

Your claims about the climate model are irrelevant if you're claiming that the earth is not getting warmer. A model is only of use to explain empirical results, or predict future results. If you are questioning the model you must have already accepted the empirical evidence.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

Providing a few pictures of temperature sensors near hot places isn't enough to debunk the tens of thousands of other temperature sensors all over the world I'm afraid. Nor does it explain the satellite data, with which it is NOT at odds (see links relating to this in my first post on the subject).

Firstly, it is more than a few.

You've also conveniently ignored the other points I raised, especially that the definition of global is somewhat misleading. As you should know if you have studied this, the bulk of temperature sensors are in the Northern Hemisphere - comparatively very few in Africa, South America and Antarctica. And.... the majority of those are in built-up areas.

Global? Yeah right....

Never mind the made-up data, data being fiddled with and gaps in the data which are filled in mathematically.

The urban heat island effect you allude to is well known and adjusted for.

Bollocks. Prove it. I'm sorry but most scientists don't even know where half the stations are and have not assessed them. So how you can make this claim is beyond me.

In addition it can't explain the satellite data, nor the ocean temperatures etc etc.

See above. You're good at making groundless sweeping generalisations.

Your claims about the climate model are irrelevant if you're claiming that the earth is not getting warmer. A model is only of use to explain empirical results, or predict future results. If you are questioning the model you must have already accepted the empirical evidence.

Giant hairy bollocks. I see, so because I say the data which you think is so great and accurate is wrong, that I can't then look at a model and criticise it?

You don't have to accept a model to be able to criticise it.

Oh yes and not forgetting the current period of cooling, growing ice masses at the poles, rather than shrinking.

And how, just how can GW supporters be so arrogant as to believe they *really* understand the climate that well? Incidentally I am not necessarily a GW sceptic, I just abhor bad science, and this is as about as bad as it gets.

[Oli 1]

Firstly, it is more than a few.

You've also conveniently ignored the other points I raised, especially that the definition of global is somewhat misleading. As you should know if you have studied this, the bulk of temperature sensors are in the Northern Hemisphere - comparatively very few in Africa, South America and Antarctica. And.... the majority of those are in built-up areas.

Again, the evidence contraindicates your claims. If this were the case, then urban areas would be expected to have risen faster in temperature than non-urban areas based on the surface temperature readings; however when the data is analyzed this is shown to be incorrect. This gives you an idea of where the urban centres are:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040822.html

And here is the surface station data compiled into a map, showing rates of increase of surface temperature.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif

And don't try and claim this is proof that man has no effect on temperatures- we both know climate has to be viewed globally rather than locally to provide meaningful results.

See above. You're good at making groundless sweeping generalisations.

http://www.unc.edu/~jcrowder/barnett.html

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/pollack.html

The evidence is plentiful. If you don't believe the surface stations, discount them entirely. The result is the same.

Giant hairy bollocks. I see, so because I say the data which you think is so great and accurate is wrong, that I can't then look at a model and criticise it?

You don't have to accept a model to be able to criticise it.

I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. I don't understand how your problems with the climate model help your case that the Earth is not getting warmer. You can criticise the model if you like, it's just irrelevant in the context of your argument (although not in Piotr's, who accepts that the Earth is warming up but questions whether it is natural or not, a far more reasonable position to take).

Oh yes and not forgetting the current period of cooling, growing ice masses at the poles, rather than shrinking.

All the available evidence points the other way. I'd be interested to see a study which proves that the ice caps aren't melting. The sea is rising, so where's that water coming from? Cosmic water cannons?

And how, just how can GW supporters be so arrogant as to believe they *really* understand the climate that well? Incidentally I am not necessarily a GW sceptic, I just abhor bad science, and this is as about as bad as it gets.

The old "we can't possibly understand what's going on" theory again. We don't understand why the Earth's warming up so it isn't. Also, don't extrapolate my arrogance to GW proponents as a whole. That's equally bad science .

