This blog provides a forum for the exchange of ideas about climate science and the science-policy interface. Climate Etc. is envisioned as a gathering place for climate researchers, academics and technical experts from other fields, citizen scientists, and the interested public. Open minds and critical thinking are required, and stimulating discussion and group learning is expected.
My engagement in the blogosphere over the past several years have convinced me that the blogosphere has untapped potential for educating the public and for enabling large-scale collective intelligence to address the scientific and policy challenges associated with climate change.
The climate blogosphere is a vibrant environment but the signal is often hidden by the noise. Towards separating the signal from the noise, Climate Etc. will experiment with different formats. To start, Climate Etc. will try three different types of threads, with different types and levels of moderation:
• Technical threads, written by myself or a guest or crowd sourced, with moderated comments that are expected to advance the technical dialogue. The idea is to have a focused and snark-free environment in which academics and other technical experts with little or no blogging experience will feel comfortable engaging with the broader community.
• Commentary threads, on topical issues related to the climate science-policy interface and the philosophy, sociology, and politics of science and its institutions. Comments will be moderated for netiquette and lightly moderated for relevance and excessive length.
• Open threads, with comments moderated only for netiquette and length, which can include a less formal discussion of topics on the technical threads, general observations and reflections on the dialectic, as well as bringing up new topics. Signals will be sought for new threads and also for raising issues on currently active technical threads. Depending on traffic, a new open thread will be started weekly.
I look forward to your reactions, opinions, suggestions, and ideas. Please check out the blog rules before posting your comment. Any advice (technical, moderation, etc.) from veteran bloggers would be most appreciated. Thank you for your participation!
On this thread, please limit your comment to 250 words or less and not more than 2 links.
testing
It could well be, very “testing” indeed.
Congratulations, and good hunting.
yours,
Derek.
Thanks Derek
Welcome to the madhouse.
I should have posted this first, but just had to respond to a comment on the way through – and I was delighted to find subsequently that you had invoked “Nullius in verba” yourself. It is at the core of the whole AGW problem.
You have started with very high ideals, and I wish you every success while doubting that you have enough hours per day to achieve them.
What is missing in this arena (climate blogosphere) is an accumulating statement of knowns / unknowns / alternatives in climate science. It would be theoretically possible (and very desirable) for you to synthesise such a statement from posts and comments on this blog. What tends to happen in blogs is that a topic is raised, discussed with varying levels of ferocity, …. and then the blog moves on to a new topic. What is needed is for some sort of succinct summary of the topic to remain in a well-organised summary section as a permanent reference. The result would be large (the IPCC Report is many hundred pages) but valuable as an unbiased and reasonably open alternative to the IPCC Report. I don’t think I am at all alone in thinking that the IPCC Report is a thoroughly biased and unreliable document, and that we deserve something better.
Mike, thanks for your thoughtful comment. The approach I am planning is to tackle individual topics (much broader than a single chapter, say equivalent to a subsection in the IPCC report) and provide an assessment of the knowns/unknowns. See what you think of my approach on the hurricane thread tomorrow, and I hope the commenters will fill in with further details and challenge and clarify my assessment.
I’ve been thinking along the same lines as Mike Jonas. The advantage of organizing it in a structure identical to the IPCC report is that it makes it easy to see how science has advanced since the last IPCC report was written. This is a big deal because there are several years between IPCC reports so they are not current for long.
When I was in grad school, a common topic for papers was the survey paper. Typically some Phd student would summarize the literature in a particular area. He/she got a paper out of it and everybody else in the field could read this one survey paper to understand the state of the art/science in that area. If you link to the relevant survey papers for each section of the IPCC report, people can quickly read the survey paper to understand what has been going on in recent years in that area.
You could also link to more detailed papers that are relevant and important that did not make it into the last IPCC report. This would be a mechanism for making the IPCC report more inclusive. Why shouldn’t the state of climate science be defined by climate scientists with no interference from the UN or governments?
Obviously this would be a lot of work but it it could be addressed in a distributed fashion by letting qualified scientists take over responsibility for that particular section of the IPCC report update.
Great suggestion. I’ve always thought a type of flowchart would be helpful, showing where threads/ideas branch or dead-end, confirmed or refuted. Graphics can be very helpful in communicating flow/connections.
Congratulations, Judith! I’m delighted to finally see a front-end for your blogospheric endeavours! Not before time! :) Best of luck!
Thanks Simon, I’m hoping for a saner environment for my blogospheric activities, it is really difficult posting on a range of different blogs
I look forward to reading your blog.
I have certainly enjoyed reading your comments on other blogs, and hope you enjoy your own blog.
Thanks Rick
Looking forward to your blog especially the discussions on hurricanes and climate!
Hi James, I am expecting your active participation!
I’m looking forward to your first technical thread. I’ve been following your comments and guest posts with great interest and I think this blog will be a continuation of these great contributions.
Thank you Sambo
Well, welcome to the zoo. I like very much the idea of differentiating your posts by type. Have you thought of nifty names, or will you be able to color code them or something?
If in the title of each post you preface it with Technical, Policy or Open Thread, that should suffice, I suppose.
Like everyone else, I look forward to seeing this develop. Have fun!
Hi Tom, it will take some time to work out the kinks. Open Threads will be called exactly that (with a date appended). Technical and etc. threads will have moderation note at the bottom. Will have to see how it plays out . . .
Hey–you misspelled Bart’s name–and you don’t link to McIntyre? Some will find that… meaningful… ;)
Right! It’s “Verheggen”.
And Steve’s blog is here:
http://climateaudit.org/
Tom, I see climateaudit in the blogroll above. The link works okay for me.
Judy does link to ‘Climateaudit’, but it looks like she was a bit tired when she did so.
Tom
Not sure what … meaning … you are thinking of.
Try the Blogroll under Steve’s site name – Climateaudit.
ah. . . I’m already stirring up controversy on the welcome page. Climateaudit is of course one of my favorites, let me try to fix Bart’s name
I see I was mistaken when guessing that ‘Climateaudit’ was a slip when setting up the blogroll. It might be better to change it to ‘Climate Audit’. That’s the form Steve McIntyre uses, and using the different form causes it to appear in a different position on the list from where most would expect to find it. Possibly the reason for Tom Fuller thinking you’d made no link.
Anyway, good luck with Climate Etc.
Welcome, Dr. Curry. I certainly look forward to some lively and informative discussions!
Thanks Eric!
Welcome to blogland.
Since you asked for advice on moderation, I think you’ll find that technical threads need very little. It turns out that trolls and the less educated fear the language and stats.
I read a lot and comment little and am looking forward to your efforts.
Also, blogging is like radio. If you’re not transmitting, people tune out.
Hi Jeff, thanks much for your advice!
Welcome from me to.
At least with your own blog other people cannot delete your comments. Interested to know if you have thought about moderation or not, as you will be well aware this environment can get a bit chippy….
Apologies, having sent the post I then looked at the site and found the excellent set of rules
Dr. Curry,
Thank you for opening this window. I very much hope you can manage the amount of time devoted to this worthy activity while not forgetting that what we also need is the quality science you are doing.
I worry that a lot of what I read on the same blogs you seem also to frequent is written in ignorance of the literature which is doubtless out there and so these writings often miss aspects of the issues which have already been well dissected.
I certainly hope this effort turns out to be as worthwhile for you as it will likely be for the rest of us.
Good Luck with it.
J Ferguson, thanks for your thoughtful post. What I want to do with this blog is to pick a topic and then work towards a thorough assessment of it. So the idea is not to focus on one paper (which is what you usually get), but to synthesize what we do know and then focus on what we don’t know. This requires digging into the literature and trying to add value through a synthesis. So I’m expecting this activity to be very valuable to me as a scientist, and I hope that the wisdom of the Climate Etc. crowd will add to this by identifying other references, raising new questions, etc.
Some of us will need confederates with keys to the doors of the paywall.
Paywall is a big gripe of mine, there is actually some interest on the hill in making all published research publicly accessible. Nature is the worst, authors of a paper can’t even post them on their personal web site (but I assume this block doesn’t apply to someone with subscription, will check)
Welcome to the blogosphere Judith.
Everyone seems to have so much fun, I’ll have to do my own soon.
Ever thought what role journalists/newspapers have in the climate debate.
If Bishop Hill’s experience is to go by, treat activist journalist/newspapers with caution. They (The Guardian) will not allow my comments, or even Bishop Hill’s in his own article!
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/9/10/moderation-in-all-things.html
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/9/10/can-one-trust-the-guardian.html
Bob Ward (The Grantham Institute) was allowed by the Guardian, to attack ‘The Hockey Stick Illusion’
Andrew Montford was allowed to write an article in response.
See earlier threads at Bishop Hill
Hi Barry, I’ve been following this saga over at BishopHill, just astonishing. HSI has almost become a litmus test for seeing who has an open mind, open enough to at least read the book and ponder the actual issues that it raises.
I should add, that the bit about the literature above was directed to the possibility that this blog may be more efficient simply because you may have broader knowledge of what’s going on out there than many of the rest of us.
certainly me.
Dr. Curry,
Welcome. I think your contribution to climate science will be remembered by many for decades to come.
Thanks, we’ll see! In any event, lets try to make some collective history in the climate blogosphere :)
A very welcome addition to the climate blogosphere. I hope it does not eat too much of your time!
Hi Josh, it will almost certainly eat too much of my time, but at least I can pace it and post when I have time, rather than responding to the agenda of others (like press releases, interviews, etc.). When things look slow on the blog, pls send a cartoon for me to post!
Will do!
Welcome to CloudCuckooLand! I hope this blog gives you a lot of satisfaction; I know it will give you considerable grief at times. Best wishes for a successful blog. –Jorge
Thank you Jorge, here’s to hoping that satisfaction is victorious over grief!
Good luck Judith. It’s a tough task to keep on top of blogging, posting articles and responding to comments and I wish you well with it and look forward to your contributions.
Thanks much Paul
I think that your Blogroll should have a link to http://climaterealists.com/about.php.
Good luck with the blog.
thanks philip, let me take a look at climaterealists.
I am sure you will not like most of it. But there are sometimes interesting articles, such as this: http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6261
Who knows what to believe in a field different from the one in which one has some expertise?
Philip, you raise an important point. It is very difficult to know what to believe in a field outside your own personal expertise. In the climate world, alot of the trust that was placed in the experts (e.g. the IPCC) was destroyed by climategate, glaciergate, etc.
Thank you, Judith Curry, for a demonstrating a willingness to engage in an exchange of information and ideas.
I am not the type of commenter likely to weigh in with new information. I usually have questions. And so, it is refreshing that you have taken the time and courtesy of responding personally to so many. It is a characteristic of openness and responsiveness that readers searching for good information will find invaluable.
Thank you pluck, I look forward to your questions. Questions are at the heart of the scientific process, and as valuable to science as information
Socratic Method? Invaluable. Best of luck and looking forward to another voice and approach.
Thanks Steamboat
Wellcome, Judith! I predict that your new blog will rapidly become required reading on all sides of the debate – I look forward to visiting often.
Thanks Matthu!
Do you agree that a condition for publication of a paper in a journal, should be the publishing of all relevant data and code it uses (such as would satisfy McIntyre) ?
And that all papers that currently fail this test should be immediately set aside until they satisfy it ?
Punksta, I definitely agree that all relevant data and metadata should be made publicly available for any paper that is published in a journal. The issue of code is a more complicated one. This is a topic that deserves its own thread.
Why is code a complicated issue..
I’ve worked in software develpemnt for a long time, multi million dollar applications, real time business critical sytems..
The code IS the data output..
How many times have I seen CODE that is supposed to do something. And a look at it shows, errors/mistakes that it actually does something else…
than what is stated or intended.
If you just see data in/data out. It is NOT enough to say what the code does (workings must be shown, an age old scientific principle)
I must agree with Barry. As a programmer myself, I’m unable to ascertain what is complicated about the disclosure of code which is run in the course of data analysis in support of a scientific paper.
Sorry.. not intending to create a debate, Judith. Perhaps you might consider adding programming code IP to your (I’m sure, growing) list of future topics for debate. :)
Simon, the whole open knowledge movement is one that I plan to spend alot of time on.
nice idea on the thread types.
drive by posters may not get it, at first.
looking forward to reading it.
Hi Steve, the challenge is to build a large and diverse community, but not to lose the signal from the noise. I’m also hoping to attract some other academics to blogging here, and will have to keep it tame on such threads. will see how it goes!
Well if you need help moderating just holler. I would in fact suggest that you farm out the moderation task to third parties. You supply them with rules and then let it go. There are are a few advantages to this:
1. You have to write clear rules.
2. You can always fire a moderator who messes up.
3. More time for creative work.
If you like I’m sure charles can explain to you how the team over on WUWT works, the challenges, the pros and cons, the kinds of rules you want, etc.
Ah people should know who does your moderation..moderators need to OWN their snipping and blocking and explain
1. that a comment is blocked/snipped
2. why a comment is blocked./snipped
Just send me email,
Thanks Steve. I will wing it for awhile and see how it goes, will check in to get advice from Charles
Happy to lend a hand with moderation – located in New Zealand, I get to cover much of the “dark hours”
Welcome to the blogosphere
Andy
Thanks Judith. Good luck, you’re going to be busy ;>)
catinthehat, you are dead on with that comment! I awoke to 33 new users that needed to be approved, which I was of course very glad to see!
Hello Judith,
I’d just like to wish you well with your new endeavour. I am just an aging electrical engineer who’s got interested in this climate stuff so I don’t comment much at all, ie: just one of the millions who avidly read Anthony Watts, Jeff Id, Steve McIntyre, and many others. I’ve added your blog to my list of favourites already and I’ll be checking it out each day. Good luck and take care. Robin (in New Zealand)
Thanks Robin, I look forward to your participation. We need more electrical engineers to take a look at this stuff, especially system analysis and feedbacks.
The link to stoat is ancient. Try http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/
Jerry, thx, I will try to figure out how to fix that.
I look forward to learning a lot here. Thank you.
Thank you Disputin, I look forward to learning alot here as well!
Welcome to the blogosphere; I’ve been hoping that you might do this. It will be good to have a one-stop source for your views, rather than having to chase them all over the net. Your proposed format is impressive, but the investment in time could be huge. Good luck!
TonyN
Harmless Sky
Thanks Tony, I resisted having my own blog because i thought it might be too much work. But I agree, it can’t be worse than chasing all over the net!
Judith, are you ready for blog usability obvservations? The Blog, About and Blog Rules tabs are coloured counter-intuitively at the moment. The selected tab should have the white background, thus connecting it visually to its content below. Unselected tabs should have blue. :)
Thanks Simon. I know blog aesthetics and usability are less than desired at this point, and I very much want suggestions. Right now I am working off a wordpress template, will probably migrate to sandbox to get everything customized, but that will take time.
Dear Judith. This is an extremely brave venture on your part. There are those in the blogging jungle who will take every chance to destroy your professional reputation for daring to talk to the other side on an adult-to-adult basis. I wish you the very best, and trust that those who seek scientific understanding will ignore the politics and assist you in your venture.
Thank you Kevin. I’m hoping that the full spectrum can come here for dialogue (the spectrum is much richer than two sides). My reputation is pretty controversial among my peers, looks like I need to define a new peer group :)
Best of Luck with the new blog, and thank you for having been a voice of reason in a ‘challenging’ environment.
Thank you Varco
Wellcome to the blogosphere.
I hope you stand by your principles on moderation, unlike RealClimate and the Guardian’s CiF which openly censors comments in a war-time fashion.
As Marx once said, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others”, Groucho Marx that is.
Bye!
Mac, I will absolutely stand by my principles on moderation. As a result of today’s activities, this is reinforcing minimal moderation, it is alot of work!
I wait with bated breath.
Thanks Roddy, I will do my best to live up to your expectations!
I am an interested member of the public and wish you every success with your new endeavour.
I have read the rules of engagement and agree to abide by them.
This quote attributed to voltaire but in fact by S.G.Tallentyre may be a good subheading.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
Good luck
pesadia, thanks for reminding us of Tallentyre’s quote
I now have another blog to add to my list of climate sites.
In regards to your blogroll, may I suggest the following for your consideration:
http://www.examiner.com/environmental-policy-in-national/thomas-fuller
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
http://joannenova.com.au/
I look forward to reading your contributions to the climate debate.
Best wishes, D Bonson.
D Bonson, thanks for your message. The blogroll is such a political statement for the blogosphere, isn’t it. I definitely meant to include Tom Fuller, let me take a look at the others, I appreciate your suggestions.
Congrats on your new site, Judith.
I’m sure the hyenas will start gathering as word gets out, and I’m also sure that your demostrated courage will prevail, and the more porcine of those on both sides will will see a balanced and educative interaction, which will hopefully enlighten them to a degree that they too can contribute meaningfully to this most emotive and devisive subject.
Yours in anticipation,
FijiDave
Thanks FijiDave. So far, no hyenas, fingers crossed!
Best of luck with the new blog. I looked over the proposed rules… I like the idea of encouraging admission of mistakes with the option to have strike through applied to a comment we would like to retract. It will be interesting to see if this is used much; but in any case the principle is a good one!
Chris, thanks for spotting the “take back.” My motivation for this is two comments that I made previously, related to Wegman and also to the HSI (where I mischaracterized something in Mann et al. 08). These were off the cuff comments, i subsequently either said I didn’t know enough to address this issue or that i was wrong, but nevertheless both went viral, with numerous threads in the blogosphere about my “mistakes.” This kind of thing is such a distraction from reasoned discourse, and further promotes timidity in posters. So, its an experiment, will be interested to see how often it gets used (I am sure to use it!)
I suspect this may prove to be the down-side of using WordPress or Blogger. In order to facilitate the take-back, you will need to monitor for emails and act on requests yourself. On a custom-written platform, it would be possible for a user to be able to perform a take-back on their own contributions. Though it’ll initially be novel and fun, it’ll ultimately become burdensome.
Gosh, I don’t want to sound like a “downer”, I just think you may be planning to extend your own blogging platform beyond the confines of what is facilitated in general purpose blog systems. I could be entirely wrong and there are WordPress plugins to cater for features you’re planning for your blog. I should stop typing and start investigating. Shutting up now… :)
Simon, I’m hoping there are easy ways to do what I want, we’ll see! I am a real novice to WordPress, but I have someone working with me who has experience with it.
Welcome indeed Judith. I too think that three levels of thread is a great format.
Tom Fuller
There is a link to climateaudit
Thanks Dung
Best of luck at this. It’ll be interesting to see how a blog that deals with controversial scientific issues evolves over time.
JC: Thanks Mike. I am also very curious to see how this evolves. So far so good, looks like I’m attracting a really interesting group of people, from what I know of many of the posters from elsewhere in the blogosphere
Thank you for starting this blog.
I am wondering what your thoughts are about McKitrick, et al 2010 concerning the missing tropical tropospheric “hot spot” and how this paper might affect your future work.
http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mmh_asl2010.pdf
Angitu and māngari and best wishes.
Orkneygal, issues surrounding upper tropospheric temperature and water vapor are very important, this issue gets a one sentence mention in my first technical post (should come online mon), I will put this topic on my ideas list for future posts
Ms Curry, you are an oasis in the AGW desert. I hope many will quench their thirst here in their search for wisdom and honesty. Good luck!
Hoi Polloi, I’m hoping the community here will accomplish exactly that: wisdom and honesty
Hi :) :)
We’ve got your back Dr C.
Hi Shub!
Well this is funny, the first user has gone into moderation, Judith Curry. Seems I am making too many posts. I am trying to welcome each first time user, and answer any questions. If anyone knows wordpress, would appreciate advice on how to edit someone else’s comment (with a brief message at the end), which might be a better way to do this. Note my wordpress “advisor” is available only M-F in the afternoon, so I will try to crowdsource advice as I try to figure this out.
As one who has enjoyed reading your posts – and learned much from lurking – elsewhere, may I extend a warm welcome to your new home in the blogosphere, Dr. C. :-)
Assuming that you are the Administrator of this blog, you should see an “Edit” link on each of the comments here. If you click the link, this will open a window which allow you to add a message to the end of the comment.
I’d be glad to help when your wordpress “advisor” is “off-duty” … just send me an E-mail. In the meantime, I’ve added you to the blogroll in my own quiet little corner of the blogosphere :-)
Thanks much!
Dr. Curry,
Thank you for taking the time to do this work.
I look forward to learning more from you.
Regards,
Thanks hunter
When you’re logged in you should get an ‘edit’ link on each comment that other users don’t see. Hit this, add your remarks (usually in square brackets, bold with signature) and then click save.
Thanks Tony, I’ve now figured it out.
Dr Curry
I don’t know, but I am not a fan of inline comments. I think it should be ok for now, for saying hi to all incoming, and avoid yourself getting into the spam filter :) ,…but in a long discussion, the linear format to seems the most honest – to my eyes.
In the same vein, I would humbly request you to not do fisking too. :)
(Is there any way to turn off this automatic turning of smiley grammer into actual smileys!)
Shub, you don’t like smileys :( I am debating linear vs reply format. I think I prefer linear format also, provided everything is numbered (I am trying to figure all this out. and what is “fisking”?
I am a total fan of smileys – of all kinds, but sometimes the alphabetic variety is more suitable.
Fisking is taking someone’s whole argument – blog post, or comment or news item and ‘refuting’ it, by writing an inline reply to each individual claim and paragraph.
In the climate blogs, we see examples of that at RealClimate and Climateprogress. For example see this:
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=4936#comment-185779
It generally indicates the responder does not take the initial argument very seriously. It also fragments the text of the initial argument and breaks up its flow for any third party reader.
Thirdly, it interferes with a central point built by bringing together various strands, by responding to the deifferent strands seperately. This is the context it is usually seen being used in.
I do think fisking is very good for questioning strong claims and disputing facts.
Shub, thanks for the clarification. Gavin’s response to my summary of HSI is a good example of what i will NOT be doing here.
Ah the great Smiley/no smiley debate.
I LIKE the smileys :)
Judy:
Another knowledgeable voice of reason is most welcome.
I don’t have any technical advice on moderation, but given your proclivity to graciously respond to almost everything you should plan to recruit some folks once your volume begins to grow. My bet is that Anthony and Charles at WUWT can offer some sage advice.
Thanks Bernie, I’ve already discussed this a bit with Anthony, he strongly recommended WordPress.com, just in case i get a lot of traffic (I can only aspire to the level of traffic at WUWT).
Be careful what you wish for!!
