by Judith Curry
“Climategate”—the unauthorized release of, and news stories about, e-mails between climate scientists in the United States and United Kingdom—undermined belief in global warming and possibly also trust in climate scientists among TV meteorologists in the United States.
“Climategate” undermined belief in global warming among American TV meteorologists
Edward Maibach, James Witte, and Kristopher Wilson
Published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol 92, issue 1 (January), pages 31-37. Online link to entire paper [here].
I was clearing my desk and picked up the Jan issue of BAMS and spotted this article. I have no idea how I missed this when it first came out. I did a blog search on it, and none of the climate blogs mention it (not even Watts). Its an article that is worth discussing. Some excerpts:
From the Introduction:
Television meteorologists are a potentially important source of informal climate change education in that a large majority of American adults watch local TV news, viewers consider the weather segment to be the most important part of the TV newscast, and most members of the public consider TV weather reporters to be a trusted source of information about global warming . As a source of information about global warming, more American adults trust television weather reporters (56%) than trust the mainstream news media (36%), religious leaders (45%), or various political leaders [Barack Obama (51%), Al Gore (47%), Sarah Palin (36%), and Arnold Schwarzenegger (35%)]; only scientists (74%) are a more trusted source of global warming information than TV weather reporters (Leiserowitz et al. 2010a).
The opportunity for local television weathercasters to educate the public about climate change extends well beyond the weather segment to include story reporting on air and on station Web sites, blogging, and community presentations. Often, weathercasters are the only person in their newsroom with any science training. By default, many are expected to cover a wide range of science topics beyond their specialty of meteorology.
Climate change is one of the science topics most frequently discussed by local TV weathercasters. A significant minority, however, hold beliefs that conflict with the scientific consensus about climate change. For example, nearly a third (29%) of AMS weathercast- ers surveyed agreed with the provocative assertion made by a prominent TV weathercaster that “global warming is a scam”; a larger proportion (41%) indicated that their primary obstacle to reporting on the topic was “too much uncertainty” in climate science. An early study found that weathercasters’ global warming attitudes and beliefs were more strongly predictive of their accurate knowledge of the science than were variables such as market size or the weathercaster’s education, length of experience, seniority, or professional seals of approval, which potentially indicates that motivated rea- soning was influencing interpretation of the scientific evidence of global warming at that time.
Results from a survey conducted January/February 2010:
A large majority (82.4%) of the respondents had heard of the Climategate story. Awareness of the story did not vary significantly by belief in global warming but did by political ideology: 86.5% of conservatives and 82.9% of moderates as compared to 75.7% of liberals had heard of Climategate.
Among the respondents who were aware of the story, nearly all (93.6%) followed the story “a little” or more closely. Attention to the story varied by respondent’s belief in global warming and their political ideology. Respondents most likely to have followed the story “very closely” were those who did not believe in global warming (47.0%) and political conservatives (37.4%).
Among the respondents who indicated they had followed the story “a little” or more closely, 55.8% indicated that the story had no influence on their level of certainty, and 42.0% indicated the story made them somewhat (26.1%) or much (15.9%) more certain that global warming is not happening. Conversely, only 2.3% indicated the story made them somewhat (1.4%) or much (0.9%) more cer- tain that global warming is happening. The impact of the story varied by respondent’s belief in global warming and political ideology. Respondents most likely to have indi- cated that the story made them much more certain that global warming is not happening were those who did not believe in global warming (42.3%) and the political conservatives (24.9%).
On a four-point scale (strongly distrust = 1, somewhat distrust = 2, somewhat trust = 3, strongly trust = 4), respondents rated how much they trust 11 potential sources of information about climate change, including climate scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), two sources that were frequently the focus of negative attention in the Climategate story. Overall, state climatologists and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (3.1), peer-reviewed science journals and the National Weather Association conferences (3.0), and American Meteorological Society con- ferences and climate scientists (2.9) were the most trusted sources of information. Respondents who had followed the Climategate story indicated significantly less trust for 8 of the 11 sources of information, including climate scientists and IPCC, than respondents who had not and had similar levels of trust for the other three sources: peer-reviewed journals, other weathercasters, and religious leaders. Respondents who do not believe in global warming indicated significantly less trust than those who do for 10 of the information sources, but indicated more trust for “other weathercasters” as an information source. Political conservatives were significantly less trusting than liberals of nine of the information sources and more trusting of the following two sources: other weathercasters and religious leaders .