[Max Mosley 2]

Mind, that I use the above for reference to studies only. I don't take his words for granted. Independently, I verify the above in several sources. To date, I am not aware of any serious publication disputing SCIENCE (what little there is) of the above piece. I'm sure you will attack the source, but please, show me where this is wrong (without destroying the myth of "consensus" created by AlGore).

Daily Tech is a very poor website for science, so yes, you're right: I did attack the source. But there is a serious point here. You have been misled by your shoddy sources. There are very many people who dispute Schulte's work.

First let's take Schulte's study at face value. He claims that 45% of the papers supported GW (explicitly or implicitly) and only 6% disagreed with it. The remaining 48% (after rounding down) neither rejected nor accepted the theory. I strongly suspect (for reasons given below) that this means they offered no opinion at all on GW. They were probably addressing things like methods used, rather than the issues themselves. It is therefore incorrect to pretend those papers disagreed with GW - they simply weren't about it in the first place! Of those papers that expressed an opinion one way or the other on GW, the theory was supported by a ratio of 45:6. In other words about 90% of them backed the theory.

Now let's examine how credible Schulte's study really is. It was never published at all - not even on the internet(!) as far as I can tell, and certainly not in any peer-reviewed journal. He submitted it to Science, but they rejected it. He then submitted it to a relatively obscure journal, but they rejected it too. Piotr, have you ever read the original report by Schulte? If not I find it incredible that you would make such use of something nobody in the world has read.

From what little information we have about Schulte's report, it seems as though it is full of mistakes. One of Schulte's buddies has somehow managed to get a copy of the report and has decided to post excerpts, unfortunately for Schulte, as it turns out. Christopher Monckton (a British politician) has posted a list of 7 of the papers Schulte claims reject GW. In fact only 3 of them do, as can be seen here and here and here etc. Presumably these 7 are some of the most convincing examples, so the fact that he scores 3/7 here doesn't bode well.

Let's look at one of these 3 examples in detail. This paper is one that (Monckton tells us) Schulte claims rejects GW. Can you read it and tell me what basis Schulte has for claiming that? The 2nd to last sentence of the paper reads: '[...] future impacts on coastal areas may be far more costly - financially and socially - than most current coastal impacts studies for developed nations acknowledge'. Seems to me that if anything they implicitly endorse GW, rather than rejecting it.

If this is the kind of paper Schulte is claiming rejects GW then we can only imagine what the ones he called 'neutral' are like! According to Oreskes, most of the papers in her survey did not explicitly endorse GW, they simply worked on the basis that it is true. As you know, geologists don't write papers saying explicitly 'in conclusion we believe the earth is round, rather than flat'. Of course they don't say that, it is simply an unspoken assumption that they take for granted. No doubt some of the papers Schulte called 'neutral' were of this form, and no doubt some others didn't address GW at all. For example, we should expect there to be a great many papers on methods, rather than GW itself.

People's work should be judged on its merits, but you criticised Oreskes for being an historian. In fact she has a joint PhD in both Geology and History of Science from Stanford, so she has an almost perfect background to do this kind of survey. You called Schulte on the other hand a scientist, when in fact he is a medical doctor! His reason for doing this work was that his psychiatric patients were anxious about climate change!

A devastating criticism of Schulte's work, including proof of plagiarism, can be found here. But the funny thing is that the work he's plagiarising (via his buddy, the British politician) and calling science has been withdrawn by the original author, who admits he was 'mistaken'. Honestly, I couldn't make this stuff up!

Oooh fight, fight...

I think there are three things here:

- Weather forecasters can't even get it right two days ahead, let alone 100 years and our climate is so complex, anyone who claims to have a working, accurate model of it is a liar. And that is a fact!

- Where is the evidence that global warming is bad? The whole GW philosophy relies on this, yet there is stacks of historical evidence that actually, whenever the earth has had a warm period there have been times of prosperity, less famine, etc. The global sea-rises and dramatic weather are also over-egged. Even if the CO2-induced warming theories are true, we are all working on the "warm earth is bad" model and there is no evidence to suggest this is the case, esp. when it has been warmer (and greenhouse gases have been higher) in the past.