Ya, Dr. C, you should talk to Charles. When he wakes up I’ll tell him to come on over to your blog. Give the moderator task over to a trusted third party.
or team of them. you can also do moderation after the fact. You leave up the offending behavior. The offense is pointed out for all to see. Then the offending comment is yanked. that way people get to see your law in action.
they get to see what exactly an offender wrote and what the issue was. multiple offenders, of course, could then be directed to the bit bucket but only after people watch your moderation team warn them about their behavior. a few people cause the majority of the problems
Judith, in WordPress and the administrative screen, locate the menu item Comments (it’s on the left).
You can see all comments. If you place the mouse over a comment, you will see some new links that allow to Approve/Unapprove, Quick Edit, etc. You Quick Edit in order to add your reply in-place.
I hope you do not employ moderators from WUWT. That’s a denier website and the moderators do not like any links that criticize them.
If you use WUWT moderators, your website will lose any impartiality.
Thanks Dermond, I’m getting the hang of it. I think I can learn from the moderators at WUWT, but if i do employ any, they are likely to be Georgia Tech students. I am trying to set this up to be as impartial as possible.
I agree with Steve on this. I suspect you will need a moderation team sooner than you may think. You may want to consider initially using your students as moderators: if they are going to become scientists they’ll need hands-on experience dealing with the public nature of science.
On the linear vs. reply format, when an article receives a lot of comments the reply format forces the reader to go through all the comments again to see if there has been a response. It would be much easier in that case to simply scroll down to the last comment you read and pick up from there. The down-side is that a commenter’s response to another commenter often causes one to go back to the original comment… which can be cumbersome as well. Now, if WordPress had a reply feature where you could click on the reply button and your reply would automatically be composed with a header Reply to …. with a hyperlink to the comment you are replying to, that would be great. I’ve not seen any blogs that have that feature, but I have noticed that some bloggers and commenters are able to hyperlink to specific comments.
R.E. Phelan
Actually, Charles spent some time over at collide-a-scape explaining the moderation at WUWT. I will start out by leaving offending posts up (unless they are very long, then i will snip), pointing out the offending behavior. I am prepared to let Open threads be pretty much anything goes (within the limits of netiquette), but I want the Technical Threads to be tight.
v sensible advice. Keep your thinking time to the max by sharing the work trawling through the trollspam.
Robert Phelan, I like your suggestion on this, will see if this is possible to implement.
BTW.
I am NOT suggesting that you use any WUWT moderators. I’m suggesting that you get a team of trusted people. Charles can tell you what is involved and what pitfalls there are. Since moderators have access to IPs they need to be trusted. since they carry your brand they need to be thoughtful and responsible. They need to be public. They need to OWN the actions they take. They need to moderate and NOT comment directly (IMHO). Its a tough job. For example, while Charles and I are roommates and I write for WUWT, I never read comments in the comment que. I put all my comments through moderation even though I could post them directly. Charles has snipped me. Anthony has snipped me. They do their thing I do mine.
No-one could have sailed through such an intense baptism of fire and brimstone as you have, on the blogland front line. So I have no doubt this will be just R&R for you!
Just one more, while you are considering the blog list. Nigel Calders ‘Calder’s Updates’. Not all his blog postings are on climate, but a good few are, and often provide an all-too-rare perspective in geological time and astronomical space to the powerful natural forces bearing on climate in dimensions of both time and space. The site is
http://calderup.wordpress.com/
Richard, “baptism of fire and brimstone” is a very apt description, this should be much tamer! Thanks for the suggestion re Calder.
Judith,
Congratulations on your new blog. You should have many rewards for your efforts.
My advice is only:
“Adversus solem ne loquitor” – Don’t speak against the sun (don’t waste your time arguing the obvious)
John
Thanks John, that is good advice. But what seems obvious to some is not obvious to others (either for lack of doing their homework, or because of genuine uncertainty). So its a judgement call, and a challenging one at that.
I think you already have a stout legion of talented and willing blog associates to help you keep up with any treatments of what I call the obvious. You gained them in your marches through WUWT, Collide-a-scape, RC, etc.
I hope so!
Thanks John, I hope so!
Judith I have long been troubled by the uncertainty issues raised in AR4 (against the professed levels of confidence of AGW advocates) and I have to say it was very refreshing to see you so outspoken about the unknowns and the unknown unknowns in receent postings elsewhere. I hope others will have the courage to speak out about a science that is clearly in its infancy and where dogma seems to have replaced traaditional scientific methods. I welcome you wholeheartedly to blog town and wish you well in your endeavours.
best wishes Gary Mirada
Thanks Gary, uncertainty will be a big theme at Climate Etc.
Re: curryja (undefined NaN NaN:NaN),
Are you sure?
Welcome, Dr. Curry. I have much admired your courage in attempting a dialogue with both (or, as you say, many) sides. Best wishes for the success of the blog.
Comment: Will the entries eventually include the time? Easier to refer to previous comments. Ah, I now see that clicking on the “number” symbol provides the number of the comment, which helps, but still not the time.
Thanks Lance. I want to change the way the comments are portrayed, but still figuring out how to do this (also want to include the numbers in the main display).
Welcome to the public front lines, it can be raw out here, but then you have spent much time in the kitchen where it is hotter and steamier.
May you find this a much rewarding experience, if you read the stuff on my research pages could you offer any feedback?
Good luck with handling the volume of traffic I expect you will get.
Thanks Richard, I will check out your site
I’m hoping for some really great show & tell.
Make me smarter I love you long time. :)
Thank you!
It’s great to see another climate scientist interacting directly with the public. Everyone will benefit, IMHO. Thanks and good luck!
Thanks Jae
Hi Judith,
I am pleased you have taken the plunge! I look forward to reading your posts, and perhaps offering a comment or two.
I agree completely with the blog rules you lay out, but I fear enforcement may not be easy, since so many people seem unable to respond to anyone they disagree with being rude and/or sarcastic. I hope that you will offer some clear warnings (like, “Next time this type of comment will disappear because of XXXX”) in your early threads so that commenters get the lay of the land quickly.
Best of luck.
Hi Steve, I agree with the strategy you propose. I think Keith Kloor at collide-a-scape did an excellent job of this in terms of “training” his posters.
Glad to see you take the plunge. Have enjoyed reading your posts in the blogs.
I fall into “interested public” as a background in public admin, surveying, and civil eng gives me enough to follow the topic but not add much other than comment on the general issue.
I will say that I think Lamb is still the go to source for historical context for the last several thousand years of climate history.
I do highly recommend the Chief as a link. Not all of his posts are on CC, but I do like his work on temps.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
Thanks Ed, I appreciate the suggestions.
Dr. Curry, I am looking forward to your postings. I think your blog will attract a much larger readership than you suspect and if the responses to your welcome post are any indication, you are well on your way. Good Luck.
Robert E. Phelan
Thanks Robert, I am definitely gratified by the response I am getting so far
Congratulations! It’s a good thing when a credentialled scientist shares honestly with the world. After following your comments on other blogs, it’ll be a treat to read you at your own. You are much appreciated by many on both sides of the debate. Good Luck!
Thanks Michael. Having my own blog is like being prepared for an exam, as opposed to constantly getting pop quizzes thrown at you on a range of topics.
Welcome to the climate science bun fight. As a Geologist / Geophysist / Geological Engineer, I’ve followed the “Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming ” debate with some interest since I was first shown Michael Mann’s hockey stick graph by a fellow engineer while I was employed as a technical advisor to the British Columbia Ministry of Environment. He claimed it was proof that we humans were messing up the world’s climate and we were all doomed if we didn’t do something fast. I pointed out that the world’s climate was always changing and that the graph seemed to have missed a warm period that happened about a thousand years ago. He dismissed the omission as a minor technical detail. M&M subsequently demonstrated the the Mann graph was all a minor technical detail.
Hope you can keep the discussion on the straight and narrow.
Thanks Gordon, I will certainly try!
Congratulations on your blog Judith – I am sure it will work out well.
Thanks ZT
Just to say “hi” from Wales.I look forward to your future posts which I’m sure will both educate and entertain.
Regards and good luck
Thanks, I am fairly confident of the education part, the entertainment side will definitely need work :)
I’m delighted to see that you’ve finally joined the blogosphere.
I know it can be a lot of work and take up much of your time but your efforts are greatly appreciated by many.
I look forward to what I’m sure will be many a lively debate in the future.
Good luck.
Thanks Chris!
I have enjoyed your attempts to reach out to the blogosphere and your replies to a few of my comments.
Having read a modest amount the connection between GW and hurricanes (including a few scientific papers freely available on the internet), there is one “common-sense” question I have been dying to ask: If SST are so important, why doesn’t the Indian Ocean (which one article said was the warmest on the planet) have the greatest percentage of intense hurrricanes?
Hi Frank, stay tuned, my first technical post (hopefully online Mon aft) will be on the topic of hurricanes.
Your reputation for fairness precedes you, Dr. Curry, and I look forward to visiting your parcel of the blogosphere regularly. All the best!
Thanks Carl
I’ll just have to join the joyous choir. From what I’ve seen of your writings, you represent honesty, humility, integrity, respect and reason. In addition to your formal credentials. You can’t change the world on your own, but you might tip the balance in favor of those values. Good luck!
Thanks you Dagfinn!
Dr JC
A lot of the changes you desire will come with changing over to a more full-fledged theme. (comment numbering, paragraphs, text formatting). Right now, the simple comment text box does not even allow paragraphs!
Sandbox is a good idea, but it will take look of work and fiddling.
Shub I share your frustration. If anyone knows of a wordpress template that has a good comment system, pls let me know!
To associate with WUWT looks like a bad thing.
See for example the blog
http://shewonk.wordpress.com/
where a person who used to frequent WUWT realized how artificial the discussions were and left them.
Jerry, WUWT is a mixed bag. About once a month, I find a post that is quite good (I almost never read the comments tho)
That reply raises further questions, I think.
If there is a good post say once a month.. and WUWT posts somewhere between 20-30 posts a month (I haven’t checked, I chose January 2010 by random and counted 22), that means (roughly, I know) that one is quite good, a bunch are mediocre and a few are downright bad. Now the question: how does one, who is uninformed, find the good one? If just one in 20 is quite good, how does an uninformed know which one that is?
Just asking, here.
Oh, and welcome on the scene!
Thanks Oystein. On open thread, I will be highlighting some posts elsewhere in the blogosphere that I find interestng.
Jerry please.
The she wonk crowd can’t even get that I am not a skeptic after me publishing an article on Watts that was critical of the claims made by skeptics. go figure
Climate “skeptics” have the tendency to contradict themselves even repeatedly.
I hope you note down these incidents. See for example
http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic-contradictions.html
Thanks Jerry, I will check this out.
Jerry, see this post by Roger Pielke Sr.
Jerry, I’m afraid the real contradiction is between this and the conspiracy theory about the skeptics representing a coordinated campaign who are out to destroy climate policy. The reality is that there are numerous different hypotheses and opinions, scientific and political, on climate change and that people who are labeled skeptics are driven by many different and complex motivations. That the division into two camps is artificial and has mostly rhetorical, rather than analytical, value.
Dr. Curry,
Great to see you have started a blog – it’s bookmarked. I have enjoyed reading your posts on other blogs – clear writing and logical thinking and am looking forward to your blog.
Thank you Greg
Hi, Dr. Curry! :-)
I am so very pleased to see you have started this blog. I have long been an admirer of yours, even though I don’t think we agree on everything.
No matter. I know you already to possess integrity, courage and humility. I’m hoping your blog will fill a niche that has long been sorely empty.
Not being an expert, I won’t be able to contribute to the technical threads, but I like the idea that I might be able to discuss issues raised in them in related threads.
Your new blog isn’t just welcome or of interest, but potentially of great importance. I wish you all the very best with it and look forward to the fray!
Thank you Michael!
Just a note to say well done and good luck. Looking forward to you much needed contribution, just bear in mind:-
“IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:”
You know the rest!
O and most importantly have fun!
Green Sand, thanks for this! I’m having fun so far . . .
Welcome, I’m sure you will be one of the few actually adding to the debate instead of making it louder. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. And remember, this is probably the nicest anyone here will ever be, so don’t expect this from here on out!
Thanks Sam, I don’t expect nice, but I do expect civil :)
Judith,
This blog is a welcome contribution to a critical debate and a site that will, I’m certain, become an essential daily visit for many.
As a geoscientist it has been reassuring to hear from someone in the mainstream climate research community who practices the scientific method and is willing to engage in reasoned debate. Like many of the previous posters I would like to express my admiration for your courage and courtesy in the face of astounding peer hostility. Hopefully this site will become a nucleus for those who are interested in truly objective science.
Thank you Alan!
Dear Dr Curry,
Thank you for this initiative.
Time is a researchers scarcest resource, so it is extremely generous of you to take on this charge. A good blog is as close to an uncompensated full time job as currently found, so for a researcher, the net pay is deeply negative.
There is a community that is well served by your sacrifice. We appreciate it greatly.
Etudiant, thank you!
About hyperlinking to specific comments: the blue # after the date is the link.
http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/02/test/#comment-139
And Greasemonkey has a Climate Audit script which provides that and numerous other snazzy functions. Haven’t yet checked whether it works here (should with most WordPress sites). http://climateaudit.org/ca-assistant/#comment-240944
______
Um, seems not. Maybe you could check with them what needs to be done to enable it.
______
Question: why no timestamp on comments, only date?
Brian, the default template for the comments looks like this. Will work on getting this changed for Monday. I will check with Steve McIntyre and Lucia to see if I can implement any of their snazzy stuff here.
Dr, Curry,
Welcome, I look forward to your posts and hope that some of your peers accept your invitation to participate.
Don’t worry about the mechanics of WordPress, it is the content of your posts that will make the difference with visitors.
Thanks hmccard, i will definitely be focused on content, but I’m also hoping that the dialogue will be good also, hoping others can help me sort out the mechanics
Have Steve mc talk to Mr pete about getting grease monkey enabled for you. lots of folks like that
good suggestion, thx
Dr. Curry,
Good luck with your endeavors here. Hopefully this will prove to be a forum for constructive dialog on a very complex topic area!
MJ thanks for your kind words.
Judy,
Welcome to the fray. I think you deserve strong support for an approach to this whole fracas that displays the most consumate integrity.
looks like the rest of hte world thinks so too: first, bland, introductory, here-are-the-rules post and you got [tries to count them] an astonishing volume of comments.
Another useability thought: given the comment volume, you need to have timestamps, not just datestamps, on the comment footer or numbering or, preferably, both.
Suffice to say, however, that I shall read you even if you don’t get round to applying these changes. Looks like you have enough on your hands already…
When I next have a mo, I’ll see if I can dig up link for how to do this in wordpress and I’ll mail you or post it here or something.
Thanks, I deliberately made my first post bland and only advertised over at c-a-c, hoping for a small response so i could practice blog moderation. Very gratified by the volume and tone of the comments! I appreciate it any wordpress advice that you can offer.
Hello Judy,
I’m looking forward to tightly-focused technical discussions of important issues.
I wish you the best of everything in your new endeavor.
Dan
Dan, thanks very much, I look forward to your input.
Judith, I left school nearly 30 years ago with no science passes so I have no real authority to comment on anything scientific. What I would ike to happen on this topic though is for all relevant data to be published in the public eye WITHOUT ADJUSTMENTS which I gather is a bit of a controversial thing to ask for at the moment. The scientists can then as a secondary thing show their adjustments and the reasons behind it. If you could use your influence to try and achieve this it would be superb.
Thanks
Terry, I certainly agree with the importance of the issue you raise. I will do what I can to keep the pressure on over this issue.
Terry,
Yes. I also like to take things one at a time. I appreciate the need for adjustments, but I like to understand how the adjustments influence the final result. I also like to understand the criteria for applying the adjustments and whether those criteria were uniformly applied.
I have worked the past 30 years as a scientist and collaborated with other scientists in academic and commercial settings. All scientists want their results to look good, to earn the respect of their peers, and, if possible, to point to a clear and incontrovertible conclusion. Adjustments are needed in many cases so as to present accurate information. Adjustments can also be applied to make data look better than it is, or to tell a story the raw data doesn’t tell. So, you are quite correct: understanding the contribution of adjustments is an important factor in the confidence to be placed on the final results.
Dr. Curry – Best of luck in your climate blogging initiative.
You can have a major impact on climate blog open data access practice by providing links to your post source data and code files so that others can try to reproduce your results and propose/ conduct alternative analysis with your data set.
If you provide access to the data files you use, readers can do their own analysis rather than ask you for one more iteration. If someone has a theory about your data set, they can test it out and show everyone their results rather than just speculate about it.
I’d be happy to help with data management and Excel/R coding support. I’m sure there are others who would lend a hand so that your readers can get easy access to your data and tools.
Welcome. I salute your open mind, your courage, and your integrity.
Thank you pouncer
Hi Judith: Welcome to the “asylum” as it sometimes is called. As a practicing geologist (oil and gas exploration), I am amazed by some of the pronouncements by AGW proponents that apparently have no reference to very well established geological information concerning past climate change and variability. I will probably not contribute too much to the technical side of the discussion, but I will try to follow along as best I can. Good luck on this endeavor. I hope it rapidly vaults to the top of the must read list.
Thanks Gilbert
If reconciliation between the warring factions in this debate ever occurs, it will be down to you, Dr Curry.
Thank you for your efforts so far, and good luck with the blog.
Thank you mique
Excellent news – I look forward to following some very interesting debates on line, a sure way of advancing knowledge. Your efforts on this are much appreciated.
Fantastic experiment Dr. Curry.
I see a lot of potential for something of this nature (especially the platform for your students to explore ideas that are not ‘mainstream academia’).
I think the combination between peer-review and citizen-review will rival science journals (if not leave them in the dark ages).
Good Luck!
Thank you intrepid_wanders, I agree that formal peer review needs to be online and opened up, and citizen review (esp auditing) is especially important for policy relevant science.
Welcome to the blogosphere Judith! I think you are a very valuable addition to this important medium that has truly allowed the public to become involved in the scientific debate about the level and type of human “signal” in our constantly changing climate. It’s thanks to people like you, who have been brave enough to really engage all sides of this debate, that people like me have been able to absorb the science and reach considered, informed opinions in a way that has been repeatedly denied by politicians around the globe. I’m a great fan of yours and will follow your blog with gusto!
Saaad, thanks much for the kind words!
Welcome. I look forward to a civilsed discourse on interesting subjects between thinking adults who won’t continually growl at each other. :)
tonyb
Thanks Tony, here’s to keeping the growling under control :)
Dr. Curry; So good of you to contribute in this manner and with the ability to self-moderate too, will add a true “Curry Flavoring” to a “Much Needed” site which will sincerely seek “The Truth”. I am looking forward to reading, studying, and researching such postings. Considering your past straightforwardness, ability to cut-to-the-chase and quality of contributions, this site is going to be preeminent. I very much appreciate your article’s concise depths, and more strict, scientific approach.
Thank You for your time in pursuing this endeavor, it is very much appreciated,
chip
Thank you Chip!
Pingback: A New Weblog Climate Etc. By Judy Curry « Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.
At long last!
Fence-menders in the climate science community now urge the mantra of “better communication of uncertainty”. They need to go further, if they are to advance knowledge, rather than merely patching up the reputation of “science” and scientists.
I began taking a particular interest in climate science following the CRU email release. On reading the emails, and subsequently, one thing stands out from what Judith helpfully calls “the noise” – the persistent neglect by the correspondents of the null hypothesis. I am not a scientist, but my high-school science in the 60s taught me that being prepared to conclude that your experiment has revealed nothing was an essential intellectual stepping stone to devising a better experiment, and therefore indispensible to the Scientific Method. Yet on the odd occasion when the null hypothesis makes the briefest of appearances in the emails it is swiftly whacked, by the silverbacks of the group, and the dogged search for a signal among all the noise is resumed.
Elsewhere, in the aftermath of the release, I found other breaches of what I understand to be good scientific method to be widespread, for example:
• A belief, chiefly among CAGW proponents, but also among too many sceptics, that it is the job of the sceptic to present counter-theories to their own, and that those who “merely” falsify contribute no value.
• A widespread failure to appreciate the value of falsifiability, endowing unfalsifiable theories with undue currency.
That these misunderstandings should be widespread in the lay population is lamentable. That they should prevail in academe to the extent revealed by the emails and by subsequent defenders of their correspondents is truly shocking, and surely worthy of a thread here?
Some consideration might usefully be given to the role of so-called “post-normal” science in facilitating this deracination of science.
Tom, thanks for your email. The sociology and philosophy of climate science are topics that I have become very interested in, I have even submitted my first journal article on this topic. I am already planning several threads in this general area, stay tuned!
Judy, good luck! I look forward to the your blog.
Hi Jeff, thanks for stopping by!
Dr. Curry, I found this site from the link provided on Pielke Sr’s blog. I am definitely looking forward to reading more.
Thanks S.P.
Congrats and good luck Judith- this is a great and fun idea.
Thanks James, I hope this will be fun for everyone (including me!)
Will we be expecting more endorsements like this one from you:
“Joe Romm brings a unique combination of expertises in climate science and energy technologies and policies to address the challenges of enabling a clean energy future and reducing our addition to oil. HELL AND HIGH WATER is an important and timely contribution that deserves careful consideration in the dialogue and debate on U.S. energy and climate policy.”
– Judith Curry, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
I found you claim here:
http://www.calcars.org/calcars-news/628.html
Mike, yes I spotted that also. Joe and I have an interesting history. I learned much from him about alternative energy technologies and energy policy. Unfortunately he has strayed from the topic where he has much to contribute. While I still check in at Climate Progress, I don’t think I’ve come across anything of interest in months (I’m not interested in Joe’s opinion on which politicians or scientists are behaving stupidly).
Congratulations on this new blog aptly called “Climate, Etc.” I am especially interested in the et cetera. As I see it, climate change is part of a much bigger crisis, involving systemic inefficiency and instability in our economic systems.
Can we separate out policies that attempt to address climate change from much larger issues? Can we find ways to transition to modes of economic organization that do far less damage to the environment, that have much greater resiliency, and that provide for the well being of families and communities with more efficient use of resources.
I have started a blog which attempts to address such issues in a way that incorporates environment, economics and politics. It’s called Ekos-squared. The mission is described at http://ecosquared.wordpress.com/about/
Also, can you add a piece that let’s us know how we can submit posts to “Climate, ETC.”
Thanks for your good efforts, Henry S. Cole, Ph.D.
Henry, thanks for your post, I’ve checked out your blog, looks interesting. I am also becoming increasingly interested in the Etc., there are a whole host of broad, interrelated issues in the context of sustainability, and you target the big ones. I am working on an Etc. post on Pakistan, much of my personal interest is in challenges for the developing world. Pls send me an email with any ideas for future posts.
Congratulations to the launch of your blog, Judith! I truly appreciate your decision on this. I actually was hoping excellent climate scientists kindly provide blogs like Roger’s Climate Science from which I had learned a lot about climate science. No doubt that your blog will highly contribute to the discussion on the climate change issues. Thank you very much again!