None of the professional credentials was significantly associated with negative impact of the story, nor was age. Conversely, belief in global warming, political ideology, and gender were significantly associated with negative impact of the story.
Conservatives who followed the story were ap-proximately 45% more likely than moderates, and liberals were 71% less likely than moderates, to report that Climategate made them more certain that global warming is not happening. Similarly, those respon- dents who indicated they “don’t know” if global warming is happening and those who believe it is not happening were 1.8 and 4.5 times, respectively, more likely than those who believe it is happening to say that Climategate made them more certain that global warming is not happening. Female weathercasters, independent of their political ideology and belief in global warming, were 53.9% less likely than their male counterparts to report that Climategate made them more certain that global warming is not happening.
JC comments: Several Denizens have pointed out surveys that show large percentages of the public have never heard of Climategate. Well, the people that public listen to, such as TV weathercasters and the MSM have definitely heard of Climategate. A number of studies have shown the overall decline in climate coverage since Climategate, and I have a perception (I haven’t seen any studies on this) that the MSM has returned to a more “balanced” method of reporting (after pretty much rolling over for the IPCC since 2007). So the impact of Climategate on the public perception of climate change may occur indirectly through impact on TV weathercasters and the MSM. This article also reinforces several other sociological studies whereby peoples preconceived ideas and political leanings act as a filter for what gets paid attention to.
Study of meteorologists show the presence of confirmation bias among celebrity spokesmodels, regardless of level of education or experience?
While it’s not news, it does highlight the issue of second-hand ignorance.
lol.
You wish.
Another falling star…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8783011/Speed-of-light-broken-at-CERN-scientists-claim.html
Does 30 years of being a weatherman qualify you as a climatologist?
Or is it now only 15-17 years?
RoyFOMR
I don’t think any length of time as a weatherman qualifies someone to be a climatologist, any more than 30 years of reading lines in front of a camera turns anyone into an author, or 30 years of digging ditches makes one a chief hydrologist.
It does qualify a person to gain a feel for the appropriateness of the weather they are advised to report/read/dig. They are the ones who are on the front lines of the receiving end of scorn for lousy forecasts which were ill advised.
When the weather doesn’t match the reality people mock the messenger and not the forecasting service.
I think Bart R has it right.
At no point is a climatologist qualified to be a meteorologist.
Meteorologists predict the weather correctly some of the time.
Climatologists claim that trees are thermometers until 1960.
Nicely argued
You actually missed that joke?
Could be so. Nevertheless I found this to be amusing …
The Guardian
Raving: If they are basing causality and ‘the one-way arrow of time’ on the constancy of the speed of light, we are in big trouble. It will be fun (in the scientific sense) if they turn out to have correctly calculated and their findings upset the Einsteinian apple-cart. Where will that leave Hawkins? Physics (and especially theoretical sub-atomic physics and its big brother theoretical cosmology) could use a good shaking up.
Puhleeze.
Someone observes FTL about twice every five years.
Takes between three minutes and thirty years to disentangle what’s actually happened.
So far, none of the claims have panned out as actual FTL, except in QM in a way that simultaneously does and does not exceed the speed of light, but in such a way as to not violate causality.
Italians seem particularly fond of announcing they’ve done something faster than the speed of light.
Usually driving.
Huh.
More and more, my life is a webcomic.
http://xkcd.com/955/
Reality is stranger than science.
RE UARS:
Early Friday, Italy’s civil protection agency warned that the probability of a crash in its northern territory had risen from 0.6 to 1.5 per cent, and urged residents to stay indoors, on lower floors, preferably near load bearing walls.