- I still come back to the NASA-fiddled figures - why are they retro-changing data? why are they changing it in a way that appears to favour GW? I'm not suggesting a conspiracy necessarily, but this data modification is a REALLY important point - even if they are just being lame/inept/wrong it has serious implications.

There is a difference between weather and climate. While we can't predict the weather perfectly 2 days from now, we can say that summer in Iraq will likely still be hotter than winter in Sweden in 2050. Nevertheless you're right that there are lots of unanswered questions and the models are very far from perfect. The debate is whether that uncertainty is enough to justify not acting to avert possible GW.

A huge number of people live very close to sea level, for obvious reasons, so a small change in sea level can be a serious problem. I personally don't think it's such an insurmountable problem either, but the best way to tackle it might well be to reduce emissions, rather than leave London below sea level - especially considering what happened in New Orleans. And the Bangladeshis will no doubt be even more keen to protect their country.

I don't know why NASA are 'retro-changing' their data. What does retro-changing mean? (How could we pre-change data?) Frankly NASA are incompetent sometimes, but still, the majority of their research is good in the end.

The only reason why you keep bringing up a fictitious "consensus" is because you think it proves "GW true". Inspect your previous posts.

Actually there are lots of reasons to bring it up. You keep trying to pretend there is no consensus, so I keep disputing that.

I never spoke of conspiracy, you do. I speak of opportunism. Now tell me that you believe politicians are not opportunistic.

Your knowledge of the scientic community is beyond the hilarious. I said earlier that our very employment is on the line when the scientific debate jumps into the political arena. Grants, promotions, publishing are subject to pressure and this pressure is palpable even by those, like myself, that stand on the fringes of the "debate".

I've already agreed that politicians are opportunistic and that many scientists are under some pressure to go along with GW. If only a few scientists were defending GW then you would have a plausible case that they are 'prostituting' themselves, especially if you could show that they had benefited from that stance. But when the vast majority of scientists genuinely believe in GW, you have no case. Can you give me one major scientific organisation that stands up for its supposed principles and denies GW?

My contention is _not_ that GW is not caused by human activity. My contention is that the situation is far far far far far worse and far far far far more terrifying than that by several orders of magnitude. Pay close attention now, we _don't_ have yet the means to qualify or quantify the real damage human activity does to the planet. Get it?

Do you think we should reduce CO2 emissions now or not?

[Piotr 0]

Oooh fight, fight...

I think there are three things here:

- Weather forecasters can't even get it right two days ahead, let alone 100 years and our climate is so complex, anyone who claims to have a working, accurate model of it is a liar. And that is a fact!

- Where is the evidence that global warming is bad? The whole GW philosophy relies on this, yet there is stacks of historical evidence that actually, whenever the earth has had a warm period there have been times of prosperity, less famine, etc. The global sea-rises and dramatic weather are also over-egged. Even if the CO2-induced warming theories are true, we are all working on the "warm earth is bad" model and there is no evidence to suggest this is the case, esp. when it has been warmer (and greenhouse gases have been higher) in the past.

- I still come back to the NASA-fiddled figures - why are they retro-changing data? why are they changing it in a way that appears to favour GW? I'm not suggesting a conspiracy necessarily, but this data modification is a REALLY important point - even if they are just being lame/inept/wrong it has serious implications.

VEry simple indeed. the main guy at NASA is Mr. Hansen, who received over $750,000 in speking fees promoting Global Warming. Now he hides behind NASA front to do the same. Here is something interesting:

http://launchmagonline.com/index.php/Viewp...-not-Bliss.html

"It doesn

[Piotr 0]

Oh and check this out: http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm

This is the site that is for the first time auditing and capturing pictures/locations/factors affecting US weather stations.

This particular page highlights a handful of example weather stations which are being used to support the global temperature record, yet are being subjected to external heat sources.

This site: http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/categ...ather_stations/

...also provides more info on some of the slightly dodgy locations/historic anomalies in the historic temperature record.

So you telling me that the global temperature record is accurate????

Yup, I've seen them. Some are hilarious. Like a weather station measuring Global Temperature directly at the exhaust of a window AC.