Thank you Itoh
Congratulations, Judith,
I’ll be a regular reader.
Thanks Nick
Judith. Your own blog is a very welcome development. Well done.
In relation to the Technical threads, you could consider only allowing comments from those clearly equipped with the appropriate expertise to contribute. That would require posters to state their credentials, and for “somebody” to vet those so that only qualified posters contribute.
The benefit of adopting such an approach is that you would likely be better able to keep the discussion focussed on the technical detail, without lay opinions/questions taking up space. I’ve long seen the need for such an approach, but for some reason haven’t seen it done yet.
Anyhow. All the best with your new endeavour. You have clearly won the respect of a large number of people.
Mondo, thanks for your thoughts on this. I will have to see who actually shows up on the technical threads and will probably have to guide the dynamic on the fly. I certainly don’t want to chase away some of the citizen scientists that have been following the hurricane issue very closely, such as David Smith. And I would also like to encourage thoughtful comments from participants that have read at least some of the papers. I will send well meaning but extraneous posts to the Open Thread. I will stay on top of the first technical thread (to be posted monday around 1 pm EST) pretty much full time for the first 24 hrs (yes I will sleep!)
Mondo’s suggestion – qualified posters only – is a disastrous pandering to authority and against your stated aims which include “the interested public”.
Nullius in verba.
Thanks Mike, there will definitely be no pandering to authority here, but there will be some expectation of those participating in technical threads to at least read a few of the papers that are linked to.
As a long-time, lurking admirer(!), I very much welcome your new blog, Judith. Since it appears to be open season for giving you advice at the moment, might I chip in with “Illegigitimi non carborundum”?
… or even better: “Illegitimi non carborundum”
Damm!
Thanks Paul, my Latin is minimal so I had to look this up. They’ve tried pretty hard in my earlier blogospheric forays, my new strategy should be more resilient :)
Thank you Dr. Curry!
I know that some might try to hector you with petty complaints, like “she uncritically repeats nonsense from Wegman, Pat Michaels, CEI, and books she doesn’t seem to have actually read.” But I can’t thank you enough for really opening up the “debate” about climate change. If it wasn’t for your boosterism, I would never have seen Steve McIntyre’s published 2kyr NH temp reconstruction, Anthony Watts’ plot of “reliable” surface station temp trends and how they compare to the total average, Tom Fuller’s quotes from polar bear and ice sheet dynamics leading researchers, and so on. I know that some might say that you’re legitimizing anti-science voices for no good reason but they simply haven’t seen the incredible published results you have. Perhaps those (epic results) can be your first postings? I’d also be interested to hear about your latest Antarctic sea ice paper in light of previous work, but I understand that the relevant conversation is happening at WMC’s blog. Cheers!
Hi Thingsbreak, I refuse to label as “anti-science” anyone that is questioning scientific evidence. I don’t repeat anyone’s nonsense, I actually read opposing views, try to learn something and understand their perspectives (some of which are valid or at least thought provoking), think others should also, and I would like to see intelligent conversation about these opposing views. Thats one of the ways I define an open mind. Re our latest Antarctic sea ice paper, I plan to revisit that topic later with a thorough assessment of the broader topic of climate variability and change in the Antarctic. The discussion at Stoat wasn’t about science IMO, it was about who said what, when and where.
I would like to see intelligent conversation about these opposing views. Thats one of the ways I define an open mind.
I don’t have an open mind about creationism, aids/hiv denial, or a flat earth. Everyone is entitled to their own view, but not their own facts.
Snide, the topic under discussion here is climate, we are not discussing hiv, creationism, etc.
Welcome to the foray. Be careful what you wish for.
;-)
Cheers, Anthony
Thanks Anthony!
Pingback: Welcome to the blogosphere, Dr. Curry! | The Way Things Break
Good luck Dr Curry, I’m sure you know what you’re getting yourself into :) {you must be single lol} Judging by the comments, you will have lots of help if/when needed, including from me.
Mosh is right, grease monkey is good.
regards
Thanks Baa Humbug, I will be working to upgrade the technical aspects with the good advice of all the pros who are stopping by.
Let’s hope this blog is more than just another “conduit for untrue statements” As Gavin Schmidt described Judith Curry. Given the fact that it blogrolls the anti-science blog, WattsUpWithThat, it doesn’t look likely.
BlueRock, science is a process of unravelling nature’s truths. Opinions are, well, opinions. The idea of climate scientists providing “information” with a high level of confidence, and contrary opinions being misinformation, is not only incorrect but misleading; “truthiness” rather than truth. I subscribe to the motto of the Royal Society: ‘Nullius in verba’, roughly translated as ‘Take nobody’s word for it’.
I have no idea what you wrote all of that for.
You have blogrolled multiple denier sites that add nothing to climate science communication other than noise that confuses and misinforms the public.
You are therefore adding to that noise – contrary to what you claim you wish to achieve and exactly as one of the planet’s most respected climate scientists described you: a “conduit for untrue statements”.
> ‘Take nobody’s word for it’
I’ll take the word of the planet’s climate scientists over a motley collection of unqualified weathermen, retired mining executives, political ‘scientists’ and a bunch of amateurs with an opinion who are only united by one fact: they are regularly proven to be completely and utterly wrong about climate science.
P.S. No, there is near-total consensus amongst the planet’s most expert climate scientists who accept and confirm the findings presented by the IPCC WG1.
The range of predictions for unmitigated climate change range from very bad to society-destroying. Cue shrieks of “ALARMISM!!1!”
Well BlueRock RealClimate’s approach, refusing to link to “skeptic” blogs has been tried and tested as a method of controlling the conversation. the test FAILED. The idea of engaging one’s opponents may actually deserve a test. Let’s see how Judith’s experiement works. Then Judge on the facts and not your or gavins notions
So think of this way. RC tried a method. It failed. In fact, there approach formed a part of WUWT great success. Some of us who believe in AGW actually help WUWT because of RC’s behavior. I volunteer my time over there because I disagree with RC’s moderation policy and because they refuse to link to people like steve mcIntyre. So, much for RC’s grand communication strategy. And now, i will help Judith in anyway I can.
Well, Steven Mosher, RC blogrolls credible websites – not blogs run by unqualified amateurs with the defining quality of being virtually always wrong – even if Judith curry finds “a post that is quite good” once a month.
Anthony Watts and his little crew are not “opponents” of climate scientists – although I’m sure you all view it as an ideological battle – they are simply cranks on the internet that need to be debunked every now and again by real scientists.
And don’t mistake ‘hits’ on the internet with “success”. The Drudge Report gets lots of hits but it’s still only a wingnut sideshow.
I’m sure you do want to help Judith any way you can – you are desperate to recruit a scientist to legitimise your denial campaign.
I can read ‘Climate Etc.’, everything else is a blurrrrrr….
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!
PS: At 1024×768 Old Folks must squint and tilt their heads back so far it hurts and look down their nose and get right up on the screen and…..
Thanks Pascvaks, will look into this.
Pascvaks,
Just use your browser’s zoom feature. If you use Firefox, there are a number of useful tools to make this easier to access than by the View Menu – e.g. the Page Zoom Buttons add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6827/
Not being a spring chicken either, I use this all the time.
Zoom is as easy as holding the CTRL key down and tapping the numeric keypad’s + key. You can set a checkmark in the View/Zoom submenu to “zoom text only”, if you want. That helps keep the screen in order (graphics and pix don’t make the image too wide for the screen; text ‘word wraps’ just fine!).
There is another way to do this. If you use a mouse with a scroll wheel,just hold down the Ctrl key and use the scroll wheel.
Dear Dr. Curry
Your wrote:
“….associated with CLIMATE CHANGE.”
I respect you willingness to debate, but wattsupwiththat “Climate Change” ?? – I think you would be better of renaming the patient _back_ to “GLOBAL WARMING”, please move the cheese back ;-)
..and thank you for sticking your neck out at realclimate, wuwt etc. – respect !!
Erik, good point. Climate variability and change is the correct scientific nomer, global warming is the appropriate nomer for the science-related post normal political mess. I will be covering all three!
Thanks for opening this blog. I am a biomedical engineering technologist CET , a professional troubleshooter. I became interested it the study of climate science when I saw Al Gore on CNN telling the global audience that the science is settled and the debate is over in regards to man-caused global climate change, and that to me was the issue of a challenge. Since then ,I have read more on the subject ,possibly than anyone in my province here in Canada, and with an open mind, I am looking for convincing evidence ( in my own troubleshooting mind )on where I can stand. I will be reading your blog posts extensively.
Ian
Thanks Ian, I’m sure to be calling on your troubleshooting expertise!
Judith, welcome to the blogosphere and I wish you well. The need for this is almost self-evident as so many other sites are already labelled ‘denier’ or ‘warmist’.
I anticipate and look forward to much well-informed debate.
Thanks Dennis. One of my early posts will be on the topic of “labels” and how useless (not to mention polarizing) they’ve become
In the spirit of now being in the same business, and welcome, two pieces of small advice from seven years of doing this
1. Don’t edit or censor comments except the ones for Viagra. If the comments are getting out of hand tell the peanut gallery to behave.
2. When you are wrong on the facts admit it immediately. When you suspect you are wrong shut up and check the facts.
3. When someone feeds you a lead, check it. Not all motives are pure.
Rabetts can’t count.
Eli, thanks for your advice.
“shut up…”
Eli, this is ‘advice’ from you?
What will you do if I showed you that you were wrong and you did not get your facts right?
Yeah, that’s going to happen!
Luminous, I’m human and I will make errors, when they are spotted I will acknowledge them and correct them. However, I don’t view science as a collection of “facts” about nature. Nature is a fuzzy beast, and our knowledge of it is based on imperfect observations and inadequate models. Science is not a collection of facts, but a process with a goal of increasing understanding. So I will not be presenting “facts” of nature, but rather assessing the state of our understanding of the climate system, which is imperfect and far from complete.
As last – an informative, balanced climate blog. I look forward to future postings.
I’m encouraged by the comments so far and hope you don’t end up with 49% calling you a ‘warmist’, 49% calling you a ‘denier’ and 2% confusing you with someone else of the same name.
Ron
Thanks Ron. One of my early posts will be on the label thing
@Ron Manley: As last – an informative, balanced climate blog. I look forward to future postings.
While I found a lot of posts here, I could use some help in identifying the informative ones. In case there are a lot, names of their posters would suffice. I did however find a lot of material that struck me as self-congratulatory, but I may well have misinterpreted their intent.
The blog is certainly every bit as balanced as Fox News. I presume everyone here is a fan of Fox News, which is not only balanced but very fair as anyone can tell by watching a few Bill O’Reilly interviews. Hopefully there’s no one here who has any objection to Fox News, right?
Thanks Judith
When the climate science community is skeptical about catastrophic global warming in PRIVATE, why not everyone?
Here is what they say in private:
1) “Be awkward if we went through a early 1940s type swing!”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=927&filename=1225026120.txt
2) “I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability–that explanation is wearing thin.”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=947&filename=1231166089.txt
3) “The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has but it is only 7 years of data and it isn’t statistically significant.” [This statement was made 5-years ago and the global warming rate still is zero]
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=544&filename=1120593115.txt
4) “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1048&filename=1255352257.txt
5) “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple.”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=138&filename=938031546.txt
6) “IPCC is not any more an assessment of published science (which is its proclaimed goal) but production of results”
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=186&filename=968705882.txt
If the climate science community itself is allowed to be skeptical about man made global warming in private, why can not everyone in PUBLIC?
Points 1 to 4 above refer to the zero global warming rate at 0.4 deg C for 12 years shown in the following data of the Climate Research Unit.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2010/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2010/trend
Girma, you raise important points, all of which seems to be symptoms of the postnormal and highly politicized environment for science, combined with some climate scientists playing power politics with their expertise. Climate Etc. will try to unravel, shed some light, and hopefully contribute to reframing the public discourse on this issue.
Well, if I’m generous, with emphasis on “seem”, that’s merely a disturbing response, Judith, not an entirely horrifying one.
First, the expression “catastrophic global warming” to identify a hypothesis exists only among critics of climate science and nowhere else, and is conveniently undefined. Clearly nobody in the emails is “expressing doubts about” a hypothesis that is not defined.
Second through seventh, each of the points raises matters of interest but none of them come close to challenging the broad conclusions of IPCC at the SPM level. There’s no way to discuss them within the constraints of the thread. All of them raise interesting issues (else, why would scientists be exchanging emails about them?) But none of them are “about CAGW” nor expressive of doubts about the broad outlines of the risk profile from anthropogenic forcing.
Girma’s comment is exemplary of how the stolen emails have been used to personalize and polarize the meaningful discussions we need to have.
But I remain quite uncomfortable with this comment.
Why you refer to any of this with the vexatious phrase “climate scientists playing power politics” needs to be examined every bit as much as the perfectly sensible meaning of each of the quotes. These are interesting quotations but hardly indicative of malfeasance or intellectual dishonesty, never mind “power politics”. That’s an extraordinary accusation directed at a scientist, of the sort which needs to be made with every bit as much care on a blog as elsewhere.
It is one thing to bend over backwards to take serious criticisms seriously. That’s commendable. It is another to actually express respect for mudslinging, and another yet to join in the fun. That won’t help matters much.
Dr Curry
Welcome to the climate blog world. I look forward to your posts.
As a proponent of open access to climate data and code, I suggest that you provide readers with easy access to the data files and code that you use for your posts. This way, your readers can try to reproduce your results and conduct additional/ alternative analysis.
This can actually help you in the long run because readers will no longer be able to ask you for an additional analysis step, another chart, another summary. Your standard reply will be, “interesting idea, why don’t you try it yourself?”
I for one, would be happy to contribute my services to help you provide the data and tools to make your posts reproducible by citizen scientists.
Kelly O’Day
http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com
Thanks Kelly, I checked out your web site, it is definitely of value. My first technical post is accompanied by a fairly simple data set, I hope that you and others will take a look at the data and provide tools. Email me if you would like to play around with the data in advance.
Cool kelly,
I’ll have a look and help in any way I can
Pingback: Judith enters the foray | Watts Up With That?
Dr. Curry:
Welcome to the wild, wild, wackiness of the blogosphere. I’ll be watching with interest the evolution of your site and look forward to standing at the end of the runway of the technical posts (especially the ensuing give and take comments), and perhaps I’ll learn a thing or two.
Of the many things I’ve learned in all my decades is that scientists are human beings, subject to the many foibles to which other mere mortals succumb. To hear a scientist/researcher admit to an error or to uncertainty gives them, to my mind at least, more crediblity than those who refuse to listen to other voices.
After all, what could possibly be difficult about climate science? Here we stand, on slabs of rock protruding through an ocean of liquid water, while we are also at the very bottom of an ocean of a number of gases, all part of a rocky planet circling through a wispy atmosphere of a hot plasma body. And we keep trying to digitize an analog universe. What could possibly go wrong?
Leon
Thanks Leon. Scientists tend to be complexity deniers; at climate etc. we’ll embrace the complexity, acknowledge the uncertainties and try to define the portion of the domain that is actually unknowable.
Josh has a new cartoon at BishopHill http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/9/12/josh-40.html:
the laser toting babe looks just like me :)
Hubba, hubba!
;)
So, you regard The Hockey Stick Ilusion as correct and the hockey stick itself as discredited? Interesting.
There is one other matter – in this interview:
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2010/08/judith_curry_on_antarctic_ice_climategate_and_skep.html
You made a claim that:
Some people were getting their papers rejected because they disagreed with the IPCC.
This is, of course, at the heart of the matter; if it is true that perfectly good scientific papers were being rejected because of their conclusions alone then that is an extremely serious accusation of fraud. So, which papers were they and how do we know they were fraudulently rejected?
I would like to hear Dr. Curry’s response to Andrew Dodds’s questions.
Since virtually every comment here has a reply from curryja, it’s especially conspicuous that this one does not.
At this point, with over 1000 comments on climate etc. i have no idea what comment is being referred to. I have done my best to keep up but i am swamped.
I believe that they’re referring to the post: http://judithcurry.com/2010/09/02/test/#comment-614
You made a claim that:
Some people were getting their papers rejected because they disagreed with the IPCC.
This is, of course, at the heart of the matter; if it is true that perfectly good scientific papers were being rejected because of their conclusions alone then that is an extremely serious accusation of fraud. So, which papers were they and how do we know they were fraudulently rejected?
I’ve been cc’ed on a number of email discussions between authors and editors on this topic over the past 9 months, since I have been making public statements about transparency and raising concerns about peer review. I am not at liberty to discuss the contents of these emails publicly. But I have seen enough evidence to be concerned. And others have spoken out publicly on this topic (but usually just in regard to their own paper, which might seem like sour grapes). This might be a good topic for a future post, but it would take a lot of work on my part to track down the documentation and get approval from each person involved to publish it on the blog. I don’t have anything else to say on this subject right now.
By what criteria would this be fraudulent?
I don’t have anything else to say on this subject right now.
A serious question, not meant as snark-
Do you ever consider whether or not it might behoove you to *wait until you are ready to back up* your more eyebrow-raising claims *before* making them? I guess what I mean is, do you worry about credibility issues, especially in light several previous instances in which you essentially “passed on” assertions by others without thoroughly vetting them, only to have them more or less blow up in your face?
Obviously this blog has attracted a certain crowd that will go along with whatever you say provided that it confirms their negative beliefs about the field, but there are almost certainly others with less calcified opinions reading as well. Isn’t there a risk in turning them off, when they see these requests for supporting evidence go unfulfilled (or answered in a way that is far less provocative than what prompted them)?
Thingsbreak, this is a blogospheric discussion, it is not a peer reviewed journal. I can post my peer reviewed articles here, or we can discuss broad ranging issues. It is my blog, and I can state my opinions and judgements here. You can judge for yourself whether or not you want to believe what I say. I am not asking anyone to believe what I say, rather I am raising a host of issues that I hope that people will think about and investigate further. In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of people here NOT going along with what I say :) And I am not asking them to; rather I am asking them what THEY think about the issues I raise. I am open to changing my mind, I expect that most others spending time here are also. Otherwise we are all just making alot of noise.
I don’t see how the reference to peer review is responsive. Your scientific work is not being critiqued, nor are you being called to task for your “opinions and judgements” [sic]. You’ve made a rather serious allegation and are being asked to back it up.
I think the point about making dramatic claims without evidence, given your stated concerns about credibility and transparency, does deserve a response on its own merits.
PDA, this claim is hardly original or unique, others have made it also. I will get to this in due time, I am trying to figure out what makes sense in this regard. Statements from individuals concerned about how their papers have been treated? independent assessments by third parties? Just because at this point in time I have not assembled documentation for publication, should we pretend that the possibility of this problem does not exist? Raising concerns about credibility and transparency does not mean that an individual cannot state an opinion or judgement without complete documentation when asked a question in an interview or on a blog. Credibility and transparency are issues that are paramount say for an assessment such as IPCC.
Dr. Curry, I’m sorry, but I thought I was pretty clear above that I wasn’t responding to your opinions or judgment, but to a fairly serious allegation offered without evidence.
If your position is that it’s no big deal to toss off such allegations on a blog or in an interview, that’s fine. I disagree, but it’s at least responsive. Comments about opinions and judgments or references to peer review are not germane.
I don’t mean to be argumentative, but I feel like I’m trying and failing to make a fairly simple point. If it’s not getting through, we needn’t go around and around.
Rejecting papers because of their conclusions is not necessarily fully deliberate. Instead, papers whose conclusions are unpalatable may be read more critically and then rejected for allegedly being substandard. That’s bias, and it’s in conflict with the IPCC’s stated aim of delivering a comprehensive and balanced review of the peer-reviewed literature, but it could hardly be described as fraud.
Muir Russell hints at this: “It may be that the conclusions of MM2004 conflicted so strongly with a generally held view among climate scientists that rejection was made too easily; but in the absence of better evidence, this is mere speculation.”
Judith Curry,
PDA is correct. It’s not a question of whether to believe you or not. It’s an issue of fairness and ethics. Making a statement of fact that casts doubt on the professional conduct of other scientists, whilst being unprepared to back that statement up, is absolutely unfair to the accused. Do you not understand why the climate science community are angry with your antics? James Annan and William Connelly have both severely criticized IPCC conclusions and processes and high-end (genuinely ‘alarmist’) estimates, yet have not received a response similar to yours. There is a qualitative difference between their and you approaches which has nothing to do with rocking the consensus boat… and everything to do with rigor and fairness.
Judy,
Congratuations. Looking forward to reading your blog. If you are interested in adding a blog about weather (as well as climate) to your blogroll, I’d welcome it if you would add mine: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/ .
Mike
Thanks Mike, I will definitely add your blog, I’ve seen your book advertised also.
Judy,
Thank you. The book has been receiving fantastic reviews — far exceeding my expectations.
I just wrote an introduction to your blog that will appear on mine tomorrow morning.
Mike
I look forward to commenting, in substance, on future offerings. The more places where we can discuss AGW in an open, friendly, and hopefully unfettered way, the better.
Thanks Jim
Just subscribing :-)
Welcome, Chris
273 comments so far on a nice weekend. I think you should assume that you’re going to have a bit more traffic than most climate blogs. Keith Kloor’s experience at CaS might be instructive.
Managing this will be a chore, and you might experiment with some ideas that can make it easier. So far, lots of good ideas about handling comments. One quick question regarding that is if WordPress allows you to have different moderation rules on different posts? Hope so…
One idea might be to allow moderation to relax as a post ages.
I have another idea–have you considered an advance publication schedule? If you post up what you intend for the next few posts and when you hope to get them up, it might reduce off-topic comments that require extra effort on your part.
Just an idea…
Tom, thanks for your suggestions. I don’t think wordpress allows different moderation rules for different posts, but possibly this can be customized. I will give heads up on Open thread a few days in advance as to when I expect to have the next post up. Right now, the hurricane thread is ready to go, i want to try to work out a few of the commenting issues before going live, but won’t hold it up past 1 pm EST on Monday. I’m prepared to spend a lot of time on the blog for the first two weeks sorting things out, hopefully things will settle down quickly.
Have fun and good luck. Please truly stick with the science and be open-minded.
Thanks Fred
Also, if I can be so bold, can we make an early discussion about the solar output/sunspot/climate correlation or lack thereof? There seems to be alot of debate on the topic, the IPCC lowered solar forcing to levels well below the modeled levels prior to “the debate”, and the correlations are just too strong to not debate.
Fred, this is a good suggestion. I am a novice on that topic (would like to learn more); in my forthcoming hurricane post I mention possible solar connections. I will try to dig into this and possibly identify an expert to write a guest post.
Are you going to put up a response to WUWT’s critique of your paper?