How many years as a climate scientist qualify you to be a member of the World Science Council governing the planet?
Recently I watched the first Superman movie. For those unfamiliar with the Superman mythos, Superman came from the planet Krypton which had a highly advanced government run by its top scientists instead of politicians.
I often get the impression that liberal scientists believe that’s how the Earth should be run.
I’m not fond of politicians but from what I’ve seen of scientists via the climate change debate, I have no more faith in them than politicians.
But in democratic societies politicians are at least bound by the consent of the governed, as opposed to liberal scientists who seem to believe that their plans for the world are based entirely on their superior intelligence and devotion to truth.
Kryptonian scientists weren’t liberal, if I recall my comic-book lore.
That aside, carry on. Sound argument.
However, conservative scientists who seem to believe that their plans for the world are based entirely on their superior intelligence and devotion to truth are, like politicians, bound by the consent of the governed?
Joshua: There aren’t that many conservative scientists, they don’t seem to speak up nearly so much and when they do, it seems to be in reaction to liberal scientists or guided by their libertarian instincts for less government involvement rather than an expression of their scientific beliefs.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any conservative scientists aside from Edward Teller who’s been dead quite a while.
Meanwhile liberal scientists are practically a stereotype.
Huxley – Have you read anything about Spencer’s politics, as one example? About how he views his political role as a scientist?
Here’s my take on it, huxley. “Liberal scientists,” and “conservative scientists,” and apolitical scientists (many of the scientists I’ve met are largely apolitical), and liberal and conservative and apolitical people of other professions, are largely characterized by the same human attributes as everyone else. If you are selectively assigning negative attributes to people of a specific profession, and even more than that, people of a certain profession with a certain political ideology, it probably speaks more to your own biases than it says anything verifiable about those you’re seeking to characterize.
That’s a nice theory and ordinarily I’d agree, but I’m past the point where I agree that both liberals and conservatives are equally this or that and it all cancels out.
For instance most liberals believe that the media is either objective or biased conservative. Most conservatives believe that the media flat has a liberal bias.
By your reasoning both sides are displaying their biases, but that doesn’t mean the question of media bias is just a matter of which side one is on. There are studies do a good job of demonstrating liberal media bias as well as obvious data points like comparing media dirt digging on Obama versus that on McCain or Palin. However, that’s a pretty long discussion that doesn’t belong here.
I’d say your position is a kind of bias as well, a subspecies of the golden mean fallacy.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149624/Majority-Continue-Distrust-Media-Perceive-Bias.aspx
It will take some time but climate science is on the same track.
Meanwhile liberal scientists are a stereotype.
Dr. Curry of course can’t identify which party is most closely associated to here career long peers. Few people here seem to mind such an obtuse claim. Why is that?
That’s funny huxley – because the better done studies I’ve looked at show nothing of the sort – and I’ve read a lot of valid criticism of the relatively few studies that do support your contention.
I think that your belief that your analysis of media bias is objectively certain is a perfect example of the point I was making – particularly since I have actually looked at quite a bit of the current research on the question at hand.
It’s not a question of the golden mean. It’s a question of whether or not political ideology is as much a defining characteristic of humans as is basic psychological makeup. You are looking at what I am saying is a second-tier attribute. Tribalism, as an expression of basic human characteristics, existed well-before political orientation even existed.
Joshua: If you want to be the confirmation bias police with your own bias that both sides must be equally biased, have at it.
From my viewpoint you have a strong bias to which you are blind. It also seem to me that you underestimate my self-awareness in all this.
Anyway. This is a long discussion of degrees of difference at multiple levels that in my experience doesn’t go anywhere. I might hazard it in a long bull session, but it doesn’t interest me here, and here doesn’t seem to be the right place either.
You’re a left-wing ideolouge Joshua of course you support the board taboo that Dr. Curry maintains. Scientists are above partisan shilling is your basic theme on the point. Of course you make inane claims of consensus advocates being treated unfairly.
It’s nonsense.
“It’s a question of whether or not political ideology is as much a defining characteristic of humans as is basic psychological makeup.”