[Piotr 0]

In the USA it was, yes. You're assuming that trend is reflected worldwide, and it isn't.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/before-and-after/

Cute, but still it fails to indicate that the "beginning of the record" (i.e. 1880) was in the middle of Little Ice Age and the span of 100 years is laughable when speaking of global temp cycles. Remember, an "orbit wobble" mostly believed by an "overwhelming majority of geologists" to be responsible for the global climate cycles is repeated 144,000 years. YOU are saying that a 100 years counted from an obviously anomalous cold period (and that one lasted about 500 years) is proof of anthropogenic source of Global Warming? Are you kidding me or yourself???

Yes, the principle component analysis technique used by Mann et. al. is wrong. But the same study has been repeated dozens of times since then, and it has been shown that this error really doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the results.

http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=18#_ednref23

It's not just the error, it's Mann's use of proxies that in 2006 was deemed to disqualify the hockey stick. The worst part - no warm Medieval period - Mann simply ignored it's presence.

Have dealt with this one- this has been explained.

Yes, and I have dealt with your explanation - just flippin' look at the graphs.

Can't see how that's relevant. I've explained how hurricanes and GW are not necessarily linked, and why this cannot be used as an anti-GW argument.

It's relevenat because pro GW people are jumping on short-term anomalies trying to point out that they PROVE GW will be catastrophic and is "the worst ever". When this "proof" blows up in their faces, they quickly and without batting an eye reverse themselves 180 degrees just to show that they are right. When Katrina hit, it was "the worst hurricane in 100 years and proof of how bad GW will be." Well, not only Katrina was nothing more than an average hurricane, we now experienced several years of lower than nomar activity. The GW-mongers are split - some explain this as an "irrelevant anomaly" and the others now claim that GW will actually DECREASE hurricane frequency (so where is the catastrophic weather???). I guess that way no matter WHAT happens, somebody can point at it as proof of man-made GW.

Doesn't matter. The world has changed- it doesn't matter what the temperatures were 100,000 years ago. Just because prehistoric proto-man could survive high temperatures doesn't mean our structured society will.

???? this is typical of a pro man-made GW prophecies. No matter that what we observe is neither "abnormal" nor attributable to human activities - we simply cannot survive the change (quick, somebody tell this to O(s)bama). But, you see, if the same temperatures were about during the Viking conquest, then Kyoto will not change anything, because, based on the most basic principle of superposition(the natural processes we see today were also taking place in the past with similar results) if the warming 1000 years ago cannot be attributed to human activity, neither can the current (brief) warming period. ooops.

True- this neither confirms nor denies GW.

And that is the best we can say about the whole deal

Then we can always stop implementing the Kyoto policies and it'll rebound again. Right?

1. Yes

2. WHO is really implementing Kyoto? the latest I heard NOBODY does it. I guess people are getting smarter...

[Piotr 0]

Again, the evidence contraindicates your claims. If this were the case, then urban areas would be expected to have risen faster in temperature than non-urban areas based on the surface temperature readings; however when the data is analyzed this is shown to be incorrect. This gives you an idea of where the urban centres are:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040822.html

And here is the surface station data compiled into a map, showing rates of increase of surface temperature.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif

And don't try and claim this is proof that man has no effect on temperatures- we both know climate has to be viewed globally rather than locally to provide meaningful results.

http://www.unc.edu/~jcrowder/barnett.html

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/pollack.html

The evidence is plentiful. If you don't believe the surface stations, discount them entirely. The result is the same.

I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. I don't understand how your problems with the climate model help your case that the Earth is not getting warmer. You can criticise the model if you like, it's just irrelevant in the context of your argument (although not in Piotr's, who accepts that the Earth is warming up but questions whether it is natural or not, a far more reasonable position to take).

All the available evidence points the other way. I'd be interested to see a study which proves that the ice caps aren't melting. The sea is rising, so where's that water coming from? Cosmic water cannons?

The old "we can't possibly understand what's going on" theory again. We don't understand why the Earth's warming up so it isn't. Also, don't extrapolate my arrogance to GW proponents as a whole. That's equally bad science .

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2815

I simply cannot copy and paste fast enough to refute all of the above, but here is an examply about "urban correction" by NASA.