Mike, re the Antarctic sea ice, I intend to revisit that topic at some point in the relatively near future (probably this calendar year), with a more thorough assessment of the broader issues. I think this is a more productive approach than focusing on one paper.
Now you’re blogging, eh? Do you have any other bad habits?
My family members are not so sure this is a good idea . . .
Let’s see…
Three hundred comments in two days… Nope. Not a problem.
If you plan on personally responding to every comment, I would agree with them. :)
The three threads are an excellent idea. I look forward, on the Technical Thread, to someone posting observed evidence tht supports the CO2 + positive feedback theory. I understand that the validity of this theory is a necessary (if not sufficient) part of the AGW hypothesis. As one who accepted the AGW hypothesis until I looked for supporting evidence and found none, it would be nice to be able to return to my previous comfort zone.
John, climate feedbacks is a topic I definitely plan to cover in the near future
Welcome to the blogosphere, Dr Curry. I know there is a tendency, in ‘mainstream’ scientific circles, to view with wary suspicion anyone who engages with those sceptical about anthropogenic global warming, even to write such people off as ‘useful idiots’. I shall be interested to see how commenters respond to your forcoming posts, and which side, if either, falls off the cordiality wagon first ;)
Thanks trollhunter. I’ve placed my wager but I’m keeping it to myself :)
Judith Curry writes:
thingsbreak, I think the auditors and citizen scientists in the blogosphere have made a remarkable contribution in stimulating public interest in climate science and actually raising and addressing issues that the public is interested in and cares about. I will continue to promote what I find to be worthwhile contributions from the climate blogosphere, including the skeptical and lukewarmer sites (but I really hate these terms, I am working on a post now in an an effort to get away from these labels). And most of all, thanks for your open mind!
Judith Curry writes:
Quite so! They certainly have done much to prolong the public debate about things that have long since been agreed upon in the field itself. I’m sure that I’m not alone in marveling at your useful role in adding a veneer of respectability to their efforts.
On a completely unrelated note, I believe that you have referenced Conway and Oreskes’s latest book, Merchants of Doubt, and have attempted to draw a sharp distinction between the actors and activities laid out in that book and the “not anti-science” crowd that you are tirelessly promoting. I recently read the book as well, and I have to say that I’m in agreement with you!
One of the key tactics in MoD was not a direct denial of the main aspects of a problem (like tobacco-cancer or acid rain), but rather the continual stressing of uncertainties and disagreement at the expense of what was not really in question. This had the effect of manufacturing doubt in the public discourse that simply didn’t exist in the relevant scientific fields.
Thankfully, this is nothing at all like the dynamic that you’ve been fostering. How crazy would that be, right? If someone on the one hand could recognize this tactic for what it is when applied to other fields and groups, but not himself see that he was doing exactly the same thing…
But listen to me prattling on about hypotheticals that would never actually happen in the real world, completely off topic in a thread devoted to your creation of a climate blog that promotes positive contributors to science like McIntyre, Watts, and Fuller. I can’t for the life me imagine how I got on such a tangent…
Thingsbreak, interesting that you bring up MoD, I was just writing about this in a future blog post I am preparing!
“[sceptics] certainly have done much to prolong the public debate about things that have long since been agreed upon in the field itself.”
The problem, thingsbreak, is that some of the leading lights of “those in the field” have a somewhat questionable approach to science, preferring to hide their data, obstruct articles they disagree with from being published, downplay uncertainties and falsely portray agreement where none exists.
And are all in a common funding stream – the state, the very organisation that stands to hugely benefit and expand if the CAGW theory it is funding is believed. Ulterior motives may very well be involved here.
So, given that it’s the public who are paying the climate scientists, and that their lives and liberty are likely to be greatly curtailed by political action if the basic alarmist message is accepted, something like the blogosphere is clearly needed to review the science (and its own internal reviewing), and keep it as honest as possible.
Finally, on ‘anti-science’ : the only people that can be so described, are those any that are anti- the *methods* of science. One of which is the questioning of evidence, including what is allegedly ‘agreed’.
That’s quite a mouthful.
I assume that, like me, you are interested in acquiring and considering the best information obtainable, whatever the source. Of course, the source tends to color the confidence we place in the information and logic factors into how we piece it all together. I look forward, thingsbreak, to exchanging views on the information and ideas that will soon appear on this site!
“This had the effect of manufacturing doubt in the public discourse that simply didn’t exist in the relevant scientific fields.”
Exactly, my dear friend.
One would even think the ‘scientists’ created the ‘public discourse’ too.
If climate scientists and those interested in the well-being of climate science want ‘doubts’ not to be stressed upon, they would roll up any papers in their hands to swat and shoo away all the advocacy and communicator bugs buzzing around climate science all the time.
Climate science will only become legitimated, when the ethos behind “Why should I show you my data when I know you’ll try and find something wrong with it” has been rooted out, especially in higher echelons of the profession.
And the data can be held by someone who won’t lose the paper (!?) records in his messy office … :D
Brian H.
Some of the best scientists I know lose copies of their own papers in their own offices. I suppose it is a matter of focus. They are focused on a private vision and are quite willing, and happy to share that vision with anyone interested. Now, let’s see… I should be able to find it… It’s somewhere over here… maybe if you come back tomorrow, I should be able to find it by then….
Full data sets, years of info from around the globe?
On paper? When it was obviously computer files, and referred to as such elsewhere?
The “Will to Believe” is obviously strong in you!
Absolutely!
Dr. Curry,
I have to confess that you surprised me,on your decision to wade into the world of science blogging.
I hope you are prepared to deal with the expected hostility and overt publicity prominent blog owners have to unfortunately handle.It is not a pretty world in climate debates,where it can quickly degenerate into open warfare.I hope your moderation team will be available to keep control of your blog,where it belongs.In YOUR hands.
I am one who have not liked what I see of those who are supporters of the AGW hypothesis AND the way they run their blogs.When they have skeptics try to post good comments they do not like.They censor them and eventually just ban them.
Please do not adopt such a shabby practice and instead make fair moderation decisions on “inconvenient” comments to show up on your comment threads.I of course agree that they should be civil,constructive and on topic.
Cheers,
Sunsettommy
Thank sunsettommy. “Inconvenient comments” does not exist in my lexicon!
I’m very pleased to see you have a home site. Some of your first comments around the blogosphere emphasized the importance of a civil dialog, something I advocated with my first climate post at my web site.
Your reception at RealClimate confirmed my fears about them – if they can’t be civil to a peer, there’s no reason to expect them to achieve their potential to inform the public about what real science is all about or anything about the current knowledge about climate science.
I hang out (too much!) at WUWT, I see my role as a not-quite-a-scientist helping to explain science to new readers. I’ll check in here from time to time and engage in some of the civil debate I expect to see here.
Thank you for all the time you’ve spent so far.
Thanks Ric, look forward to your participation
Hello Dr. Curry:
I would like to see you or a guest poster do something on Global Sea Ice.
The focus of all debates these days lies primarily with the Arctic. To me, this is half the equation, as the Earth is not half of a sphere (or obloid).
Aside from Joe Bastardi, who does refer to the Global Sea Ice Area on his Monday Sea Ice Report, few will touch the subject.
I do things like this: http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.anomaly.Ant_arctic.jpg
and this:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.area.ANT_arctic.jpg
to attempt to generate discussion (sic).
Thanks;
Thanks Robert. Arctic sea ice is next up on my list of pure science technical threads, I’ve started collecting material, but it will take a little while to pull this together.
I hope your blog flourishes Judy.
Keep an open mind and don’t adopt the censoring policy of some other climate blogs and it will surely make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the climate.
Eddie
Thanks Eddie, I hope not to censor at all, and if I do, it will be for issues related to netiquette
Congrats (I think)!
Hope to see some technical threads about cloud feedbacks, especially cirrus clouds. This blog going to be way bigger than one person can handle but I guess it is good to deal with problems of scaling up. Anyway, best wishes to you.
Thanks Steve, climate feedbacks and esp clouds is definitely a topic I want to tackle here.
I’m looking forward to reading your posts. Having done a few expeditions in the north and living on the land with Inuits, the sight and the people’s accoutn are quite convinsing on the matter of climate change at high latitudes.
Thanks gallantecology. I look forward to your contributions on this topic, and nontraditional knowledge from the inuit is very interesting and potentially very valuable for scientists
Congratulations on starting your own blog. I’ve read several of your guest posts and comments at WUWT, agreeing with some, and look forward to seeing what happens here. I admire your courage; only political or religeous blogging could be more contentious. Keep Feynman’s “Cargo Cult Science” lecture in mind. If it can’t be reproduced, it isn’t science.
Ron Pittenger, Heretic
Thanks Ron
Hi Judy,
I’d post more on hurricanes and global warming on Steve’s site, but with the emphasis on Climategate, the actual science content — and viewership by those interested — has decreased a lot. Thus, I started to post more at Anthony’s stie, but the conversation isn’t particularly technical there either… Based upon your statement above, I think this blog could be some of what Steve’s blog was — before Climategate.
I’d have plenty of topic ideas when the time comes!
Hi Ryan, I was just about to send you an email. Heads up for the hurricane post Monday afternoon! I look forward to your participation and ideas for future topics.
Thank you for taking the time to start and maintain your own blog. Looking forward to the debate and learning new things!
Cheers,
Dan
LetsGoViking (Viking is a VERB!)
Thanks Dan
I can’t believe you’re a Huskie! I had 5 brothers and sisters who went to that dreary place. Do you ever miss the endless cornfields?
Yes, a Huskie indeed. I grew up with cornfields, didn’t realize how awful it was until I left :)
Welcome to the crowd, and I’m looking forward to your posts. It’s good to see a few more “centrist” blogs. I have a good feeling about this one.
Thanks Pierre!
Pierre I just added your blog to the blogroll
Thanks – favor returned!
I have enjoyed reading your thoughts elsewhere. I hope this goes well.
Thanks Robin
Thank you Dr. Curry, I look forward to following open and honest scientific discussion here. As an applied economist whose science experience is limited to undergraduate courses and a layman’s thirst for reading, I am not really qualified to add anything to the science, except perhaps opinions regarding the impacts of data quality and model construction. In fact, I would describe myself (relative to Dr. Feynman’s Cargo Cult Science lecture) as one of the laymen who feels that much of the public scientific discussion has been intended to fool me…. probably because that discussion seems directed by agendas other than truth-seeking through ethical scientific methods. I look forward to some open science-based discussion and confrontation.
Thanks johnnyboy, your perspective as an applied economist will be valued here!
Judith, welcome (despite what I hope was an oversight in not linking to the excellent, intelligent, provocative and wittyIn It for the Gold), a climate blog which I mention entirely for its excellent qualities, which only coincidentally happens to be my own.
Regarding nomenclature, I find the avoidance of oppositional labels a commendable goal. I’d like to propose that the word “climategate” be among the words to avoid. I believe have seen you use the word at Keith Kloor’s site. (My apologies if I misremember this.) As a defender of what I take to be the consensus mainstream, I find it an emotionally hostile word filled with innuendo and practically devoid of meaning.
This is not to say there are no serious issues under that vague rubric. But the “-gate” suffix is, it seems to me, carefully chosen to convey an innuendo not just of malfeasance but of actual and willful felony. I stipulate that there are many grey areas in how science should interact with the public and the policy sectors, and legitimate arguments that specific people have done specific things that might arguably be wrong. I’d much prefer that they be raised on retail basis, at which point it might be conceivable that openminded discussion move toward appropriate definitions of how such matters ought to be conducted.
I believe that the circumstances in which climate science finds itself are in some ways without precedent, so that the correct behaviors are far from obvious. The constructive role of IPCC or similar consensus-definition efforts is not easy to define and constrain. It would be good to address such matters calmly and openly, and you may be well-positioned to facilitate such a discussion. In order to do so, you will need to avoid needless provocations against either side. I strongly urge you, therefore, to eschew the contentious and obfuscatory word “climategate” in discourse here.
Hi Michael, thanks for your input. I have used the word climategate, this is the first time (that I recall) that somebody has actually pointed out to me that they regarded my use of the term objectionable. Since I am working to lose the labels and build bridges, I will put this on my list of words to avoid. “CRU emails” just doesn’t have the same ring, tho
The -gate suffix might seem both negatively judgmental and overly dramatic. I just wrote an email in which I kept putting “amazongate” and “africagate” in quotes. The labels are extremely convenient, and having studied these I find they are genuine errors in the IPCC reports (in spite of all claims to the contrary). But elevating them to the level of scandal smells of sensationalism. And perhaps even worse, it may seem to imply that other problems that have not been honored with the -gate suffix are less serious.
Climategate was what got many of interested in climate science. When we read the emails for ourselves, we were outraged and decided to investigate. Erasing the name Climategate seems Orwellian to me. It will continue to be called Climategate everywhere else so the term is still going to appear frequently in this blog when these external references are linked to in this blog.
Maybe an honest discussion of Climategate should be the first step rather than disappearing the term. I foresee a series of requests like this designed to slow things down and test your patience.
Judith,
Rather than respond to the Tobis request to disappear Climategate, why not start a thread that is a debate between Mosher, Fuller, Tobis, and whoever Tobis picks as his debate partner? After a thorough debate of Climategate emails, we should have a better idea of what the next step should be. Only 4 people participate in the debate. There can be a shadow thread for the peanut gallery.
This approach should provide for a well informed, polite discussion and is a more inclusive process.
Climategate Coverups
The damage to the credibility of climatology due to the Climategate leak is serious enough, revealing as it did endemic and serious dishonesty amoungst many leading lights in the profession, involving a lengthy and systematic sabotaging of the science process in favour of activism.
But what threatens to make it fatal, is the utter lack of repentance by those involved, and the refusal of much of the rank and file to openly condemn it. Ditto the the official coverups by UEA and Penn State. And ditto now too the proposed Tobis coverup, suggesting the very name be expunged. This, truly, is denialism.
I can understand perfectly the frustration that honest warmists must feel, at having warmism automatically linked to science fraud. But they bring it on themselves by their deafening silence over Climategate, their praise by faint damnation. And their attempts to silence any talk of it through coverups and whitewashes such as Mr Tobin recommends.
I’m having trouble with Punksta’s comment here. As far as I am aware, there have been five inquiries into the ‘Climategate’-controvercy. None of them have reached the conclusions Punktsa has. Rather than take that as a starting (or ending) point, however, that is to Punksta just another piece of evidence pointing to a greater scam.
So what would it take for Punksta to accept the reports on ‘Climategate’?
Michael, as another who frequently uses “Climategate” directly from the vernacular to refer to the FOI2009.zip file viral release, I’m willing to replace the word with an alternative word or phrase for reference. The event, though, was significant and I don’t think that it can be argued that it has had no impact. Would you be willing to propose a new word or phrase? Perhaps something like the “11/19 Climate Credibility Anomaly”? :)
I always liked the pun in “the Cru-tape letters”.
Well said, Simon … particularly the “11/19 Climate Credibility Anomaly”! I have my own reply to this, but it exceeds our host’s requested word limit. So I’ve posted it on my own blog:
Michael Tobis’s “gate-crushing” crusade
“I’d like to propose that the word “climategate” be among the words to avoid … the “-gate” suffix is, it seems to me, carefully chosen to convey an innuendo not just of malfeasance but of actual and willful felony”.
Which is a pretty accurate description.
Giving nasty things nice names is just whitewashing, no way forward at all; it is dishonest and provocative. That the mainstream consensus position has been so closely bound up with this finagling is something that honest warmists just need to come to terms with now, and assist in the effort to rid the profession of it by openly criticising those involved rather than circling the wagons.
We do not need euphemisms for Climategate. The openness that climatology so badly lacks entails calling a spade a spade.
Hear, hear!
The difference of course being that Climategate is not applied personally to individuals at all, much less in a disparaging sense. This is truly just hand-waving. Climategate is a short hand reference to an event, and the suffix just indicates ‘scandal.’ Denier is a personal insult intentionally crafted to associate anyone who does not follow the climate activist orthodoxy with neo-Nazis who denied the Holocaust.
Not much in the way of equivalence.
(corrected html, sorry!)
Judith, welcome (despite what I hope was an oversight in not linking to the excellent, intelligent, provocative and witty In It for the Gold), a climate blog which I mention entirely for its excellent qualities, which only coincidentally happens to be my own.
Regarding nomenclature, I find the avoidance of oppositional labels a commendable goal. I’d like to propose that the word “climategate” be among the words to avoid. I believe have seen you use the word at Keith Kloor’s site. (My apologies if I misremember this.) As a defender of what I take to be the consensus mainstream, I find it an emotionally hostile word filled with innuendo and practically devoid of meaning.
This is not to say there are no serious issues under that vague rubric. But the “-gate” suffix is, it seems to me, carefully chosen to convey an innuendo not just of malfeasance but of actual and willful felony. I stipulate that there are many grey areas in how science should interact with the public and the policy sectors, and legitimate arguments that specific people have done specific things that might arguably be wrong. I’d much prefer that they be raised on retail basis, at which point it might be conceivable that openminded discussion move toward appropriate definitions of how such matters ought to be conducted.
I believe that the circumstances in which climate science finds itself are in some ways without precedent, so that the correct behaviors are far from obvious. The constructive role of IPCC or similar consensus-definition efforts is not easy to define and constrain. It would be good to address such matters calmly and openly, and you may be well-positioned to facilitate such a discussion. In order to do so, you will need to avoid needless provocations against either side. I strongly urge you, therefore, to eschew the contentious and obfuscatory word “climategate” in discourse here.
Dear Tobis
Your solution then,…for the serious issues which come under the climategate rubric is to them scatter to the winds in the gray areas between science and science policy?
.
Correct behaviours are determined by precedent, in legal fora, not between informed individuals discussing science. Moreover, we are no unprecedented situation – scientists have been caught with their pants down ‘n’ number of times before.
.
Let’s try to see what someone’s saying, instead of cordoning off, drawing boundaries and setting limits and haggling about politically correct climate terms. Climategate is here to say – it pulls together everything CRU and Mann did or said over a decade. Let us, and other climate scientists be not in such a hurry to forget.
Dear Tobis
Your solution then,…for the serious issues which come under the climategate rubric is to them scatter to the winds in the gray areas between science and science policy?
Correct behaviours are determined by precedent, in legal fora, not between informed individuals discussing science. Moreover, we are no unprecedented situation – scientists have been caught with their pants down ‘n’ number of times before.
Let’s try to see what someone’s saying, instead of cordoning off, drawing boundaries and setting limits and haggling about politically correct climate terms. Climategate is here to say – it pulls together everything CRU and Mann did or said over a decade. Let us, and other climate scientists be not in such a hurry to forget.
PC-ism to the wall! Bullies and liars batten on victims’ politeness.
Shub, a lot of us remain unconvinced that any clear scandal was revealed by the CRU emails. I am conceding that issues are raised; whether justly or otherwise is another matter.
Of course, if one scans the emails of practicing scientists over ten years, one would be astonished if only a few issues were raised. But many of us see nothing more than a tangle of unrelated issues, enhanced by active campaigns of exaggeration and innuendo, as far as we can see. So it’s not at all clear that there is a need for a collective noun at all.
The use of the “-gate” suffix quite clearly begs the question; it makes an implicit claim not only that there was wrongdoing, but indeed that it was at least comparable to a felony.
It also seems to be shorthand for a belief that significant elements of the climate science community are consciously and willfully coloring our results.
If you want to ally yourself with that belief, I can’t stop you, though I can try to dissuade you. And if you want to use that word so am I disinclined to regard you as polite, again, you can ignore my advice.
On the other hand, if Judith wants to enhance communication across the camps by avoiding inflammatory language, she ought to avoid a word which many of us find deeply offensive and, frankly, dishonest, tending to conflate a vague though portentous accusation with a vehement conviction. I find it astonishing and that she is unaware of the way in which the whole “-gate” framing is seen as offensive by most other climate scientists involved in outreach, but I greatly appreciate that she is at least willing to take this into consideration.
This is not to say that there are or aren’t real issues raised by some of the CRU emails. Let’s discuss them one by one with care, rather than painting coarsely with a broad Nixonian brush. Then perhaps Judith’s admirable ambitions of bringing together the best impulses on all sides to a constructive conclusion may bear fruit.
Too bad there’s no way to reply to your reply to shub, since it’s more focused and my response to it is “I couldn’t agree more”. Instead of insisting on using terms that have murky implications, skeptics would be better off questioning some of the rhetoric used by climate scientists and trying to achieve a more neutral use of terminology on “both sides” to inrease the chances of meaningful dialog. For example, there’s the common practice of describing extreme weather phenomena as “consistent with” IPCC predictions, misleadingly suggesting that it somehow confirms the predictions. Even “ocean acidification” can be seen as a rhetorical attempt to imply more harm than the evidence indicates. And, of course, there’s the D word (“denier” or “denialist”). Those are just the examples that occur to me right now.
I see now that my comment conveniently ended up right below the one I said I would like to reply to. Just so it’s clear what I was referring to.
An alternative approach to consider in your spare time.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC20.htm
338 comments to date.
Looks like you’re off to a great start.
I look forward to some interesting conversations.
Thanks Tom, I’m certainly gratified by the responses so far!
Best of luck Dr. Curry. I became an instant admirer of yours when you dared to post some very truthful comments about the nature of the scientific method and critical thinking. Now more than ever we need courageous scientists like yourself to stand up and speak the truth. You may not win many friends among the current crop of politicized “scientists” but history will reward you for following the true path of science.
Doug
Thank you Doug!
Oh dear.
Dr Curry – congratulations on your site, I hope that you can advance the cause of the science whichever way the future takes it. I will follow it with great interest.
Bob, thanks very much for your participation. I read your interesting essay and am highlighting it here
http://professorbobryan.blogspot.com/2010/08/climate-science-why-i-am-sceptic.html
From the layman point of view: I’m looking forward to enjoy your blog and hope that evidence, logic and common sense will guide the posters and commenters
Thanks ML
Might I suggest adding Skeptical science to your blogroll as it is a wealth of information.
Thanks Robert, I will check it out
Suggestion: links to your published papers for reference, review, discussion … etc.
I have been following the climate “discussion” for a number of years now, basically lurking. How anyone could not be skeptical given the poor quality of the supporting data, I don’t know. IMHO :-)
Perhaps “we” can help educate you to be skeptical :-)
Good luck, you may need it.
Thanks Al. On the About page, i have a link to my website including publications (needs updating tho)
Good luck from an Ga Tech Alum and ex GTRI researcher. Good to see some local talent get in the mix.
Thanks Danka, I hope to hear from other Georgia Tech alums also!
Seems that cyberspace and the blogosphere are very welcoming places these days, so I’m not sure that my own small welcome is of much worth, but nonetheless it’s a heartfelt one.