See: “For instance, Mr. James Mill takes the principle that all men desire Power; his son, John Stuart Mill, assumes that all men desire Wealth mainly or solely.” — http://domain1041943.sites.fasthosts.com/holyoake/c_co-operation%20(11).htm
And: “Many men desire power, wishing to have good report, though they are unworthy of it; yea, even the most infamous desire this.” — Alfred’s Boethius: Modern English Translation
beowulf.engl.uky.edu/~kiernan/ENG720/SdgTrans/SedgefieldProseTrans.htm
Well it is more interesting that. If you look at the Anderegg analysis, more than half of the so-called climate scientists are economists and biologists.
After decades of self-filtering and grouping to the IPCC mission statement of “proving AGW” and building a consensus we should be surprised other fields are in dissent to such an unscientific premise?
Dr. Curry,
Then a first step would for climate scientists to take back cliamte science.
Looks like the Florida Lt. Governor could be posting at Climate Etc.
Hmmm. Perhaps if we just replace “evolution” with “climate change,” she could post something like that and no one but the handful of resident “warmists” would take particular notice.
But yeah – it’s only those libruls that are threatening our society. Pay no attention to the Republican theocrats. Nothing to see there. Just keep moving along.,
Oh, and btw – just to head of the ad homs (as if that were possible).
I have nothing against very religious people. Some of the people I love most deeply are very religious. There are many devout Christians that I respect a great deal.
I do have a problem with theocracy, however.
Joshua –
I do have a problem with theocracy, however.
So do I.
The problem with your statement is that nothing in the quotes you provide indicates any desire or inclination toward theocracy. In fact there’s nothing there that can’t be found in the public pronouncements (including the State of the Union addresses) of previous Presidents of the United States, regardles of political affiliation. Do you think they were inclined toward theocracy? Or did they just believe in a Creator – and that the Creator and the power of prayer were a source of strength for those who believe?
Your statement is, in fact, either paranoia or an exhibition of ignorance wrt the meaning and reality of “theocracy”. I find it curious that only those who have no faith imagine the threat of theocracy to be reality .
This was a politician, not a minister.
This wasn’t a call for people of high moral character to lead the country, it was a call for Christians to lead the country – with the obvious implication that being Christian is a prerequisite for being on the “proper moral path.”
But her calling for the country to be led by Christian precepts is just like when JFK said that he would not be a Catholic President, but a president who was Catholic, right?
Well, I guess it’s better than Obama trying to turn us into a Caliphate by sekritly promoting Sharia law, right?
Funny.
And given the widespread rhetoric among the religious right regarding the danger of Sharia law gaining power in the U.S., that was one of your funniest posts yet, Jim.
Joshua –
This was a politician, not a minister.
Politician – and a citizen. And perhaps one who knows the quality of those who presently hold office? And would like to associate with a better class of people?
This wasn’t a call for people of high moral character to lead the country, it was a call for Christians to lead the country – with the obvious implication that being Christian is a prerequisite for being on the “proper moral path.”
It was precisely a call for people of high moral character to lead the country. And an implication that those who have no moral training or background do not meet the expected standards to lead this country. If you need confirmation of that, look at the present Administration and the continuing parade of sleaze, immorality and just plain “crony politics”. Do you approve of a Justice Dept where high officials claim that only “people of color” deserve justice? Or maybe you don’t think Solyndra fits that category? Or —- try the latest shenanigans – Google “Fast and Furious” and “Gunwalker” and explain to me why the US Govt is responsible for 200-300 Mexican deaths as well as one of our own Border agents. Yeah, Josh – we NEED some morality injected into our government.
But her calling for the country to be led by Christian precepts is just like when JFK said that he would not be a Catholic President, but a president who was Catholic, right?
And do you think he wasn’t what he claimed he would be? Evidence, please?
I had no problem with Kennedy. Do you? I did, however, have a problem with the process by which he was elected. The vote fraud involved was odorous at best.