Please note, that your 2005 and 2004 articles and editorials are old and outdated. I strongly suggest we stick to the 2007 and 2008 material as most of the 2003-2006 stuff has been refuted in the past 2 years.

[Piotr 0]

Daily Tech is a very poor website for science, so yes, you're right: I did attack the source. But there is a serious point here. You have been misled by your shoddy sources. There are very many people who dispute Schulte's work.

First let's take Schulte's study at face value. He claims that 45% of the papers supported GW (explicitly or implicitly) and only 6% disagreed with it. The remaining 48% (after rounding down) neither rejected nor accepted the theory. I strongly suspect (for reasons given below) that this means they offered no opinion at all on GW. They were probably addressing things like methods used, rather than the issues themselves. It is therefore incorrect to pretend those papers disagreed with GW - they simply weren't about it in the first place! Of those papers that expressed an opinion one way or the other on GW, the theory was supported by a ratio of 45:6. In other words about 90% of them backed the theory.

Now let's examine how credible Schulte's study really is. It was never published at all - not even on the internet(!) as far as I can tell, and certainly not in any peer-reviewed journal. He submitted it to Science, but they rejected it. He then submitted it to a relatively obscure journal, but they rejected it too. Piotr, have you ever read the original report by Schulte? If not I find it incredible that you would make such use of something nobody in the world has read.

From what little information we have about Schulte's report, it seems as though it is full of mistakes. One of Schulte's buddies has somehow managed to get a copy of the report and has decided to post excerpts, unfortunately for Schulte, as it turns out. Christopher Monckton (a British politician) has posted a list of 7 of the papers Schulte claims reject GW. In fact only 3 of them do, as can be seen here and here and here etc. Presumably these 7 are some of the most convincing examples, so the fact that he scores 3/7 here doesn't bode well.

Let's look at one of these 3 examples in detail. This paper is one that (Monckton tells us) Schulte claims rejects GW. Can you read it and tell me what basis Schulte has for claiming that? The 2nd to last sentence of the paper reads: '[...] future impacts on coastal areas may be far more costly - financially and socially - than most current coastal impacts studies for developed nations acknowledge'. Seems to me that if anything they implicitly endorse GW, rather than rejecting it.

If this is the kind of paper Schulte is claiming rejects GW then we can only imagine what the ones he called 'neutral' are like! According to Oreskes, most of the papers in her survey did not explicitly endorse GW, they simply worked on the basis that it is true. As you know, geologists don't write papers saying explicitly 'in conclusion we believe the earth is round, rather than flat'. Of course they don't say that, it is simply an unspoken assumption that they take for granted. No doubt some of the papers Schulte called 'neutral' were of this form, and no doubt some others didn't address GW at all. For example, we should expect there to be a great many papers on methods, rather than GW itself.

People's work should be judged on its merits, but you criticised Oreskes for being an historian. In fact she has a joint PhD in both Geology and History of Science from Stanford, so she has an almost perfect background to do this kind of survey. You called Schulte on the other hand a scientist, when in fact he is a medical doctor! His reason for doing this work was that his psychiatric patients were anxious about climate change!

A devastating criticism of Schulte's work, including proof of plagiarism, can be found here. But the funny thing is that the work he's plagiarising (via his buddy, the British politician) and calling science has been withdrawn by the original author, who admits he was 'mistaken'. Honestly, I couldn't make this stuff up!

There is a difference between weather and climate. While we can't predict the weather perfectly 2 days from now, we can say that summer in Iraq will likely still be hotter than winter in Sweden in 2050. Nevertheless you're right that there are lots of unanswered questions and the models are very far from perfect. The debate is whether that uncertainty is enough to justify not acting to avert possible GW.

A huge number of people live very close to sea level, for obvious reasons, so a small change in sea level can be a serious problem. I personally don't think it's such an insurmountable problem either, but the best way to tackle it might well be to reduce emissions, rather than leave London below sea level - especially considering what happened in New Orleans. And the Bangladeshis will no doubt be even more keen to protect their country.