Welcome Dr. Curry
Thanks Mike!
Judy Curry wants us to comment in 250 words or less –joke. There have been a hundred billions or more words published or posted on the web, the problem is that more than half of them are lies. They are based on the Lie that the Greenhouse gas effect exists. It was proved in 1909 by R.W.Wood and more recently by the works of Thieme, Gerlich and Tscheuschner, and Anderson and many others that it is a fairy-tale. The fact that IPCC and their reports have be shown and new exposures almost every minute to be political fraud. It’s hard to keep up with the new revelations of more and more fraud by major universities and pretend “climate scientists.”
I have sent E-mails to Judy Curry and many other AGW fanatics with multiple references to the fact that the “ghg effect” does not exist,. I’ve asked those that believe in the 200 year old Hypotheses of the ‘ghg effect” for creditable experimental data –after more than 5 years not one digit has been presented.-long live the lie. There is only one reason for this –The $79 billion or more of” research money” into a problem that does not exist. Mann-made global warming or climate change is a hoax, a fraud. Facts – NOAA has had to withdraw more that 10 years of faulty data because no one bothered to read the data except the real scientists of the “skeptic” world.
The AGW are still lying to cover their asses.
Yes, I love G&T’s citation of Schach “… who wrote a classical text-book on this subject [95]. [In] 1972 he showed that the radiative component of heat transfer of CO2, though relevant at the temperatures in combustion chambers, can be neglected at atmospheric temperatures. The influence of carbonic acid on the Earth’s climates is definitively unmeasurable [98].”
Cleanwater: these comments violate blog netiquette rules. Further posts of this ilk will not be let through
Welcome…look forward to the future here. Thanks for not backing down on the term “Climategate.” I agree with you…labeling what they did as “goofy naughtiness” just doesn’t cut to the crux of their malfeasance. Thanks…and good luck.
Thanks dydx, I’m still pondering the climategate issue
To Robert and Judy Curry check out Skeptical junk science it’s worth a laugh. John Cook has refused to put any information about real scientific Facts where it can be read. His agenda is to promote the Fairy-tale that Mann-made climate change exists. I have prophesied that this web-site will be extinct in less that a year. The polar bears will out live this web-site. (9-12-2010)
cleanwater- Environmental engineer -professional engineer, more than 47+year of helping to remove air, water, and soil pollution. Educated at a real Engineering and science university –BS, Civil and MS Environmental engineering with lots of physics and chemistry-Case Institute of Technology.
John Cook’s hurricane page is laughably amateurish and out of date.
Moderation alert: CLeanwater this is out of bounds. Criticizing individuals rather than their arguments is not useful. Lose the Mannian slurs
Eh … “Mannian slurs”?
I guess some individuals are ok to criticize?
Lets criticize the arguments, not the individuals. If someone wants to criticize one of Mann’s papers, I would welcome that.
Even if we don’t agree on everything “climate change,” aka global warming, you earned my respect when you dealt with skeptics with respect. I’m didn’t read wherever it was you said something snarky about Anthony Watts, but hopefully you were just having a bad day. The scientists who meet skepticism with derision are not worth my nor anyone else’s time. Good luck with the blog!
Thanks Jim. Actually I made a derogatory comment about the lack of moderation at WUWT of what i thought were out of bounds comments in terms of nastiness
So, speaking of “out of bounds comments”, can we assume you are content with cleanwater’s comment, above, with its multiple, unsubstantiated, blanket accusations of lies, fraud, hoax, and so on?
If that is not “out of bounds”, then what the hell is?
You are setting the bar pretty low here, Judith Curry.
Gaz, Cleanwater’s comments are out of bounds, they have been flagged. The volume has been larger than expected and I am a novice at this, I will do my best to keep on top of this.
we’ve added 4 new moderators since then, so better coverage now
Clearwaters comments are out of bounds, highlighting them now.
Welcome and I hope to enjoy reading your posts. Hope you have time with all your other activities to make this a thought provoking place.
Thanks Eric
Definitions of the Climate Discussion
What is Climate?
Definition:A few thousand weather days end to end for a specific location.
How many climates are there in the world?
Every part of the country and the world has a unique climate -the south of France, the North slope of Alaska, the heart of Africa, the northeast Great Lakes region of the US ,the north of Italy, the south of Italy,thousands of different climates etc.
What is weather?
The atmospheric conditions where you are.
Can mankind control the weather?
We have tried for thousands of years from the Indian rainmaker, to the cloud seeders of the 1950-60. Man can not control the weather, then how the hell can man be controlling the climate. This whole B.S of MANN-made global warming is a fairy tale. The MANNipulation of temperature data is a crime against humanity and these criminals should be put in jail.
Blog moderation: Cleanwater this is over the top. This blog will not be about criticizing individuals. General statements are ok, but not criticisms of individuals. Criticize arguments, not individuals.
Judith,
Congratulations, and welcome to the fray!
I’ve found your articles always to be at least thought provoking and indicative that you are a “seeker of truth”.
As an engineer(electrical), admittedly not a scientist nor an academic, I have found the overall debate fascinating for the last several years (I started out as a lurker at Climate Audit and Wattsupwiththat) – especially for the amount of intrigue and position taking by so many. It makes one wonder sometimes about the difference between politics and academe!
All strength to you in seeking to tread a path towards the real understanding of what is going on with our world. We clearly, and desperately, need to move away from appeal to authority and false certainty…
Thank you!
Hi Ms. Curry,
As a professional troubleshooter, I am always looking for solutions to problems, not just in my professional life, but in any , or all opportunities.
You started this blog yesterday, and have received almost 400 comments welcoming you to the blogosphere, and I did as well.
I have noticed that a lot of times on some sites, people who are referred to as skeptics ( or worse ) are accused of being on the payroll of big oil ,or someone is paying them to post messages against the agw theory . I wish you could do a poll to see how many of the comments received so far from the comment section are from ” paid deniers ” as opposed to guys like me who just aren’t convinced yet . I would hazard to bet that probably 100% of the posts here are from people like me( well informed, unconvinced ,and angry ) , and none of us are on any payroll from an oil company etc. Just a thought. Thanks again, and good luck here.
Ian
Ian, I suspect you you are 100% correct. I have a post prepared for later this week that addresses this issue.
Ian,
Although I can only speak from anecdotal experience, virtually no believes that denialists and “skeptics” en masse to be on the dole from “big oil”, though many denialists and their fellow travelers like to create that strawman to knock it down.
A simple analogy I like to use is the comparison to anti-evolution commentors at newspapers and bio blogs. The percentage of those actually on the payroll of the Discovery Institute or the like is surely decidedly small, with the overwhelming majority of comments coming from regular people who are sympathetic to DI’s arguments. Similarly, while there are few truly professional big oil shills (JC’s friends Pat Michaels and Fred Smith being the exceptions rather than the rule), their work is used to reinforce the misconceptions of the non-professional denialists. The persistence of the “AGW isn’t a problem because CO2 is plant food” meme, for example, is a testament to their ability to shape the opinion of those who then go on to spread their message of their own free will.
Hope that clears things up.
Well, that was quick. I dropped in to wish Dr Curry well, and then read a few comments and hit this this abuse immediately. I guess I wont have to waste my time any longer. I was however quite excited to perhaps learn a few things without being called names and treated with disrespect. Thanks for wrecking it Thingsbreak. Broke it real good.
Sorry Dr Curry, but I wont be back.
Thingsbreak, don’t analogise ID with CAGW (IMHO, all they share in common is that they are both dubious propositions). And don’t call me a denialist (it isn’t even good English).
It seems Dr. Curry is going to address the issue of labels, and I’m in favour of doing that, especially when it comes to using pejorative terms directed at those who evince particular opinions.
I don’t object to being termed a sceptic (though strictly, agnostic with sceptical leanings is closer the mark). If there are suitable labels (and we have to have them, I suppose), then they should in my view not be pejorative.
You have already posted several messages that IMHO display lack of respect for people holding different opinions, and, ungratefully, for our host. You evidently feel it is acceptable to do that, perhaps because you have been used to doing it elsewhere, and no one has pointed out how immature and destructive such behaviour appears.
No one can stop us thinking whatever we like. But most of us try to avoid displaying intolerance and disdain. It’s surprising; consciously desisting from such behaviour often leads us to formulate intelligent questions and make cogent points that others actually listen to. No point our coming here to foul the pool just because we like to wallow in dirt.
Little is more embarrassing to witness than unceasing pronouncements of absolute certainty – and condemnations of the unfaithful – by those who fancy themselves sacerdotal elites, or their acolytes. Observe Dr. Curry. She probably knows a great deal more than you, and certainly than I, but doesn’t hesitate to express uncertainty. That’s why so many have come here already to welcome her. She is communicating, not preaching. There are signs that information will be going in both directions between reasonably open minds.
I do not currently agree with Dr. Curry, but I’m here to learn and will listen to anything presented with respect – by her, or anyone else. Maybe in due course, I will change some of my views. However: I will never change them merely because someone chooses to insult me. My recommendation? Give it a rest; it’s completely counterproductive.
It seems quite reasonable to look into which sceptics are on oil company payrolls, since oil companies have a vested in disproving > the CAGW theory.
.
But then we must also investigate which alarmists are on government payrolls, since the state has a vested interest in proving CAGW.
.
And let’s also try and compare state vs oil company expenditure on climatology. My guess is the former is three or more orders of magnitude greater. And while it is a laudable approach to say : just look at the actual evidence and arguments, the fact is the more money you have, the more arguments and evidence you can afford to produce. Science is like It’s like being in a courtroom,
….Science is like a courtroom in this respect, and what we have here is a situation where one party has vastly more expensive lawyers than the other.
The funding issue is made complicated by BP and Shell funding research units like the one at UEA. Identifying the source of funding does not advance understanding of the science, nor does it significantly advance understanding or identification of influences of sociopolitical/ideological agendas.
To really get to the bottom of it all, we need to resolve the burning questions of the integrity and value of the science being conducted using time-tested scientific method. Though it ultimately addresses the same questions regarding advocacy, it goes at the question from the other, more relevant end.
I’d also argue that, as part of the process of re-establishing climate scientific credibility, a commitment to the scientific method and an assertive popular rejection of Postnormalism is essential. It is here that I think resistance will be met from some quarters, and here also where I think issues of advocacy will be lit up like a beacon.
I’ll be interested to see where this goes. As a suggestion, beware of the narrative. Science is about facts, narratives are stories to emphasize some facts and make others disappear. ‘Climategate’, ‘broken hockey stick’, ‘venal climate scientists’, are all narratives as is ‘oil industry shills’. We have enough narrative constructors already, I’d like to see your work be focused on the facts and data, not the personalities. (I know some very good scientists who are jerks, and some very pleasant people who wouldn’t know a hypothesis if it bit them).
Stewart, thanks for your message. This will definitely not be about the personalities, I agree and I am very tired of seeing so much discussion of the personalities.
Welcome to the Thunderdome, Judith.
You’ve been responsible for some of the most amazing threads at my site. So I expect much stimulating discussion to occur here at your new place.
Just a word of caution, which Tom Fuller hinted at upthread: moderating those long and sometimes passionate threads is time consuming! And it will test your patience. Since you should expect to have a high volume of traffic, you might consider spacing out your posts. Best of luck. Your blog is a great addition to the climate debate overall, not just the climate blogosphere.
Thanks much Keith, and I’ve enormously appreciated your hospitality at c-a-c
Judith Curry:
You’ve got the wrong link for Kelly O’Day’s site. It’s currently linking to “Meteorological Musings” rather than Kelly’s blog:
http://chartsgraphs.wordpress.com/
Thanks Thingsbreak, let me fix that
All the best for your shiny new blog!
Cheers!
Thanks INGSOC
Although I am reiterating much of what has already been written, I welcome the chance to participate in one of the world’s greatest challenge. I look forward to reading well informed comment from those who care about our children’s and grandchildren’s future. I will find it somewhat stimulating to read posts that are bile less and informative.
Well done!
Thanks Kevin
All web sites which offer discusion on this very contreversial and complex subject are very welcome but to limit the post to 250 words on such a diverse and compelex subject is total nonsense and precludes any serious scientific analysis thus it becomes just another propaganda exercise and will degenerate into a series of nonsensical one liners.
Barry, the word limit is a suggestion. On technical threads, for people making a technical contribution, there will no word limit. On a welcome thread, I think the limit is about right.
Judith
Can I ask that you add my site to your blogroll please?
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
It is a useful assembly of instrumental temperature data from all over the world covering the period 1660-1850 together with weather diaries from such as Thomas Jefferson. In addition there are a variety of articles that cover the history behind our evolving climate, where context is provided to modern day events.
thanks
tonyb
Tony, thanks for pointing out your side, I will add it to the blogroll
WHY can’t they be civilised?
It look like the ‘attacks’ have started…
They seem totally unwilling to even give Climate etc a chance.
Deltoid, set his commentors up, and sits back and watches his ‘fun’
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/09/about_time.php
An example: (3#)
JC: The climate blogosphere is a vibrant environment but the signal is often hidden by the noise.
Oh, the irony! The noise of her innuendo and repetition of denier propaganda has added nothing but noise. As Gavin Schmidt noted: “In future I will simply assume you are a conduit for untrue statements rather than their originator.” Ouch.
Given that she has chosen to blogroll WattsUpMyArse, the Pielke Dynamic Duo and other denier-friendly fodder, it doesn’t look likely she is going to change her game.
Posted by: DavidCOG | September 12, 2010 6:25 AM
Deltoid also points out that Michael Tobis (Only in it for the gold and Thingsbreak) have seen off Tom Fuller.
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/tom-fullers-climate-misdirection-at-wattsupwiththat-part-ii/
Barry, this is blogospheric noise, I don’t pay attention to it. Let the silly and pointless comments stay on the other blogs, with this site reserved for reasoned dialogue.
Barry Woods is being deceitful. I didn’t write anything negative about JC’s new blog — I just linked to it, suggesting that it was about time.
Tim, thanks for stopping by
Those guys still in business?
Seriously, I am going to make a real effort to keep the blognoise out of any of my comments here. (Unilateral declaration, not sending around a petition or anything.)
Dear Judith Curry,
As a keenly interested lay observer who admires your intestinal fortitude and your determination that the science should not be muddied by mindless apostasy from either side of the divide, your contribution to the climate discussion will, I am sure, be successful for you and rewarding for contributors and readers.
Best wishes,
Alexander
Thanks Alexander, here’s to hoping my intestines hold up!
Moderation note: I’ve let through all the comments so far. Cleanwater’s comments have been flagged. Attacking individuals rather than their arguments violates blog netiquette. Further comments from Cleanwater that violate netiquette will not be let through.
Another moderation note: I see that several participants have been offended by thingsbreak. There is no formal blog rules violation here, but I certainly understand the ire raised by labels such as “denier.” Next thursday I will have a thread entitled “Doubt” that addresses the labels issue. In the mean time, please avoid using the labels; I hope that my forthcoming thread will actually convince people not to use them.
I am happy to follow the rules of this blog, but I did not use the word “denier” in any of my posts. Denialism/denialist are specific terms with specific definitions. If they are also verbotten, so be it.
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php
http://www.amazon.com/Denialism-Irrational-Thinking-Scientific-Threatens/dp/1594202303
I understand that no one wants to be associated with a negative label. I am happy to find an alternative, as long as it does not reach the level of Newspeak- like calling someone a skeptic who accepts virtually all arguments of “not IPCC” uncritically, despite their mutually exclusive natures. That does violence to the very definition of the word, and I cannot in good conscience use it.
Cheers.
Thanks thingsbreak. Stay tuned for my post on Doubt, which will go up on Thurs.
So I read the definition in the first of your links, and it’s clear that applying the “denialist” label is necessarily an ad hominem attack. Or would you disagree? And one of the problems with that is that you create “denialist” behavior by expecting it. If you tell someone at start of the discussion that you know they are not willing to listen to reason, they are not likely to listen to you, however reasonable you might be.
Dagfinn, use of the “d” word can be either an ad hom or appeal to motive attack if applied to an individual. I am starting from the assumption that anyone who cares enough to spend time here is willing to listen to reason.
Dr Curry-
One of the tricks they will try on you is to attack in seemingly contesting pairs.
One will make provacative, right on the borderline comments.
Then, when you let the comment pass out of you civil and accommodative nature, the partner in crime will attack you for allowing abusive remarks.
Their strategy is to cause a stir about nothing that takes up lots of your time to sort out and is emotionally draining while not being illuminating about the truth.
Eventually, you will feel overwhelmed and start to wonder if it is all really worth it.
Then you will waiver and eventually give up.
That is their strategy to defeat you.
Excellant and very well made point.
May I proffer a slight change of wording,
” That is their strategy to defeat you. ”
to,
That is one of their strategies to defeat you.
Also, I agree that their aim is,
” Then you will waiver and eventually give up. ”
But, please Dr. Curry remember, or at least keep in mind that,
Time WILL tell.
No one remembers any of the names that opposed people like Gallileo, Wegener, Darwin, etc, etc, etc,
but “we” do remember the names that were actually correct scientifically. – Eventually…….
An unquestioning scientist is an oxymoron.
I said this over at Keith Kloor’s a while back – if you genuinely want to provide a viable bridge I see no other way than engaging in absolutely ruthless moderation.
This thread itself is a case in point. As soon as your efforts were announced, you garnered hundreds of comments – a few insightful, but mostly noise (and some of the most ill-informed and insulting kind). All manner of commenters will want to stake their claim on this blog and pin their colours to your mast, and reading through the comments has the whiff of territorial marking already. The anti- commenters will immediately want to associate with you as much as possible because it lends them both visibility and credibility, while also setting the tone for the blog as a whole regardless of your own motivations.
For example, I believe you simply cannot allow reposting of links to UEA emails and empty assertions about fabrication of data, unless you specifically formulate a post on those topics. Such behaviour a) reinforces the opinion of those that espouse the scientific case that you are overly soft on “skeptics”, b) fosters an atmosphere where commenters feel free to do so and drown out any reasonable discourse that may otherwise take place, thus ensuring that those on the receiving end will be even more reluctant to bother engaging in this particular forum, and c) ensures that those that do remain are those most willing to throw out insults and aspersions of their own, lowering the level of discourse even further. If you don’t act on this stuff, whatever I may personally feel about the validity of the endeavour you will lose the “middle-ground” position you seem to want to lay claim to.
I’d also say again that blog comments are mostly useless for a back-and-forth discusson once you get over a couple of dozen (which you have, and will continue to have, without brutal moderation), and to concentrate your efforts on maintaining a conversation in top-level posts between yourself and blog authors that actually have something worthwhile to say.
Whatever you choose to do, good luck.
Also, you need a preview button :)
I just scrolled back and I don’t think my “mostly noise” comment is fair. There’s some noise, granted, but most comments are “welcome” posts which is what you’d expect on a first entry.
Dave, thanks for your thoughtful comments. The technical threads will be ruthlessly moderated, with the open threads much more open and without the expectation of particularly useful discourse. Its an experiment, will see how it goes. Many people will end up just focusing on the technical threads, which is where the real value will be, but I also don’t want this to be a censorious site, so I will retain an Open thread.
It might be instructive to look at what happened over at Bart’s place.
He didn’t have moderation. Then he got one famously active thread about unit roots. Then he put in a moderation policy. Everybody went away. Now it seems as though he has relaxed moderation.
Only In It For the Gold had a moderation policy for a very long time. It has since disappeared. I see no difference in the comments.
CaS has selective moderation used as a ‘time out’ feature.
Shop around.
Judith,
I was going to reply to some comment, but some awful popup window appeared. After thinking I was infected by some awful scamware I realised it was official wordpress rubbish.
Sorry, no matter how good the content, if the website software is awful it’ll drive away people like me.
Mike, I’m working on this, I’m a novice at all this, it will take a little time to sort things out.
Greetings Judith
I have read that you were preparing a post on “labels” and that your intent or intuition would be to dispense with them.
I would like to explain you why this is a bad idea and why in this particular field, “labels” are not only useful but necessary.
Did you think long and hard about who are the people you will be writing for?
Did you think long and hard why anything you may write should interest anybody at all?
If not, I can give you some elements of answer.
80% of the readers and commenters will be North Americans and the rest will be (west) Europeans.
Not only language but culture will constrain the composition of your readership.
So you will be writing for some subset of what represents some 5% of the world’s population.
Within this subset indeed it can be observed that the interest for climate “science” is high.
Why?
Because it is probably the first occurence in the history of our (occidental) civilisation that a scientific domain impacts or wants to impact the daily lives of virtually everybody.
It is not necessary to have a PhD to feel concerned by the issues and to feel strongly about the changes proposed/imposed to one’s ways of living.
But one’s way of living is not a matter of science but policy.
That’s why the climate “science” is politically polarised so extremely strongly.
If you want your blog to have success (e.g to be read by more than a dozen of afficionados) then you must accept that you will have a label too.
Thanks Thomas. Hear me out on Thurs with my doubt post. I agree with everything you say, other than accepting that I will have a label
Glad to have contributed Judith and, of course, I will hear you out on this issue.
I understand that you do not WANT a label and you will explain all the rational arguments you have, to not to WANT a label.
The main reason being probably that you think that a label would eliminate a significant fraction of readership.
What I am saying is that you will have a label anyway:)
It is not you who will define it but those who will read and post.
Just an example.
Imagine that for some reason a significant fraction of people who post here (negatively or positively) come from Romm . In a sense , they “take over” this place . Then others will desert and your label is established.
This is what more or less happened at Blackboard.
I used to read there because Lucia had a balanced and professional way to present things.
I stopped many months ago because the precisely Rommian type of people took over. The Blackboard got a label too.
P.S
It is Tomas without h . Not an American name :)
I applaud the motivation behind the upcoming post to be titled “Doubt”, and the explanation / emphasis of avoiding the use of “labels”.
I wish them every success.
Discussion is positively exchanging information / views, in the hope of improving our overall understanding.
Debate is merely the negative attempt / motivation (usually political) to destroy the other “side”.
Can I, however, offer a timely reminder of a quote from one of Edward Krug’s colleges from many years ago.
Namely,
” Why did this happen? “He was,” a colleague says, “a bit immature in the area of political science.”
Source,
http://sppiblog.org/news/rear-mirror-the-epa-vs-ed-krug-over-the-acid-rain-scare#more-2463
Moderating discussions (that some successfully then made descend into “debate”) of the topic of acid rain back then, would of thrown up many of the same issues / tactics todays discussions may well encounter.
Welcome.
Could I make one small request. Could you please disable the web shots preview thing for links ? I know it can be disabled but I don’t always use the same PC.
Thanks.
I will try.