Well, I guess it’s better than Obama trying to turn us into a Caliphate by sekritly promoting Sharia law, right?
Bad subject for you, Josh. Maybe you’d like to explain the $billions sent to Hamas and the Palestinians – or the extra-legal immigration of tens of thousands of Palestinians to this country? Or why Sharia schools are being run with public money? And maybe why there’s an increasing demand for Muslims to be subject only to Sharia law and not to US law?
Funny
Not funny, Josh. You need to look at what’s happening in Europe. And what’s actually happening (and being attempted) in this country.
Once again, your statements are, in fact, either paranoia or an exhibition of ignorance wrt the meaning and reality of “theocracy”. OR – simply anti-Christian, which would be typical of your tribe.
Do you REALLY want to discuss “theocracy” with me? You can start by telling us all what you think a “theocracy” is and how many theocracies have existed in the last 25,000 years?
Joshua,
Well, if you live in the United States there is no danger of theocracy.
So what is your point?
I think the fact that someone believes they are qualified and/or entitled to give orders to everyone else is the surest indication that they should not be given such power. That’s why I am a libertarian, and believe that no one should have such power. In a free society, people can only deal with each other as equals: If you want someone else to do something for you, you offer something of value to them in return, and the transaction takes place only if both parties agree voluntarily.
Yes that is how scientists seem to view themselves. But I’m not sure I’d agree that “Mike’s Nature Trick to hide the decline” showed much of a devotion to truth.
Good one Roy.
Also, how many years would you have to have had your Phd before you were selected to be a lead author for an IPCC chapter? almost 3?
It appears that a lead author doesn’t even require a PHD. Sari Kovats was a contributing author to ar2 and a lead author on ar3 and ar4. She didn’t start working on her PHD until 2001 and that was awarded in 2010.
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/16/the-strange-case-of-sari-kovats/
That seems to be indicative of a shoddily run vetting process for authors, at least if they are supposedly using best and the brightest. On the other hand if they are intent on building a chorus, she probably fit quite well.
How many years do you have to be a railway engineer to become Chairman of the IPCC?
A weatherman with only 5 years qualifys them as a climatologist.
My UK friend who listens to much BBC over the internet says that Sir Terry Wogan, whose breakfast show, Wake Up to Wogan, was one of the most listened to programs in Europe, regularly took pot shots at global warming.
Wogan was not an American meteorologist nor did he base his distaste for global warming on Climategate, but I’m arguing that the mechanism is the same. American and European publics are exposed to climate skepticism indirectly by various media personalities. The public can tell that global warming is no longer a sacred cow that must be respected above all else — rather like Obama in 2011 compared to his messianic presence in 2008.
The climate change orthodoxy is being nibbled away at the roots and thus we hear so many complaints from the orthodox about false equivalence in the media.
But it’s too late. That horse is long gone from the barn. The only hope I can see is for the orthodox to re-establish trust but instead they bluster on as though public trust was their inalienable right and in so doing they widen the divide.
Jon Stewart is likely a climate skeptic
Links?
I’ve seen him roast Obama over the Solyndra issue, but that seems more a matter of throwing Obama under the bus than “Global Warming”.
I’m more interested in watching them than proof.
He was shocked, shocked, to find gambling going on in East Anglia.
====================
sorry, no link, just my impression from watching and some episodes.
“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. OH. OH the irony.”
I also remember he also has criticized the sea level rise exaggerations.
He is just a comedian, of course, but there is always some truth that makes comedy funny.
Should be able to find Jon Stewart’s ClimateGate episode. Let your fingers do the flying.
=========
John Stewart is on part of this video.
link to a number of John Stewart Climate Gate videos, many from 2009
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=John+Stewart+on+Climate+Gate&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=Jon+Stewart+on+Climategate&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=vid&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=-_N8TtrpDYTeiAKZvpz5DQ&ved=0CD4QqwQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=ec1ef7c645e33488&biw=2242&bih=1465
better link John Stewart videos:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/videos/?term=global+warming&start=0
Thanks, JfCA.