I don't know why NASA are 'retro-changing' their data. What does retro-changing mean? (How could we pre-change data?) Frankly NASA are incompetent sometimes, but still, the majority of their research is good in the end.

Actually there are lots of reasons to bring it up. You keep trying to pretend there is no consensus, so I keep disputing that.

I've already agreed that politicians are opportunistic and that many scientists are under some pressure to go along with GW. If only a few scientists were defending GW then you would have a plausible case that they are 'prostituting' themselves, especially if you could show that they had benefited from that stance. But when the vast majority of scientists genuinely believe in GW, you have no case. Can you give me one major scientific organisation that stands up for its supposed principles and denies GW?

Do you think we should reduce CO2 emissions now or not?

Please note, that Schultes work uses (or claims to use) the same standards as the Oreske study did, which is cited by all of the GW proponents as proof positive of the "consensus." Do you know of any other source that gives specific numbers?? I surely don't There simply isn't one. SO if you reject Schulte's work, you must (unless you are a hypocryte) reject the ONLY OTHER STUDY that used the same methods to show how practically every scientists supports the GW hypothesis.

Again, you are claiming "vast majority" of scientist. PLEASE cite a study and percentages to validate your statement!!!!

[Piotr 0]

Great graph to illustrate my point about fallacy of the "hottest year on record" with the record starting during the Little Ice Age (1880). If we take 1998 ("hottest year on record") we can prove that we are in the Global Cooling period

This is exactly what my point about "the last 100 years " of climate change does. Why are we using 100 years??? why not start from 1999 or 2000?? Oh, that's right- that's when the GW theory goes outta window...

[Max Mosley 2]

Please note, that Schultes work uses (or claims to use) the same standards as the Oreske study did, which is cited by all of the GW proponents as proof positive of the "consensus."

No, Piotr! Schulte claims to have used the same standards as Oreske. Problem is, my previous post proves that his methods were flawed and his report is discredited. Oreske's study doesn't suffer from any of the same flaws.

Do you know of any other source that gives specific numbers?? I surely don't There simply isn't one. SO if you reject Schulte's work, you must (unless you are a hypocryte) reject the ONLY OTHER STUDY that used the same methods to show how practically every scientists supports the GW hypothesis.

Again, you are claiming "vast majority" of scientist. PLEASE cite a study and percentages to validate your statement!!!!

I will give you studies to justify my views in due course. But you're raising a lot of points and not actually thinking any of them through. Let's take it one issue at a time. Do you still think the Schulte study was worth the paper it was never published on?

[Oli 1]

In the USA it was, yes. You're assuming that trend is reflected worldwide, and it isn't.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/before-and-after/

Cute, but still it fails to indicate that the "beginning of the record" (i.e. 1880) was in the middle of Little Ice Age and the span of 100 years is laughable when speaking of global temp cycles. Remember, an "orbit wobble" mostly believed by an "overwhelming majority of geologists" to be responsible for the global climate cycles is repeated 144,000 years. YOU are saying that a 100 years counted from an obviously anomalous cold period (and that one lasted about 500 years) is proof of anthropogenic source of Global Warming? Are you kidding me or yourself???

Nice try but you need to read the thread again I think. You claimed that the 1930s were the hottest decade in the last century in support of your argument. I am merely showing that this particular argument is totally wrong. This in itself doesn't prove or disprove global warming- I am merely showing the bad science behind your reasoning.

Yes, the principle component analysis technique used by Mann et. al. is wrong. But the same study has been repeated dozens of times since then, and it has been shown that this error really doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the results.

http://cce.890m.com/?page_id=18#_ednref23

It's not just the error, it's Mann's use of proxies that in 2006 was deemed to disqualify the hockey stick. The worst part - no warm Medieval period - Mann simply ignored it's presence.

And the other nine studies in the graph I showed you?

Have dealt with this one- this has been explained.

Yes, and I have dealt with your explanation - just flippin' look at the graphs.

No you didn't deal with it- you merely repeated your earlier, out-of-date claim that carbon lag disproves global warming, a theory which was debunked in the studies I cited. You then proceeded to show some crappy wikipedia graph along with a paper that supports my argument. Are you even reading what you're posting??