Someone in an earlier comment mentioned “anti-evolution commentors”. This prompted the recollection that for any scientific theory it should be possible to state what would disprove the theory (or at least severely weaken its underlying rationale). For evolution, the rather delightful answer was that evolution would be disproved were someone to find fossil rabbits in the Pre-Cambrian. So what would disprove the AGW theory? I’d love that question to be addressed.
I made the following comment elsewhere the last time this question came up.
Off the top of my head, if you want to falsify AGW, you have to do one or more of the following:
1. Falsify that there is a CO2-induced warming effect. This involves demonstrating that small scale laboratory experiments showing the physical radiative transfer mechanism behind CO2-induced warming are wrong, and provide an alternative explanation that explains the observations. Subsequently, demonstrate that calculations as to what the Earth’s temperature would be in the absence of atmospheric CO2 are wrong, and explain what other previously unknown mechanism is responsible for our present habitable temperatures. Explain why all previous work on this subject is wrong, and how the new hypothesis better matches observations and calculations.
2. Falsify that humans are emitting CO2. This involves proving that combustion of hydrocarbons does not produce CO2 as a byproduct.
3. Falsify that human emissions of CO2 remain in the atmosphere. To do this, demonstrate that natural carbon sinks respond instantaneously, perfectly and without limitation to anthropogenic sources of CO2, while uptake of natural sources respond variably as shown in the paleo record. Falsify all current work that shows that approximately 50% of annual anthropogenic emissions remain in the atmosphere. Alternatively, falsify measurements of atmospheric CO2 and all paleo records, and prove that there is a perfect equilibrium level of atmospheric CO2 from all sources that natural sinks match perfectly and instantaneously. Explain temperature variability in the paleo record entirely by other forcings.
4. Demonstrate that there is a previously unknown negative feedback that specifically counteracts warming by CO2 from anthropogenic sources. Explain why this feedback has remained undetected, explain how it fits within the paleo record, and demonstrate the mechanism by which it responds specifically to counteract warming that would otherwise be due human emissions. Alternatively, show how the paleo record is incorrect and that temperature variability is nonexistant thanks to a perfect negative feedback that acts to keep temperatures at a specific level.
I think anything less than those tacitly accepts the existence of AGW, but argues about scale – which is fine, if what you want to have is an evidence-based discussion about uncertainty, scale, rate of change and consequences.
Dave H wrote.
if you want to falsify AGW,
1. Falsify that there is a CO2-induced warming effect. This involves demonstrating that small scale laboratory experiments showing the physical radiative transfer mechanism behind CO2-induced warming are wrong, and provide an alternative explanation that explains the observations.
End of quote.
If I may, the above is an incomplete statement of the real world situation.
Specifically,
” small scale laboratory experiments showing the physical radiative transfer mechanism behind CO2-induced warming ” – which first need proving to apply, as modeled, to the open and mixed atmosphere.
“We” know MODTRAN models along the lines of “the known physics of CO2”, as per the quote of your statement I have used, BUT there is no proof (nor has any been offered to date) I am aware of that the “small scale laboratory experiments” do apply to the real, open, mixed world climate system.
This is a very basic AGW “issue”. ie,
“X” can have no relationship at all to the sum of it’s parts,
because of other relationships not shown in the individual components of the complex natural system, however they are “summed” together.
As explained in post 24 on this thread,
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-855-page-2.html
I think the following over states the role of atmospheric CO2 relative to the Earth’s temperature:
“Subsequently, demonstrate that calculations as to what the Earth’s temperature would be in the absence of atmospheric CO2 are wrong, and explain what other previously unknown mechanism is responsible for our present habitable temperatures.”
And the mechanism is not previously unknown; the mechanisms are the results of the various forms of water ( vapor, liquid, solid ), and, in some cases, other particulate matter, in the atmosphere. The physical phenomena and processes associated with this matter, and its interaction with radiative energy transport, dominate the radiative-equilibrium energy balance model for the planet.
Additionally, the small-scale laboratory experiments conducted with homogeneous mixtures of pure gases, absent of any other matter and associated physical phenomena and processes that correspond to those obtained in the real-Earth atmosphere, provide very useful guidelines, not proof which can be directly applied to the Earth’s atmosphere. If the latter was the case, the research phase of the problem definition would have ended over 150 years ago.
I’m certain that there are many here you will correct me if I have incorrectly characterized the situation.
I wasn’t thinking so much as falsifying the theory from the inside, but rather observing that predictions are not observed. For example, if I dropped an apple from a tree and it didn’t drop but just hung there in the air with no support, then that would disprove the law of gravity. I don’t have to know anything about the inverse square law; I don’t have to falsify any part of the theory. Rather the theory predicts that the apple will drop, and the observation is that the apple did not drop, thus the theory is falsified or at least it’s a prime candidate for revision. (And OK, I’d have to do it with lots of independent observers, others be able to repeat it, etc. etc.)
So, what I’m asking is, what predictions does AGW make that are testable by observation? It’s the observation that surely counts in science (finding the innards of a theory to be wrong is another but quite different thing).
For example, the theory says that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes global temperatures to increase over some period of time. If the theory also predicts the number of years over which a temperature increase will be seen, and the amount of CO2 required to cause that increase, then we have a testable prediction. But I haven’t seen this stated anywhere. The recent 10-year spell of stable temperatures with increasing CO2 apparently do not constitute a long enough period – so how long is long enough?. And are there any other testable predictions aside from the hot spot in the ionosphere which hasn’t appeared (yet)?
5.Demonstrate that an atmosphere containing only H2O (Hitran calculation) has an equilibrium temperature near to the range experienced by the Earth (10-30°C).
Done.
6.
Demonstrate that in the past 4 billion years the temperature of the Earth never left a narrow band of fluctuations (10°C-25°C) regardless of CO2, H20, CH4, O2, O3 etc concentrations that fluctuated by orders of magnitude.
Done.
When you discuss sea ice, discuss it worldwide, not just that arctic and also please look at it across the year, not only at peak and low ice.
Great to see your effort here, Judith. As a ‘member of the public’ without a scientific training (but employed by a wildlife charity) I’m finding it tricky to navigate the claims and counter-claims as to the strength of the evidence concerning AGW, so am undecided either way. I’m inclined to think you’re out to assist ill-informed voters and tax payers like me with a bit of objectivity!
One request: would it be possible for you to cover the science of ocean acidification as well as warming, as I gather we have reason to worry about carbon uptake by oceans even if fears about global warming prove unfounded?
Thanks and good luck
Thanks Steve. I agree that ocean acidification is a worthwhile topic, but one that I don’t know enough about either. I will try to identify a suitable person to do a guest post.
Dr. Curry,
I commend you on your adventurous attitude toward knowledge.
Science is a casualty and has suffered from too much interference and arrogance from history, peer review, politics, religion, profit and many other labels.
Science for the truth SHOULD be the top priority.
I found my own area of science that conflicts greatly to our current knowledge base of motion and mechanics. Some science was not figured out then labelled psuedo-science, even though the effects are acknowledged as genuine.
Our understanding of a circle and motion are in two separate areas and were NEVER merged to understand the energies and forces they create.
Our world rotates yet our knowledge has not put the current science and rotation together. Many theories (when tested) fall apart when time and distance are incorporated. This is a huge area as it effects the diffences in planetary development, life and evolution, atmospheric development and evaporation.
I hope this will be a denuinely good forum on knowledge.
Thank you!
Joe thank you for your comment
Dear Dr Curry, I already love your blog and I look forward to your future posts but I think Josh will need to draw a cartoon of you surrounded by 221 men, all wanting your comment on something or the other ;o)
Thank you H. I have already commissioned some cartoons from Josh, I think they will be ready for next week
Good luck with this project.
Clearly you have thought through how to do it, so stick to your guns.
Unlike some, I think a word limit is a good idea, in fact if I was running a blog I’d also have a comment-per-day limit if the software allows it.
You will be attacked from both sides of course but you have already shown you can cope with that. You must be surprised at the huge level of interest. How will you cope with running this and your day job?!
I just had a look through your blogroll to see who has a post about your blog:
Air Vent
Bishop Hill
Met Musings
Roger Pielke Sr
WUWT
Using a crude categorisation (“useless labels”) that’s 3 skeptics and 2 neutrals. I wonder if this indicates who’s interested in an open debate and who isn’t? A side-effect may be that you get a relatively high proportion of skeptics commenting.
Thanks Paul, I haven’t a clue as to how I will actually manage my time. I will be devoting alot of my time over the next two weeks to the blog, but I won’t be able to sustain that level of involvement. I’ll have to see how it goes. Re other sites that have linked to my blog, there are a number of others linking to my site, most of them with uncomplimentary things to say. The reason that these sites aren’t on my blogroll is that these blogs spent most of their time saying negative things about other personalities, which I think is rather pointlesss, rather than discussing anything that is of substance IMO.
Dr Curry —
Best wishes on this endeavor. Having followed your comments in other blogs, I look forward to reading your thoughts in this space.
Thanks Howard
Judith,
My thanks for what you are doing.
I have often wondered if there are two common fears held by people starting a new blog. The first being that no-one will notice and the second being that they may have created a monster (with an endless appetite for time).
‘Twould seem you have avoided the first. :)
Thanks Tony, I will have to ponder monster taming strategies
Nearly 500 comments on your first post – that’s impressive!
I wish you every success – you seem one of the few voices of reason in strangely polarised (no pun intended) debate.
Thank you James
I welcome replies to this comment:
I have a hard time grasping that mankind can alter or control the climate of this great world. I will never forget an episode of ” Ripleys Believe it or Not ” , it was on TV back in the 60’s , and I vividly remember it being in black and white. The episode dealt specifically with a hypothetical situation whereby they posed the question that if the average person on the planet personally occupies 1 sq foot, and you lined up 5280 people in a line, that is 1 linear mile. Then, if you lined up 5280 lines side by side, that represents 1 sq mile , or , approximately 28 million persons occupying 1 sq mile….or almost the entire population of Canada on 1 sq mile. Doing quick math, the entire population of the globe could fit in tiny earth footprint of 215 square miles….or a size of less than 15 miles X 15 miles. Ripleys went on the say that if you divided that area into floors, of 10 feet high per floor, then stacked the floors into a box shape, this BOX woud have such a small footprint , that it would be barely visible from an airplane at 30,000 feet. I never forget that exercise, but it just gives you an idea into how insignificant mankind’s presence is to the earth.
Looking forward to the replies…my numbers may be off a bit, but the point is evident…
Ian, comparing the physical size of an organism to the overall size of the planet is the wrong metric to go by if the *causation* mechanism in question for an issue like climate change is not that organism’s size, but something else entirely, such as changes in the radiative forcings of a planet’s energy budget, the pH of the ocean, etc. The proper metric to look at would be those mechanisms directly, which we have dramatically increased well beyond their range of natural variability for the past 800,000 and likely several million years.
Beyond that, the physical human footprint is vastly greater than the size of its total organisms, when you consider land and water use, housing and infrastructure, etc.
That is the kind of reply I am looking for…thank you very much.
Your per capita share of the atmosphere is 5e15 tons/7e9 people ~= 700,000 tons. CO2 is about 400 ppmv of the atmosphere (same link). Converting to mass, using an average molecular mass of 44 g/mol for CO2 and 29 g/mol for air we get a bot over 600 ppmm. So your per capita share of the CO2 in the atmosphere is about 420 tons. Per capita emissions of Americans are just shy of 20 tons per capita per year.
The decay time of a CO2 perturbation in the atmosphere is, in an optimistic interpretation (There are complications that make matters even worse) on the order of a century or two. (The same atoms will be exchanged with land and upper ocean many times, but the extra carbon will not be removed in any sense for centuries.)
So unless you actually reject the classical physics view of radiative transfer, that is plenty enough to make a difference in how energy flows through the climate system, even leaving aside other greenhouse gases.
Taking them into account, we are probably past the point of avoiding an equivalent doubling of the CO2 levels of the now-ending calm period in climate.
re: Michael Tobis -September 13, 2010 at 6:30 pm
The more the better. CO2 has seen excursions of over 10X current levels without any sign of “runaway”. The two “strange attractor” average temp levels have remained at 12°C and 22°C throughout, whether CO2 was high, low, increasing, or decreasing.
CO2 is the source of all the carbon in every living thing on the surface of the planet, and in the oceans, and in the crust. Unfortunately the modern era is in a CO2 famine. 2,000 ppm would be great!
Judith: If you continue like this, you’ll succumb to blog fatigue within days.
Richard, thanks for stopping by. I’ve blocked out most of the next two weeks to devote to the blog, I want it to get off to a good start. My intent was to welcome each new poster on the welcome thread, but i never dreamed there would be so many. I have 3 experts signed up so far to help with the hurricane thread. Hopefully this will settle down soon.
Just adding my encouragement, and particularly to the 250 word limit. Anyone attempting to debate climate from first principles in the comments, or even teach us simple maths (above) has probably missed the point of what you are hoping to achieve. Looking forward to reading the first technical thread, and observing the moderation at work.
Thanks Sean
Orkneygal:
‘Eventually, you will feel overwhelmed and start to wonder if it is all really worth it.
Then you will waiver and eventually give up.
That is their strategy to defeat you.’
That is indeed what ‘they’ do.
Of course, ‘they’ are on both sides of the debate, although I’ve only directly experienced the antics of one side.
Dear Dr. JC
‘In Your Abundant Free Time’, perhaps you might address the question of martian heating by that CO2.
NASA seems to think the (admittedly thin) atmospheric temperature is 210K, the same as the Blackbody temperature. At least there is not complexity of clouds, oceans, water vapor, seasonal albedo, and rather limited opportunity for AGW (or GCM…) on Mars. here=>
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
Lots more CO2 than earth, but where’s the warming?
I’m no physicist, but I did once vacuum the rugs at RPF’s house after a party, and heard his 1974 Cargo Cult Science talk as a member of the target audience…
Nice to see the way you are stepping up to a leadership role here.
I’ll even say Honorable.
Embracing Intellectual Diversity!
RR
RuhRoh, thanks for your suggestion. Hope you can pipe in with some good RPF quotes
This is great, I*ve been wondering what you were up to – and already 470 comments (under 250 char no less). Just found you through the Bishop so haven+t read them yet – will do subito. I’m sure I will not be bored!
So, welcome to you too, from one of your (extremely) many blog friends and acquaintances.
Kendra (the ethno-geek)
Thank you Kendra, i definitely remember you from c-a-s!
I wish you well, Lady.
I have tried. I have tried. I have tried to get those “in the field… profession” to pay attention.
“I don’t do blogs,” they mumble, looking down, away.
Well. I don’t know what they *do* do, these, days for the $150K/yr
salary, but…
Welcome.
Focus on the young, the courageous, the dragon slayers. The ones who
revere Feynman, eschew cargo cult science.
There is a new day aborning.
I will help you, any way I can. Pls, think of me. …Lady in Red
Thank you Lady in Red!
Hello and good luck! It will be very interesting to follow this blog. You’ve got off to a pretty impressive start, commentwise.
Thanks Anders
Welcome to your own personal corner of the blogosphere, Dr. Curry. I look forward to seeing what you offer up here and wish you luck.
Thank you Dillon
Pingback: Länkat & kommenterat 2010-09-13 — emretsson.net
I may be seen as an outlier around here, but on this point I will take the opportunity to agree.
The snapshots preview window on link hover is one of the worst usability misfeatures in the history of the web. I can’t think of any circumstance where it would be remotely useful, and it certainly doesn’t add to the appeal or utility of this site. Please do put an end to it.
Some blog improvements have been made, thanks for your suggestions:
Cosmetics
Snapshots preview on link hover is gone
Comments have a time stamp and permalink (still haven’t figured out how to do numbers)
Judith,
I enjoyed the article. Some scientific thinking and informed discourse seems to be breaking out. Deep understanding of recent and past climate history is the necessary starting point for seeking to falsify the nul hypothesis that we are just watching natural variability. I do hope that polar ice, sea level rise, glaciation, surface temperature trends, precipitation records, etc. can be considered in the same way without the noise of the shrill and rude voices of those who have already made up their minds. Just one word of caution. When moving into the domain of future projections, please remain as general as possible in the matter of future climate change trends. It may turn out to be unwise to exercise your pet dogs by chaining them to the back of the IPCC jeep.
Anyway good luck with trying to create a much needed common language and reasoned discourse.
DavS
Hello Judy and other readers :Lets talk some science. Congratulations Judy you astounded me , that you posted my comments . Are they over the “top” or are they getting to the “facts’ without PC.?
Are you willing to post abstracts or parts of papers that show that the “ghg effect” has never been proven by “creditable scientific experiments” Even the work of Tyndall(1860’s) has some very questionable data considering what is known today about IR radiation as shown by R.W.Wood in 1909 and other physicists? The noble prize of Niels Bohr in 1922 has added much to why “Back radiation ” as Hypotheses by Michael Mann needs “creditable experimental data” this has never been provided. In fact The University of Virginia has gone to court to hide the “Work of Micheal Mann” even thou he has published several books that must reference this same “research”. While a Judge? Whose wife studied at The University of Virginia in their environmental department under Michael Mann has blocked access at this “research” If public money was used for the “research” then it should be available. If Michael Mann does not want to have his data and Scientific methodology reviewed (peer or public review) then don’t take public money.
When major university physics departments are afraid to tell the truth that the “greenhouse gas effect” has never been proven with experimental data We are in trouble. List of references:
The paper “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effect within the frame of physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner is an in-depth examination of the subject. Version 4 2009
Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Modern Physics
B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (2009) 275{364 , DOI No: 10.1142/S021797920904984X, c World
Scientific Publishing Company, http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb.
Report of Alan Carlin of US-EPA March, 2009 that shows that CO2 does not cause global warming.
Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis Violates Fundamentals of Physics” by Dipl-Ing Heinz Thieme .
R.W.Wood
from the London, Edinborough and Dublin Philosophical Magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge p340.1.c.95, i
The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
By Alan Siddons
from:http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html at March 01, 2010 – 09:10:34 AM CST
After 1909 when R.W.Wood proved that the understanding of the greenhouse effect was in error and the ghg effect does not exist. After Niels Bohr published his work and receive a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. The fantasy of the greenhouse gas effect should have died in 1909 and 1922. Since then it has been shown by several physicists that the concept is a Violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
University of Pennsylvania Law School
ILE
INSTITUTE FOR LAW AND ECONOMICS
A Joint Research Center of the Law School, the Wharton School,
and the Department of Economics in the School of Arts and Sciences
at the University of Pennsylvania
RESEARCH PAPER NO. 10-08
Global Warming Advocacy Science: a Cross Examination
Jason Scott Johnston
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
May 2010
This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection:
ssrn.
Israeli Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv: ‘There is no direct evidence showing that CO2 caused 20th century warming, or as a matter of fact, any warming’ link to this paper on climate depot.
Web- site references:
http://www.americanthinker.com Ponder the Maunder
.
.
The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”
—Albert Einstein
Cleanwater, this post is acceptable (but too long), please keep your future posts shorter. Of the papers you list, I agree that Jason Scott Anderson’s essay is interesting. I do not intend to get involved in the greenhouse gas discussion, this issue is being adequately handled at Roy Spencer and scienceofdoom.
Please pardon me, Dr. Curry, but I am serious, do you really mean.
” I do not intend to get involved in the greenhouse gas discussion, this issue is being adequately handled at Roy Spencer and scienceofdoom. ”
There has been distinct “moderation” of posts at Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog already, as well as him completely refusing (as well as deleting), ignoring to answer some perfectly reasonably phrased / put questions.
If so, what other “areas” are “out of bounds” for this blog going forwards. ?
AGW “theory” perhaps ????????
Will you consider discussing surface heating, retention, and varying later release. ?
Then “we” may just be a little nearer what is left as an anomaly for the assumed greenhouse effect and so called GH gases to “explain”.
Derek, on Open thread, people can bring up whatever issues they like, provided that they are related to climate variability and change. In terms of which topics I decide to post on, than choice will be made based upon user suggestions, my personal interest in tackling a particular topic, and whether I personally think the topic is an important one to discuss here.
Judy : you are trying to cover a lot so this is a correction not a criticism: The paper from Jason Scott Johnston
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA-referenced above.
I have referenced Dr. Charles Anderson Ph. D. physicist that did an excellent add on to the paper The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse Theory
By Alan Siddons
Dr C
The post looks very nice now. But the comments section looks too crowded and screwy now. And yes, as Dr Tobis is pointing out, please, please take out the site preview function. Whoever came up with that brainwave.
Shub, I agree the comments section looks awful, trying to get this fixed
Dear Dr Curry
A warm welcome! I note that you have already received good wishes from people far more erudite than me, but may I add mine, too? I have followed the topic for several years and often rued the tribalism on show. Your opening statement of principles is thus profoundly to be welcomed.
The sheer volume of comments on this opening thread will no doubt give you heart that your site will quickly become a key forum. Your reputation for honest, clear speaking based on impeccable credentials will ensure this.
With very best wishes.
David Bishop
Thank you David!
Dear Dr. Curry: I want to congratulate you on joining the blogosphere. As a highly interested non-scientist and self-professed weather geek, I look forward to learning more about weather and climate and hope you can maintain the decorum and courtesy that seem to be lacking at other blogs on “both sides of the aisle.” Judging from the blog wars you have triumphed over, I have no doubt that you will succeed!
Go Yellow Jackets! (we’ll just forget about the Kansas game).
Thank you Chuck. Unfortunately the Jackets are off to a pretty wimpy start :(
Judith,
I request that you ban the pejorative words: “deniers,” “denialists,” etc., in your blog policy [“anti-science,” “contrarians,” etc. are just harmless projection, and as such are meaningless space-fillers].
Such a Policy will upset the hurlers of the “denier” invective, although it is up to you to if you wish to cater to them. It’s your blog. The reasons for my request are as follows:
If a commenter is so ignorant of the real world, including the fact that individuals have received judicial punishment for ‘denying’ that the Holocaust took place, then they are surely too unaware of the real world to have credible opinions on more complicated matters like science.
And if they are aware of the odious connotation of “deniers” like most folks are, then they are deliberately equating scientific skeptics — the only honest kind of scientists — with Holocaust deniers. That certainly crosses the line into bad taste, and adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.
Good luck in your blogging. And of course, please don’t blog on taxpayer’s dime like Gavin Schmidt constantly does.
Thanks Smokey, stay tuned for my “Doubt” post on Thurs, where this issue will be discussed at length.
Greetings from the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
A ground breaking post Dr. Curry, congratulations on carving out your own territory here in the blogosphere. I’ve really enjoyed your contributions on the other blogs I follow and have a great deal of respect for what you have been doing and are continuing to do here with the launch of Climate Etc.
Thank you for recognizing the growing number of people willing to learn and discuss the sciences of climate and more.
Sorry Judy for this long comment but it is relivent and would only confuse if it were broken into many separate Blogs>§
Dave H says:
September 13, 2010 at 11:54 am
I made the following comment elsewhere the last time this question came up.
Off the top of my head, if you want to falsify AGW, you have to do one or more of the following:
1. Falsify that there is a CO2-induced warming effect. This involves demonstrating that small scale laboratory experiments showing the physical radiative transfer mechanism behind CO2-induced warming are wrong, and provide an alternative explanation that explains the observations. Subsequently, demonstrate that calculations as to what the Earth’s temperature would be in the absence of atmospheric CO2 are wrong, and explain what other previously unknown mechanism is responsible for our present habitable temperatures. Explain why all previous work on this subject is wrong, and how the new hypothesis better matches observations and calculations.
David H.: I know of only one set of one experiment that claims to “proof the existence of the GHG effect” It was done at the University of Bremen in Germany as part of a Ph.D. thesis. After attempting to get in touch with the author I prepared the following list of faults in the text and description of the experiment. The experiment only proves one thing and that is that the “Greenhouse effect exists” and that it is caused by “confined space heating as was proved by R.W. Wood in 1909.
1. Are the two containers the same size, shape and type of glass? Different types of glass
absorb different wave lengths of IR and heat up differently.
2. Where are the thermometers located relative to the light? Are they in the light path
were they would absorb some of the IR thus warming & skewing the data.
3. If the greenhouse gas effect exists there should be a different temperature of the black
cardboard in the CO2 container. The temperature was not measured therefore this
experiment only illustrates that the CO2 heats up. Does it heat from absorption or from conduction of different heating of the container?
4. Was the experiment done with other “greenhouse gases?” as CH4, butane, natural
cooking gas, Nitrogen trifloride (supposedly 1000 time the effect of CO2) ?
5. Did the experimenters reverse the gases to the other container to evaluate differences
in the set-up.?
6. Was more than one set of test done? Is there more data to evaluate?
7. Did you monitor the temperature of the water in the trays? If the trays are in contact
with the gases there is conduction of heat from the bottom of the glass trays to the gases.
8. I can not be sure from the photos but it appears that the top of C1 container is closed ,if
this is true then you have created a confined space heating container (greenhouse effect).
It has been proved by R.W. Wood and others that the heating in a greenhouse is caused
by the restriction of heat convection and not back radiation of IR. The top of C2 appears
open thus keeping the temperature lower by convection. Good job of cheating.
9. What you have shown is what has been known from IR spectroscopes that different
gases absorb different wave lengths of IR. ( CO2 only absorbs three narrow wavelengths of IR)
10. I have done a similar experiment except I used clear Mylar balloons (very little or no
absorption of IR as opposed to glass) Based on IR thermometer reading and available
data on IR absorption by glass much of the heating in the experiment was from the glass.
This was not measured in the experiment. By using Mylar balloons in bright sunlight
there was no heating of the gases inside 4 balloons above ambient temperature (measured
with an IR thermometer reading to O.1 degrees F. The contents were 100% CO2, 100%
butane, natural gas (CH4 and CO2) and air. The black cardboard I used did not show any
differential heating between areas in the “shadow” of the balloons compared to “unshadowed” areas –no back radiation from the “greenhouse gas effect” The black
Cardboard did increase in temperature from ambient of 95 degree F to 175 degree F.
Uniformly across the surface.
11. If the greenhouse gas effect exists why hasn’t it been applied to something useful like
Thermo pane window filled with a “greenhouse gas” that would back radiate IR into the
house and create insulated windows with R=30 values.
12. In the text of the experiment the Experimenter state that the” IR heats the CO2” this is absolutly wrong,as was proved by Niels Bohr in his 1922 Noble prize winning work know as the “Bohr model”. Absorbed IR excites the electrons to a higher level but does not heat the Gas.
You ask the question “Why can it be warmer at night than during the day? Any
Elementary school students that can read a weather report know that daily temperature is
Effected by hot or cold air masses moving across the area. It is also obvious that
on a clear night the temperature will cool down much faster that on a cloudy night. Water
is not a greenhouse gas in spite of what many people say- it has known properties that
explain temperature differences 24/7/365. There is no back radiation –there is reflection
of light or blockage of light(clouds) energy release as lightening and other thermo effects
that are within the Laws of physics and thermodynamic.
When you find reliable experimental data that proves that the “greenhouse gas effect
exists please share it with the world.
In the mean time read “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within
The frame of Physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner and when you
understand it in five or ten years (a PhD level –way above your level of intelligence) and
the global temperature has dropped by the 0.6 degrees that it has gone up over the passed
120year you will realize that man-made global warming is a hoax.
Posted by: cleanwater | May 14, 2009 3:09 PM revised 9-13-2010
ps: To compare the Earth to a theroretical “black body” is totally ignorant of physics- a theroretical “black body” is just that. The Earth is covered with 80+% water(hot water bottle effect) or ice, the remainder is green or brown and there is an Atmophere around it of Oxygen and Nitrogen that hold heat.
Cleanwater, this is absolutely the last long post of yours I will allow. You’ve made your point.
Clearwater, in your rush to insult me you have entirely missed the point.
My post was in response to the question “what would falsify AGW”, primarily because the argument is sometimes made that AGW is unfalsifiable and therefore somehow “not science”. I am not inviting anybody to try and falsify it point by point in this thread – so your response is a massive waste of time and space.
Given that you reference Gerlich and Tscheuschner approvingly, you may want to look at the critique at Scienceofdoom, a site which Dr Curry recommends on these matters: http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/04/05/on-the-miseducation-of-the-uninformed-by-gerlich-and-scheuschner-2009/
I will use your comment in future as a reference whenever anybody claims that “skeptics” are somehow more polite than those that accept the science.
Hi Dr Curry
Thanks for getting into positive blogging. I just read the post and comments so far on hurricanes and it has IMO all the best elements of internet climate science – reasoned, restrained and evidence supported dialogue from informed commentators. I doubt I’ll have much to offer here other than best wishes and good luck. I’m actually not too concerned if you blog on paid time – (that’s between you and your employer… and I pay tax in the uk!) – as I actually think, if it is a real two way open dialogue instead of a PR effort, it is a very cost effective way of testing ideas and gaining good quality input, some of which may be from completely unexpected quarters.
Have fun :-)
Kind regards
C
Judith
Welcome to the blogosphere – always good to see someone willing to discuss the issues regardless of their opinion. Wishing you all the best.
Twawki
So we have already lost 50 words; and now have a 250 maximum. Well that’s about the limit of how many words I know; specially about Hurricanes.
But I did add you to my favorites list; so if I have something to say in 250 words; I’ll be back.
George
Good Luck on your blog. I’m just an engineer, but I found your comments on WUWT intelligent and well thought out.
Just an Engineer! Djozar! Engineers deal with the real world! ;-)
Judith, congratulation and good luck with the site. As of now hitting the “Register” button is giving me problems but that’s probably the China location rather than your site. Still 9 days and back to Cyprus and open www!
You should have made this move way back!
Yes, we do the real world – unfortunately a lot of it is populated by unreal people.
“”” cleanwater says:
September 13, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Sorry Judy for this long comment but it is relivent and would only confuse if it were broken into many separate Blogs>§
Dave H says:
September 13, 2010 at 11:54 am
I made the following comment elsewhere the last time this question came up.
Off the top of my head, if you want to falsify AGW, you have to do one or more of the following:
1. Falsify that there is a CO2-induced warming effect. This involves demonstrating that small scale laboratory experiments showing the physical radiative transfer mechanism behind CO2-induced warming are wrong, and provide an alternative explanation that explains the observations. Subsequently, demonstrate that calculations as to what the Earth’s temperature would be in the absence of atmospheric CO2 are wrong, and explain what other previously unknown mechanism is responsible for our present habitable temperatures. Explain why all previous work on this subject is wrong, and how the new hypothesis better matches observations and calculations.
David H.: I know of only one set of one experiment that claims to “proof the existence of the GHG effect” It was done at the University of Bremen in Germany as part of a Ph.D. thesis. After attempting to get in touch with the author I prepared the following list of faults in the text and description of the experiment. The experiment only proves one thing and that is that the “Greenhouse effect exists” and that it is caused by “confined space heating as was proved by R.W. Wood in 1909.
1. Are the two containers the same size, shape and type of glass? Different types of glass
absorb different wave lengths of IR and heat up differently. “””
Well this is the sort of post that drives me nuts.
Those “laboratory experiments” that prove CO2 heating of the atmosphere are a GIANT FRAUD.
Look outside your window at the world around you and count the number of heat lamps pointing up into the sky to heat the atmosphere.
The long wave Electromagnetic Radiation that is captured by green house gases; including CO2 and H2O has a typical spectrum ranging from about 5.0 microns to about 80 microns (for 98% of the emitted energy) and even allowing for the total 150 deg C range of extreme earth surface temperatures, you only get about 4.0 microns to about 120 microns but the mean spectrum for the majority of the earth corresponds to an emission Temperature of about 288 Kelvins or 15 deg C; which gives a maximum of 390 W/m^2 total emittance.
The light bulbs used in those fake lab demonstrations typically have a color Temperature of about 2800 Kelvins; so they are likely emitting 10,000 times what the real source is emitting and at a wavelength of about 1 micron which the human body does sense as “heat”.
The 10 micron spectrum emitted by a typical garden brick at 15 deg C is not detectable by ANY human sensory mechanism and certainly not as “heat”. Yes that radiation most certainly is partially captured by GHGs including CO2 and H2O; but anyone who claims thay can detect it being radiated back at them from the atmosphere is a liar. It requires very specialized cooled detector equipment to even detect the radiation that GHGs capture
Great to hear that you have started using a blog to communivate your contributions to the debate. The world needs more honest scientists! Especially these days. I look forward to reading it often.
Regards,
Bruce
Smokey:
‘Judith,
I request that you ban the pejorative words: “deniers,” “denialists,” etc., in your blog policy [“anti-science,” “contrarians,” etc. are just harmless projection, and as such are meaningless space-fillers].
Such a Policy will upset the hurlers of the “denier” invective, although it is up to you to if you wish to cater to them. It’s your blog. The reasons for my request are as follows:
If a commenter is so ignorant of the real world, including the fact that individuals have received judicial punishment for ‘denying’ that the Holocaust took place, then they are surely too unaware of the real world to have credible opinions on more complicated matters like science.
And if they are aware of the odious connotation of “deniers” like most folks are, then they are deliberately equating scientific skeptics — the only honest kind of scientists — with Holocaust deniers. That certainly crosses the line into bad taste, and adds absolutely nothing to the conversation.’
Good. I like ‘contrarian’, and ‘warmist’ seems equally meaningless, so it’s a fair trade-off.
But all this hyperventilating over the term ‘denier’ seems based on the extremely lazy assumption that a significant group of people deny that the holocaust ever happened, when most of the more famous ‘deniers’ actually say that many people were murdered, but not nearly as many as the six million or so that are usually claimed. So, even assuming that AGW sceptic are being compared to ‘holocaust deniers’, they are actually accused of claiming that ‘warmists’ exaggerate concerns about climate, which isn’t such a terrible accusation.
However, since the people who complain about the term evidently are claiming that ‘holocaust deniers’ deny that the holocaust happened at all, those complaining are guilty of exaggeration, and are either too ignorant of the real world to be taken seriously, or are deliberately equating sceptical scientists with liars or fools, or both.
Did you win your wager, ‘Judy’? I thought thingsbreak was going to hit the floor first, but then cleanwater took an elegant swandive…
I think some version of the Gresham Rule applies here. You lose.
That should have been ‘AGW sceptics are being compared‘. I get through all those italic couplings, and miss a lousy ‘s’…
In my last blog I forgot a very important reason why the Earth is not a theoretical “Blackbody” it has a magma core that is several thousands of degrees F. The amount of the earth’s crust that covers this hot magma core varies from zero at a volcano, to a few feet at a gauzier like Yellowstone to thousands of feet and even many miles under the ocean. Lookup the Nova episode on deep sea exploration and learn about Black chimneys that gush 1000 degree water (superheated by the magma and kept as water by the extreme pressure under the ocean. These black chimneys probably have more to do with ocean acidification if it really exists than the minisquial amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.(Check the solubility of CO2 in fresh water to see that CO2 in the atmosphere can not be changing the pH of the oceans-another Jim Hansen fairy-tale with no data to back up the Hypotheses)
.
err. I can barely clear my throat in 250 words.
count limits are for twitter
A bit prolix, are we? ;)
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cleanwater:
have you actually ever looked at the woods experiment? the data and the methods? I mean the actual data?
forget that the experiment has nothing whatsoever to do with the propagation of radiation through the ENTIRE column of the atmosphere. have you actually read the experiment write up and looked at the data?
well, there is no data. there is just this
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html
but this is not the place for C02 discussions. try scienceofdoom. ask about the stratosphere.
Dr. Curry,
Just a quick note of welcome & thanks from a mostly-lurker at several climate blogs. Your courage & good humor have been apparent in your attempts to engage all sides of the debate, and to build bridges (and most of all, to enter the bear pit at Real Climate!). A centrist is someone who takes hits from all sides, but from what I’ve read at WUWT, CA, and others, you seem to have thickened your hide remarkably quickly.
I agree with a word limit – there are some incredibly long-winded comments at other blogs – but I suspect that 250 words may be a little too little. Time will tell.
At any rate, welcome & may the the force be with you.
I’m delighted to have a new daily reading link added at the top of my BlackBerry’s browser list. If the balance here achieves even half of our great expectations–the content is not in doubt–then may your influence spread to the seven continents.
Who knows, this forum could even become the go-to point for the IPCC reviewers and editors! We’ll all just pretend that Dr. Pachauri is still in charge, while the real science and policy conversations are carried out right here.
Best wishes.
Even the pretense is galling. OTOH, his unerring penchant for egregious errors, overstatement, and sheer bumpf is a useful diagnostic for the whole granfaloon!
Dear Dr. Curry,
Your new climate blog, “Climate Etc.”, aiming at providing a scientifically based and civilized discussion forum on climate issues, is much welcomed. Indeed, the signal to noise ratio in the climate debate in the blogosphere is generally low and I have therefore much enjoyed your earlier contributions to the climate debate. There exists another good scientific blog, “Claes Johnson on Mathematics and Science” (http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com/), which is maintained by Claes Johnson, professor in Applied Mathematics at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. Claes and his team use state-of-art mathematical methods to model various physical phenomena, related to thermodynamics, kinetics, flow in viscous media (including turbulence effects) and heat transfer phenomena such as conduction, convection, latent heat transport through evaporation and condensation, and blackbody radiation.
They use finite precision modeling to; for example, capture physical heat loss effects like in turbulent flow, friction and blackbody radiation. One key element often discussed in his blog is the detailed nature of blackbody radiation (what it is, when it transfers heat and when it does not, etc.) and “back-radiation”, basic information that is quite difficult to find in an accessible, but still comprehensive (see links in his blog) form elsewhere. Blackbody radiation is the single fundamental climate factor where there still exists considerable confusion in the climate debate and where misrepresentations are more the rule than exception in climate publications, including the IPCC reporting. It is therefore essential to make factual and easily accessible information on this topic available to the climate community. I therefore kindly ask you to provide a link Claes’ blog in the blogroll on your new blog.
I wish you success with “Climate Etc.”,
Dr. Jan Slycke, Materials scientist with special interests in thermodynamics, kinetics and heat transfer, and also engaged in climate related issues
trollhunterx,
You seem to be misinformed about the prevalence of Holocaust deniers:
http://tiny.cc/myxv9
To Steven Mosher: Thank you for putting the link to the summary of the R.W.Wood work-(I have read it many time) it also has links to the Fourier 1827 which I had not seen before.-Basically it said that Fourier’s work is based on formulas and calculations- no experimental data.
As the reference to Wood was a summary -it is not the actual paper which appears to be buried in a file in London. If the actual paper is available I’d like to read it. As his paper is based on experimental work I find it more reliable that “formulas and calculations.( no data to back it up).
On thing that is very common to these papers is the reference to IR absorption heating the gas. Obviously this is an error in physics (understandable since the work of Niels Bohr was published in 1922). Another error that is very common is when an experiment as was done by Tyndall in the 1860’s it included water in the containers- as long as there is water present there is no way to measure the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere- The IR absorption of water is an overlapping range to CO2 and far stronger. NASA tells children to do an experiment with pop bottles, water and Alka-Seltzer ( to add CO2 to the container)then measure the heating of the bottle when placed in the sun or with a heat lamp. The problem is as long as there is water in the system there is no way to determine the effect of the CO2 as water is the major IR absorber vs. the possible effect of CO2. There has to be a control that has no CO2 only water; test bottles with various amounts of water and others with various amounts of CO2. Another bottle with 100% CO2 should be included to represent the other end of the controls.
I have never seen this simple test done and reported on.
My test which was show in a previous Blog shows that there is no heating of the test balloons or the area behind the test balloons.
cleanwater asked for R.W. Wood’s paper. Here is the relevant note concerning his experiment:
R.W. Wood was a pre-eminent scientific experimenter of his day – as opposed to being a modeler.
I am not aware of any peer reviewed replication of Wood’s experiment, or falsifying of his experiment. If anyone has such information, please link to it.
Thank you Smokey: I have seen this before what I would like to have is the actual document published in the London, Edinborough and Dublin Philosophical Magazine , 1909, vol 17, p319-320. Cambridge p340.1.c.95, i.
To George E. Smith: We are in total agreement- but look at my most resent post 9-14-2010.
The problem with the fact that the ‘ghg effect does not exists” is that universities and major energy companies and consultants and civil engineers can not get grants and projects to build worthless plants to Sequester CO2 or build higher dikes to protect against the rising oceans ! Especially civil engineers should be pushing to get money into repairing inter-structure of this country which is falling apart by the minute. This is not the glory of “saving the planet”
To Dave H. I don’t quite get your point-do you believe in the “ghg effect” or not? Yes I looked at the web-site Scienceofdoom..I found it to be an attack without documentation and data.
> I found it to be an attack without documentation and data.
Perhaps the critiques are “way above your level of intelligence”. Or perhaps you just want to believe otherwise. It is very simple to understand how G&T’s arguments require that the temperature of the Earth’s surface *cannot* be greater than 255k, yet we can observe that it is. It is very simple to understand how G&T’s arguments logically apply to *all* “greenhouse” warming, water vapour included. It is very simple to understand how G&T have come up with something that violates the 2nd law. That you choose not to do so, instead dismissing extremely easy to understand criticisms of blatant flaws as attacks “without documentation and data” suggests to me you should refrain from insulting behaviour and instead adopt a more skeptical attitude and a little humility.
“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”
—Albert Einstein
Oh, and read this:
http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpb/24/2410/S021797921005555X.html
‘Smokey says:
September 14, 2010 at 4:09 pm
trollhunterx,
You seem to be misinformed about the prevalence of Holocaust deniers:
http://tiny.cc/myxv9‘
If I am, I don’t see how that link is supposed to enlighten me. It’s just the Google search for ‘Holocaust, denier, court’. Unless a court draws a distinction between claiming that the Holocaust never happened, and saying that fewer people were killed than is generally recorded, and that court lets off those who say the latter, then courts don’t affect the ‘prevalence’ of holocaust deniers, and if they did, their influence would tend to be reductive.
Apparently trollhunterx never bothered to read any of the links provided. Ten of ten hits on the first page reports on “Holocaust deniers.” One example [out of 268,000 results] describes someone being convicted for stating on television that he “did not believe Jews were killed in gas chambers during World War II.”
That fits the definition of a Holocaust denier, no? And nitpicking that a handful may have been killed – while denying the six million number – does not salvage the argument that “deniers” is not a pejorative label deliberately linked to the WWII murders of millions of people. Further, the court did not ‘let off’ the convicted denier simply because he admitted that a few jews actually had been killed.
If it is necessary to label honest scientists skeptical of the catastrophic AGW hypothesis as “deniers” in order to support the scare story that CO2 is going to trigger runaway global warming and climate catastrophe, then the purveyors of that computer model-based belief have already lost the debate.
Let me try to sound more appreciative, then. It’s simply [i]amazing[/i] that with a Google search for holocaust deniers, you found holocaust deniers. Moreover, these people accused of holocaust denial were in court for holocaust denial, unlike people who aren’t in court for holocaust denial.
But I didn’t say anything about ‘a handful’, nor ‘a few jews’. You’ve ran with nothing and tried to turn it into something, which is the point of the insinuation about “‘denier’ invective” in the first place. To take a word applied to a specific group who adopt an extreme attitude on global warming (it isn’t happening for between one and a hundred reasons, depending on the hour of the day of the week), and claim it is being applied to a larger group who the label ‘denier’ doesn’t fit. Hey presto, a scurrilous and unreasonable accusation!
Here’s the thing. It’s deflective, muddying crap like this that makes the average person in the street think the ‘sceptic’ has no serious argument, and therefore needs to keep running from one stratagem to the next, because anything he/she shelters behind gets torn to pieces in moments. Unless this blog is going to present the evidence that nails the ‘holocaust slur’ to the wall?
trollhunterx, that’s the point. It is being applied to a larger group, with Steve McIntyre being the prime example.
“”” cleanwater says:
September 14, 2010 at 5:25 pm
To George E. Smith: We are in total agreement- but look at my most resent post 9-14-2010.
The problem with the fact that the ‘ghg effect does not exists” is that universities and major energy companies and consultants and civil engineers can not get grants and projects to build worthless plants to Sequester CO2 or build higher dikes to protect against the rising oceans ! “””””
Well Cleanwater; I certainly hope that you did NOT interpret any of MY words to mean that the “Greenhouse effect ” as we understand that meaning in “Climate Science” as distinct from “Agriculture” does not exist. That is a very poor choice of places to die for.
What i said was that the common lab experiments that supposedly demonstrate that effect are a fraud; because they use an entirely irrelevent source of energy to heat up those gas samples; namely a high Temperature thermal radiations source.
A more accurate experiment to demonstrate that; and simultaneously actually measure the “Climate Sensitivity”; defined here as the rise in Temperature due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 as a result of absorption of typical earth surface emitted LWIR thermal radiation; would make up two samples of “dry air” from pure Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon; hopefully even with the correct isotopic mixture for O2 and N2, and one having say 400 ppm of CO2 and the other 800 PPM of CO2, or perhaps better yet; set one at the classical acceptable 280 ppm and the other at the unacceptible 560 ppm.
Then you irradiate those samples with the LWIR thermal radiation as emitted by say an ordinary brick at a Temperature of 288 K which is the alleged mean Temperature of the earth Surface. Of course you have to do the proper shielding and insulation (thermal) of the components to be sure the thermometers are not getting a reading directly from the radiation or conduction; but only from the air temperature. I’m sure a clever mixing scheme can be arranged to circulate the air through the heating (radiation) zone, and then to the thermometers.