Can't see how that's relevant. I've explained how hurricanes and GW are not necessarily linked, and why this cannot be used as an anti-GW argument.

It's relevenat because pro GW people are jumping on short-term anomalies trying to point out that they PROVE GW will be catastrophic and is "the worst ever". When this "proof" blows up in their faces, they quickly and without batting an eye reverse themselves 180 degrees just to show that they are right. When Katrina hit, it was "the worst hurricane in 100 years and proof of how bad GW will be." Well, not only Katrina was nothing more than an average hurricane, we now experienced several years of lower than nomar activity. The GW-mongers are split - some explain this as an "irrelevant anomaly" and the others now claim that GW will actually DECREASE hurricane frequency (so where is the catastrophic weather???). I guess that way no matter WHAT happens, somebody can point at it as proof of man-made GW.

I can't see how I can explain this more clearly. The link between hurricanes and global warming is a completely seperate issue, one on which many scientists disagree (a fact reflected in the IPCC report). The link between carbon emissions and the earth heating up is not the same argument.

Doesn't matter. The world has changed- it doesn't matter what the temperatures were 100,000 years ago. Just because prehistoric proto-man could survive high temperatures doesn't mean our structured society will.

???? this is typical of a pro man-made GW prophecies. No matter that what we observe is neither "abnormal" nor attributable to human activities - we simply cannot survive the change (quick, somebody tell this to O(s)bama). But, you see, if the same temperatures were about during the Viking conquest, then Kyoto will not change anything, because, based on the most basic principle of superposition(the natural processes we see today were also taking place in the past with similar results) if the warming 1000 years ago cannot be attributed to human activity, neither can the current (brief) warming period. ooops.

Evidently you didn't read any of the links I posted. This is what I was afraid of in typing all this out- that you weren't going to listen to anything I said. We are in a cooling cycle, and yet the earth is warming. This means there is another factor at work.

Good call on the "Obama"/"Osama" pun. Very adult- you should be a politican......

True- this neither confirms nor denies GW.

And that is the best we can say about the whole deal

Nope, as I've explained already.

[Oli 1]

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2815

I simply cannot copy and paste fast enough to refute all of the above, but here is an examply about "urban correction" by NASA.

As I've said, if urban warming is exaggerated then you would expect to see a disproportionate temperature increase in urban centers. This is not the case, as I showed above. Nor does it account for the bore readings and satellite data.

Please note, that your 2005 and 2004 articles and editorials are old and outdated. I strongly suggest we stick to the 2007 and 2008 material as most of the 2003-2006 stuff has been refuted in the past 2 years.

That's a very weak argument. The usefulness of a study does not automatically expire at some predetermined time. If what I show has been refuted you should be able to show me where. You've been quoting articles from as far back as 1993, but I have refuted them rather than ignored them.

[Quiet One 15]

Sorry for interrupting with a rather trivial comment but I keep noticing that usually the anti GW comments are accompanied with expressions like "pro GW mongrels", "domm predictors" along with snide attacks to Obama , Al Gore et al.

The level of hatred that most of those websites/posters transpire, with the added factor that they NEVER go past the "X is wrong, somebody must be behind all this" without not giving a single plausible explanation on why would the NASA, the United Nations, most (yes most) scientists, Greenpeace and the vast majority of develping countries agree in such a ridiculous conspiracy proves me that the anti GW doesn't really cares whether GW is a fact or not. They just hate Al Gore/Obama/Greenpeace's guts and keep trying to make a theory out of it.

[Medilloni 6]

Sorry for interrupting with a rather trivial comment but I keep noticing that usually the anti GW comments are accompanied with expressions like "pro GW mongrels", "domm predictors" along with snide attacks to Obama , Al Gore et al.

The level of hatred that most of those websites/posters transpire, with the added factor that they NEVER go past the "X is wrong, somebody must be behind all this" without not giving a single plausible explanation on why would the NASA, the United Nations, most (yes most) scientists, Greenpeace and the vast majority of develping countries agree in such a ridiculous conspiracy proves me that the anti GW doesn't really cares whether GW is a fact or not. They just hate Al Gore/Obama/Greenpeace's guts and keep trying to make a theory out of it.