If you do the experimenrt thusly; then supposedly according to climate science and the IPCC you should get 3 deg C difference between the two air samples (+/- 50% of course) so somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5 deg C difference; that being the IPCC value of the “Climate Sensitivity”.
RW Wood’s experiment was simply rubbish; since he used sunlight to heat his samples; what the hell good is that.
As for the earth not being a black body. The BB theoretical model is useful, since ti sets a known maximum “Do not exceed” amount to the radiation from any heated body. As it turns out about 75% of the earth is water, and maybe 70% is deep water, which is about 97% absorbing; so actually the oceans surface is a quite good emulation of a black body at whatever the local surface Temeprature is. Since that Temperature is not constant over the planet; then of course the total IR emission spectrum cannot match any single Temperature BB spectrum. It is still a good starting point.
I think it is fair to say, if you know the theory of BB radiation and nothing else; then you are a hell of a long way ahead of someone who has all the observations of climate science but no BB theory.
I’m sure I am already over Judith’s 250 word limit; that happens.
HELLO George: After reading your response and the corrections it is obvious that you have had very little physics. There are at less two major errors in physics. I would suggest you look up Kickoff’s law of thermodynamics about Black body radiation and also Niels Bohr’s prize winning Noble prize in physics.
Until you provide some experimental data to back up your experiment it is just repeating the Hypotheses of the Greenhouse gas effect. Until you give us the data with both CO2 and CH4 I consider your comments as ‘blowing more smoke” I’d also suggest that you lookup the climatedepot.com web-site to see how poorly the IPCC is fairing since the IAC report shows that the IPCC is a fraud.
Bohr got a prize for winning the Noble Prize? What prize was that?
Is there also a Nobel Prize for winning a prize for winning a Nobel Prize? Can anyone apply?
Not to be confused with the Ignoble prize shared by by Gore and the IPCC.
That’s ig-no-BELL to you, bub.
Correction. That particular experiment of Woods was obviously a test of the theory of the Agricultural greenhouse. And I think we are pretty much all in agreement without the need to do any experiments that the wavelength shift explanation is of course incorrect as Woods describes.
But what we refger to as the Greenhouse effect with regard to climate is a real effect even though it has nothing to do with greenhouses.
And it also doesn’t have much serious effect on earth’s climate other than the water vapor stopping us from being an ice ball.
Preventing a “heat runaway” is more like it. How, pray tell, could one be covered in ice with no water? The bind moggles!
;)
Hey Judy!
I hope that this blog is a good tool to help to inform the public about climate change and what’s happening on our planet. …at the least, it’ll be pretty entertaining to watch! ;)
Wishing you good luck,
Jud
Hi Jud, thanks for stopping by
LAB EXPERIMENTS
Do any of them involve clouds? Could they? Should they?
Or hurricanes?
As it happens … CERN cosmic ray experiment.
Guess what it’s called?
Cute :-)
Seems to be mainly about cloud formation. I suppose only once this is better understood, will they be able to address any feedback effects clouds may have.
Yes, the blatant failure of the inquiries to properly deal with the issues clearly documented in Climategate is indeed evidence of subsequent scams calculated to obscure the first one – whitewashes, coverups. That UEA and Penn State have been exonerated by investigators handpicked by themselves really doesn’t cut much ice. And the UK parliamentary one was little better, with the government largely seeking to protect the status of one of its own institutions, along with credibility of the basic alarmist message it espouses.
What is needed, is inquiries with genuine independence. Looking into Climategate itself, as well as the bogus earlier inquiries.
It seems there has already been an investigation into the Climategate investigations:
http://www.thegwpf.org/climategate/1532-damning-new-investigation-into-climategate-inquiries.html
You will probably be very surprised to hear that I – after having read the file – remain unconvinced.
No, Oystein, we’re not surprised at all. LOL
Øystein: I read this to mean that you are unconvinced that the inquiries are unconvincing?
This is starting to sound G&S-esque. Shall we write yet another parody – I am the Very Model of a Modern Climatologist? Not quite as onomatopoeiic as the original – would Modern Meteorologist work?
Sorry – in a short lull while waiting for a call . . .
So – following precedent – should we call Oystein a Climategate Denier then….?
As it is with all these things, it comes down to who you trust. Or whose argument you trust. So when I read through the what Montford wrote, I remembered this.
Spesifically, the sentence inside saying “Nor was the point of the Oxburgh report to placate the skeptics, or the public. The panel’s stated purpose was that it was asked to come to a view on the integrity of the Unit’s research and whether as far as could be determined the conclusions represented an honest and scientifically justified interpretation
of the data. If you don’t like that, then fine, start your own panel.”
Oh, and there was also some mention (way ahead of the report) of some of the issues here
Judith
From the global mean temperature anomaly data of the CRU, we have the following results
1) 30 years of slight global cooling from 1880 to 1910
2) 30 years of global warming at the rate of 0.15 deg C per decade from 1910 to 1940
3) 30 years of slight cooling from 1940 to 1970
4) 30 years of global warming at the rate of 0.16 deg C per decade from 1970 to 2000
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/to:1970/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/to:2000/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:1910/trend
And since 2000, we have a nearly constant global mean temperature anomaly of 0.4 deg C
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2010
Note that the most recent global warming rate for the 30-years period from 1970 to 2000, after human emission of CO2 for 60 years, is nearly identical to that from 1910 to 1940.
Judith, which global warming rate so far is supposed to indicate catastrophic man made global warming?
Girma, your analysis of the temp data is basically correct. It is the warming since 1970 that is attributed to anthropogenic warming. But until a more convincing attribution of these previous temperature anomalies is done (solar, volcanoes, aerosols, ocean oscillations, whatever), I agree that the attribution of the recent warming to AGW is overconfident, see my doubt post
The steam railway was a major emitter of CO2. The railway age was already in full swing before 1860.
Judith
Approximate Global Mean Temperature Anomaly (GMTA) Pattern for the 20th Century
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/to:2000/compress:12
Year =>GMTA (deg C)
1880 =>-0.2
1910 =>-0.2 – 0.4 = -0.6
1940 =>-0.6 + 0.7 = 0.1
1970 => 0.1 – 0.4 = -0.3
2000 => -0.3 + 0. 7 = 0.4
Assuming this pattern (-0.4 deg C for the 30-years of global cooling, and +0.7 deg C for the 30-years of global warming) for the 20th century also applies for the 21st century, we have:
2030 => 0.4 – 0.4 = 0
2060 => 0 + 0.7 = 0.7
2090 => 0.7 – 0.4 = 0.3
As a result, assuming 20th century pattern, there will not be increase in the GMTA at the end of the 21st century.
Judith, can I make that assumption?
Girma, you can’t make any assumption about what the 21st century will look like from the 20th century obs
Dagfinn says:
September 16, 2010 at 1:35 am
trollhunterx, that’s the point. It is being applied to a larger group, with Steve McIntyre being the prime example.
Dagfinn, by whom? Who decided that everyone who has reservations about the prevalent research must be a ‘denier’? Again, it looks to me as if the people who are ready to believe any accusation of ‘dirty deeds’ from the mainstream crowed that all sceptics were being slandered. The very same people ‘denying’ everyone else an intelligent, ad hom free debate. Oops, better be careful what I say there. I already said that one such individual’s response in a conversation was less abusive than usual, but still ‘a little tart’, [she?] spent the next two days accusing me of calling her a ‘tart’, just before getting banned.
Mind you, [she?] also claimed I ‘denied’ I was a feminist, after I asked her where she found a supposed quote about me being a ‘”liberated” feminist’. I had no strong feelings about feminism either way, but now I was a ‘denier’, without any evidence. Sound familiar?
If you want an absolutely off-the-wall example of that kind of wild, contemptuous warmer posting, check out cmb’s contributions at http://climatechangedispatch.com/climate-reports/7491-official-satellite-failure-means-decade-of-global-warming-data-doubtful. A truly remarkable display.
By whom? Try Joe Romm first. His use of the D word and the “anti-science” label is liberal to say the least. Then you can try googling for “McIntyre denier”. Interesting; one of the search results (by Fred Pearce in the Guardian) has McIntyre as a “full-time climate change denier”, but in the article itself, it has apparently been changed to “skeptic”. I suspect that Pearce may be a human being rather than a mud-slinging robot. ;-)
Anyway, even the “skeptic” label is dubious in his case and has clearly been (ab)used by the hockey team to deflect criticism and as an excuse for refusing FOI requests.
The fact that you can say that skepticism might be even considered an excuse for refusing an FOI request shows how thoroughly the CRU-Cru has corrupted itself and the process. As Turnbull says, the damage to East Anglia and CRU is probably fatal.
I ‘tried’ Joe Romm. You mean this kind of thing?
http://climateprogress.org/2009/06/22/roger-pielke-jr-denier-john-tierney-link-climate-change-extreme-weather/
‘Pielke is the uber-denier. He denies everything, including that which he himself has said. After his latest smear, no other word fits him.’
It suggests that I was correct in what I said above. When people do speak of ‘deniers’, they don’t refer to cranks who claim that an event didn’t happen/ isn’t happening, nosiree, but to those who, with whatever motivation, use every ruse and sleight of hand to chip away at the significance of the event/s.
I’m hoping that those kind of tricks won’t be tolerated here.
So you agree with Romm than Roger Pielke Jr. is a “denier”? Have you read his blog? Have you checked the facts of the case?
The significance of events is always more or less subjective. And anyone you disagree with can be accused of using “every ruse and sleight of hand” if you really want to conduct discussions that way. We’re back to square one. Anyone can be opportunistically labeled a denier.
‘And anyone you disagree with can be accused of using “every ruse and sleight of hand” if you really want to conduct discussions that way.’
You really think so? Everyone..?
Practically everyone is my guess. I’m open to counterexamples, though. My point is that “every ruse and sleight of hand” is pretty subjective in practice. It implies deception rather than honest error or muddled thinking. And that in turn implies knowledge of hidden motives.
Part 1
What is SCIENCE?
This website and its blogs are both totally out of control. It is time for some definitions of what physical science is. It is whatever discipline we are talking about: whether it is physics, chemistry, electrical engineering, climatology, astronomy, astrology, fortune telling, meteorology, etc. You name it; if it claims to be a science, it has to start with the observation of events that are occurring in the world around us, and we want to be able to explain the questions of “what and why” theses things are happening. This is so we can put that knowledge to use to better conditions for “all of mankind”. Falsification has no place in True Science!
THUS we start with a hypotheses, which is a theoretical explanation of the event in question. One starts collecting data, observations, and alternate explanations. Thereafter, we arrange the data in different ways to see if it supports the hypotheses, both in theoretical and real events that we are trying to understand. It is also very important to check the way the data was obtained. The accuracy of the instruments that are used to obtain the data, its range of sensitivity to the subject being studied, and interferences that can give faulty readings are of importance.
We then design experiments to test the hypotheses in a theoretical manner. If we cannot come up with experiments to support the results that match what is expected, we investigate at either modifying the hypotheses in a theoretical manner, or scrap it and start over. Keep in mind that negative results can be as meaning full as a positive results.
The theory of gravity has been tested, and is being modified because there are some unexplained events that don’t match reality. The Theory of Relativity (1921)has been under test for the past 90 years,
and it is being modified as new information in the areas of quantum physics and “string theory.” These are used to explain the previously unknown observations. New experiments to test the “Theory of Relativity” are being proposed and tested daily.
Where is the experimental data testing the hypotheses of the “greenhouse gas effect?” This hypotheses is about 200 years old, which started by Fourier, who used equations to predict his results. It was never tested by either data gathering or experiments. Then in 1860’s Tyndall did some experimenting, but his results were inconclusive, he stated that himself. Another thing was that he had water in his test system; thus he was not testing the effect of CO2. he did not do any test with only O2,N2 & H2O-no CO2 as a control.,
In 1896 Arrhenius proposed some theoretical effects , developing an elaborate table of predicted effects, it was never tested.. In the more that 100 years since Arrhenius, R.W.Wood performed his experiments that the greenhouse effect is the results of confined space heating, and not back radiation of IR. There have not been any creditable experiments performed that prove the “greenhouse gas effect exists” (end part 1).
Part 2
On this site and the site of Roy Spencer, the “George E. Smith and David H” have exercised there First Amendment rights to show how little they know about science of weather, physics and chemistry. But this is true of the millions of people that blog about “greenhouse gas effect.” They quote the supposed scientists that never provide any reliable test data that relates directly to the actual subject. Instead, they just parrot that data like “ice thickness” in their backyards, or either the Arctic or Antarctic relate to the testing of “back radiation” from known concentrations of CO2 , Ch4 ,Butane or other hydrocarbons that “Absorb IR radiation (IRag/IRam).
George is better than most of the people that blog,. He proposed an experiment that involved using known concentrations of O2, N2, and argon. Subsequently, he would add known concentrations of CO2. George wanted to irradiate this gas mixture with long wave infrared radiation (LWIR)). That is fine, the results will be the same. The Neil Bohr model would apply to his experimentation and the results will be no increase in temperature of the gas mixture.
George also blogged on Roy Spencer’s website in a very childish piece that totally ignored the fact that Earth is the third planet from the Sun. But if it we were the fourth planet from the sun, then all of the water on Earth would become ice (below 32°F ). If the orbit of the Earth increased by some disaster, by about 200,000 miles, the same condition would exist on Earth. Meaning that ice would be everywhere. On the other hand, the reverse would occur if we got closer to the Sun by about 100,000 miles, then the Earth temperature would be at approximately 150° to 250° F level, and all the water/ice/ liquid would do nothing to cool the planet. Radiation intensity either increases or decreases by the square of the distance from the major light/heat source, which happens to be the Sun. Thus it takes very little change to cause a significant effect.
Considering that the “young sun” provided far less irradiation than your suggested orbital change would cause, but no iceball resulted, and also considering that water’s change-of-state “heat pipe” negative feedback effect is orders of magnitude more powerful than a .11% decrease in orbital diameter would be, you are just making yourself sound pompous and foolish. Too bad. I’d had hopes for sense from you.
With a temperature change from the equator to the North pole on an average winter day of up to 100 degrees and only a difference of diameter approximately 4000 miles ;what would happen when the Earth moved 200,000 miles from the Sun Larger orbit.
” considering that water’s change-of-state “heat pipe” negative feedback effect is orders of magnitude more powerful than a .11% decrease in orbital diameter” You got your increase and decrease diameters of orbit mixed up.
Just for you information: and Mars provide the primary basis for these developments. The temperatures on the two Viking landers, measured at 1.5 meters above the surface, range from + 1° F, ( -17.2° C) to -178° F (-107° C). However, the temperature of the surface at the winter polar caps drop to -225° F, (-143° C) while the warmest soil occasionally reaches +81 …
Compared to a regular earth surface temperature of 130 degrees F in the day time in the desert. Air temperatures of 110 + F . The Sun sure doesn’t have much effect!
Actually, the first part of my first sentence refers to the cooling effect of widening the orbit, and the second to the warming effects of shrinking it. So no, I didn’t get them mixed up. And the comparison of distance to the poles to orbital change is utterly irrelevant; that’s in an atmosphere, and angle of incidence is the major irradiation change — not distance.
Brian H says:
September 17, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Considering that the “young sun” provided far less irradiation than your suggested orbital change would cause, but no iceball resulted, and also considering that water’s change-of-state “heat pipe” negative feedback effect is orders of magnitude more powerful than a .11% decrease in orbital diameter would be, you are just making yourself sound pompous and foolish. Too bad. I’d had hopes for sense from you.
Brian H says:
September 17, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Actually, the first part of my first sentence refers to the cooling effect of widening the orbit, and the second to the warming effects of shrinking it. So no, I didn’t get them mixed up. And the comparison of distance to the poles to orbital change is utterly irrelevant; that’s in an atmosphere, and angle of incidence is the major irradiation change — not distance.
Brian: here are you two responses to my comments-I do not see any sentence that refers to “widening orbit in the first response- do you?
What do you mean by “young sun” and the earth has been through many ice ages “iceballs”.
Please define “water’s change-of-state “heat pipe”.
Because of Earths range of ambient temperatures water has both a “negative and a positive” feed back explain when you want to use either one.
Just to help you put the effects of the variation of Solar radiation intensity- into perspective understand that to get to Solar effects on Earth – the earth is irradiated 24/7/365.25 and at a conservative evaluation the Earth absorbs more energy in TEN SECONDS than is used by all human activities use in ONE YEAR. There are some evaluations that down grade the effect to as much as 300 seconds( 5 minutes) to get the total Btu’s of energy absorbed. To give you some numbers the World uses 446 Quads (1 E+15) BTU . The earths upper atmosphere receives about 350 watts per sq. meter and a generally accepted value is 250 watts per sq meter at the surface. ,the Earths surface area is 510,072,000 sq. meters ( about one third could be uses as receiving full intensity ) the times (24/7/365.25)-3681720 second. Multiplying the numbers out you get 469485570960000000. watts(this still needs to be converted to Btu’s or visa versa) Any way Small changes in intensity with changes in output of the Sun or variations in the ratio of the Square of the distance will have significant effect.
Now that most astronomers are saying we are in a Solar Minimum we will be experiencing cooler weather for as much as 17 years world wide. Weather data from the Southern Hemisphere and Asia is confirming this daily. Is this a climate change -no- “climate change is thousands of weather days end to end for one “location”. To be sure of a climate change you have to look at 100 years of data and this will be for only one location, There are 1000’s of different “climates” in the world.
Getting back to the issue at hand Where is the data and the experiments that prove the “greenhouse gas effect exists? What other factors that are claimed by the AGW frauds to be insignificant are really significant?
here is a nice artcle on peer review.
actually an empirical study of sorts
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1008/1008.4324v1.pdf
… “We find that a small
fraction of incorrect(selfish or rational)referees can drastically reduce the quality of the published (accepted) scientific standard…”
Interesting article Judith,
“Some people were getting their papers rejected because they disagreed with the IPCC. ”
The IPCC is a political body, politically funded, part of a larger political body dedicated to promoting world government. It would be surprising in the extreme if its efforts did anything other than support this objective.
The burden of proof here thus lies lies with those who would argue the IPCC is being scientific and balanced, and that papers are not being rejected for being at odds with the UN’s political objectives. The Climategate comment about “redefining peer-review if I have to” to keep out a non-alarmist paper from a journal springs to mind here.
“what would happen when the Earth moved 200,000 miles from the Sun Larger orbit.” That’s a widening orbit by any interpretation, I believe.
The “young sun” refers to the lower output of the sun in the first 2-3 bn yrs of the solar system than the last 2. The point is that planetary stabilizing mechanisms appear to be able to cope with wide variations of insolation; temperature is not proportional to solar output.
As for the “quiet sun” sunspot cycle, that also has nothing to do with TCI, only with solar wind and its indirect effects on exposure to cosmic radiation. Cooling will result from increased cloud cover and albedo.
As for AGW we are on the same side of the argument. I think it is a trivial and unproven speculation, not even a proper hypothesis with rigorous falsification tests on offer. The burden of proof is entirely on the CAGW pushers; the Precautionary Principle is beneath contempt. The true danger to take precautions against is acceptance of the draconian decarbonization agenda, and its inevitable widespread devastating consequences.
Brian H: Yes I agree that the “greenhouse gas effect” does not exist and thus that AGW is a fraudulent concept.
I am curious to know what you base some of your other concepts on-physics,meteorology, astrophysics, certain references, etc.
Re: (Sep 21 12:01),
Every source I can access, moderated by my assessment of the qualifications and freedom from “conflicts of interest” of the sources. I find the G&T rejection of simplified and plugged/parameterized video-game models as a scientific tool very persuasive, e.g.
Hope We have edified a few people. Hopefully some people will look for facts and not just accept the word of politicians and “scientists” that are on the government payroll. This includes major companies and universities that receive government grants to sequester CO2 or other worthless project that will only waste money that could be better used to help people.
I assume the strict rules won’t apply to me. That I will have some pet troll status.
No link to JEG and the Strange Weather?
(Insert Kim Cobb allusion.)
But seriously…not sure that it is worth blogging. the stuff on blogs is such trash. People too. Working out is a better use of energy.
Well Judy: after a little over a month do you think that you’re any closer to an answer to the Internal question ‘Does the ‘greenhouse gas effect” exist? Does Mann-made global warming” exist? Is climate change actually happening?
Having lived in the Great Lakes Region for 71 years-more than 25000 days,I missed a few as a baby,I can assure you that “climate change” is a figment of politicians imaginations.
Definitions of the Climate Discussion
What is Climate?
Definition:A few thousand weather days end to end for a specific location.
How many climates are there in the world?
Every part of the country and the world has a unique climate -the south of France, the North slope of Alaska, the heart of Africa, the northeast Great Lakes region of the US ,the north of Italy, the south of Italy,thousands of different climates etc.
What is weather?
The atmospheric conditions where you are.
Can mankind control the weather?
We have tried for thousands of years from the Indian rainmaker, to the cloud seeders of the 1950-60. Man can not control the weather, then how the hell can man be controlling the climate. This whole B.S of MANN-made global warming is a fairy tale.
What example do you have that the world is experiencing climate change?
Does the freezing to death of hundreds of thousands of lambs in a spring snow storm in New Zealand,-worst in 26 years prove Climate change?
Does last years coldest winter in 50 years in Russia and 100 years in China,and the prediction that this winter will be the coldest in 1000 years,prove “Climate change”?
As John Stausal says-“Give me a break!”
To Climate Etc Regulars:
It is now easier to find ALL Climate Etc’s past blogs.
I have put all blog titles in a single page, and have sorted them by title name.
http://bit.ly/kffMa8
Since the start of Climate Etc on 2-Sep-2011 to today 1-May-2011, there were 188 blogs and 62,939 comments!
Thanks Judith for not censoring the non-consensus interpretation of the same data.
Regards
Girma
Girma –
Thank you
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The writer of the show, Ray McKinnon, was somewhat familiar with my case. His late wife, Lisa Blount was a friend of mine. She and I exchanged letters while I was on death row in Arkansas, and she even sang at a concert in Arkansas, along with Eddie Vedder, Patti Smith, and Johnny Depp, to help raise awareness about my plight.I heard that McKinnon also did research into the cases of other men who had been on death row and had been released or exonerated. It paid off. I can tell you from first hand experience that Rectify is a very realistic show.
Rectify is the story of a man who was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit, and spent 19 years on death row before getting out. Much like in my own real life case, the local politicians refuse to admit he’s innocent even after DNA testing points towards someone else. In fact, there was so much about this show that mirrored my own life I began to wonder how much of my story had crept into the script.
Wow, such a invaluable website.