I don't think it's 'hate' Quiet One, I think it's just massive frustration, short-term anger with each other. I don't think that Piotr and Oli hate each other either, they're too intelligent for that (emotionally, not academically ) - but this has become one of those subjects like religion (I'll leave sex out of it for now ) where beliefs are exceptionally strong, and there's enough fodder to feed both sides comfortably....

Conspiracies? Anything that can be used by governments to herd the masses will be seen as a conspiracy by those asked to pay I suppose. Whether there's one here or not doesn't interest me, the outcome will be exactly the same - in that if governments can use for-or-against GW to their own ends (taxation for example) then they have got what they want. If they massage the figures according to their agenda, it won't be anything new.

My frustration (and anger, to be honest) is that no-one has provided irrefutable evidence in a way that anyone can understand. The vast majority of people being asked to believe GW aren't scientists, indeed a great many won't be educated enough to understand a word that's said about it. So now what do we have? A situation where science/GW has become God and all must worship those that sail in Him?

A few days ago you said (something like, apologies if I'm wrong!) " ....I can't understand why it's so hard for people to understand....GW..." I feel just as strongly, almost, in reverse, I can't understand why such a huge number of people have made it their crusade, when both sides have massive gaps, flaws and 'adjusted' information they put forward to support their case. That's the buggar for me. If both sides of the debate (I don't mean on here!) used their large foreheads to explain to non-scientific people what they have deduced, then they'd have a chance. But most scientists don't do that, comunicating their ideas/work/findings to the comunity at large is very difficult for them, indeed, they p!ss in the shoes of their neighbours in a mens bog (don't ask me about female scientists...).

So... I'm anti GW because most pro-GW people generally portray man being responsible for ALL GW and impending armegedon, though I care very much whether it's a fact or not, I also care just as much about whether it's not a fact very much too. I want the truth, and when wrong figures are used (from either side!) I want them to be honest and admit it. Not admitting to mistakes (or keeping them quiet) helps to stir those that yell 'conspiracy!'.

That won't happen, so I'll stay with my belief (from the information I've had to hand, and the amount of salt I've taken with it) that GW exists, it's existed since the world began, it will always evolve onto another label people want to use at that time (Global Freezing, Global Nothing Is Happening, Global Showers) to bang their drum. Man's (modern) existence will affect the Earth compared to if he didn't exist, and we should try not to make the difference between the two too great, but there can't be no difference.

Now where were we? Oh yes, how much of GW is man's contribution, how much is other contributors donation (burning forrests, cow farts etc)? If that can be answered, truthfully and indisputably then those that are 'paying' to keep GW down won't be so p!ssed off.

[Jenson_Rules 0]

I only have one thing to say, why is Mars getting warmer, why are the ice caps on Saturn's moons melting? Why is the Sun getting hotter, oh let me think, because some of us drive SUV's! Of course.

Global Warming caused by Humans is a pile of bulls##t. The global temperature is still less than it was in the middle ages, and did they have gas guzzlers, factories, power plants, industry?

That is all

Oh and the Sun IS getting hotter, it is Scientific FACT that the sun gets hotter and then cools, it has happened all throughout time, and currently the Sun IS getting hotter, this is Scientific FACT!

[spitfire 0]

Sorry for interrupting with a rather trivial comment but I keep noticing that usually the anti GW comments are accompanied with expressions like "pro GW mongrels", "domm predictors" along with snide attacks to Obama , Al Gore et al.

The level of hatred that most of those websites/posters transpire, with the added factor that they NEVER go past the "X is wrong, somebody must be behind all this" without not giving a single plausible explanation on why would the NASA, the United Nations, most (yes most) scientists, Greenpeace and the vast majority of develping countries agree in such a ridiculous conspiracy proves me that the anti GW doesn't really cares whether GW is a fact or not. They just hate Al Gore/Obama/Greenpeace's guts and keep trying to make a theory out of it.

One word my friend POWER!!