==========
But he’ll never rub too much against the orthodox which validates and for the most part feeds him by saying as much in AGW dissent.
It’s a third rail of insider left discussion topics. Not that there are tons of other PC taboos but climate mytholgy is BIG. Same goes with Keynesian orthodox “demand” economic talking points, historical framing (lying) about Vietnam, civil rights, FDR New Deal results, inept WWII war management before and during, progressive tax results, JFK mystique, Bush = Right-wing (clearly a moderate on social issues), mentioning leftist traitors during the McCarthy hearing period to name a few. Talking points as religion. Your own peer driven MiniTrue stepping on your face for all eternity.
You have to consider China and legalism and the politically correct straight jacket that he has to live with among his peers and audience. Again, he flirts with honesty (to broaden his base perhaps) but in the end there is a strict limit. The “we smart progressive, you stoopid conservative” talking point is directly linked to climate discussion and who is “scientific” capturing the related authority. Stewart tows the line, then again so does Dr. Curry for other reasons.
“I have a perception (I haven’t seen any studies on this) that the MSM has returned to a more “balanced” method of reporting (after pretty much rolling over for the IPCC since 2007).”
I haven’t seen this, at least not in the usual liberal outlets that I’m likely to be reading or listening to: NYT’s, Boston Globe, Washington Post, NPR. If anything, I’ve the impression they’re pushing harder than ever. Of course, one could reasonably argue these are not “main stream.”
I sometimes look to see what is on NPR and in NYT, and they continue to amble along with the same old lines, I just don’t think anyone is reading or watching them as a serious news source any longer. I certainly don’t and Scientific American is going down the same path. It (AGW) has all the characteristics of a cult, and is rotting from the roots up.
Read the Economist, maybe.
This is a ubiquitous problem in modern life: climate deniers, just like evolution deniers, seek a haven where they will be protected from the scientific facts.
Traditionally, churches have served that role, and they may continue to do so.
Protected enclaves on the internet where those citing the science are excluded — like Jo Nova’s or Watt’s sites — can provide a safe space away from unwelcome facts.
Ultimately, though, the wider world has to deal with the reality, and the opinions of those formed in the protected zones according do not carry much weight.
Simply untrue of WUWT – plenty of science of all hues is discussed there, including papers that are pro-CAGW.
You might like to think that climate sceptics hide away in their own enclaves, but the truth is that many are well informed about the science. Their opinions carry as much weight as anyone else, even if those opinions are uncomfortable to those who uncritically accept the CAGW line.
If you want to find a site where unbelievers are banished, theres no better example than Real Climate. That is thoroughly untrue of WUWT.
Pokerguy,
It’s mid-endgame, power peaked likely for decades in 08′ after a good run from the 05-06′ war depression Bush II phase. Now the process of burying in important talking points for the future minority status coming next year is in full works; “tax the rich”, “defend the poor”, “fight for the earth” etc etc. Climate talking points will just go into hibernation and sadly if history is our guide apathy will set in among skeptics as policy implications subside further. Then new claims will be incubated and the process of increased control and regulation will be reborn.
Of course the scale of the central planning failure is huge right now. The plan is to pursue the same mislable campaign the worked against Hoover (who was progressive) against Bush II ( a moderate) and both created huge central planning tools on their watch. Eventually the lack of sustainable financing and an articulate leader in opposition will bring this system down. Many of old MSM player will even further marginalized. Today’s NYTimes will be around in say Mother Jones circles.
Old women still walk around Red Square carrying pictures of Stalin, what can you do? The torch of progressive welfare state is going to hang around in a similar way.
“If anything, I’ve the impression they’re pushing harder than ever.”
I have the same impression. I listen to NPR a lot.
I find this survey ambiguous or an equivocation because i could not find any place where they defined “global warming”. i.e. it could mean:
The planet has been warming (~since the Little Ice Age). OR
The warming at the end of the 20th century is 90% due to anthropogenic causes (IPCC).
The first I agree with, the second is “not proven”.
There are only two indirect comments at the end:
So I take the results with a huge “grain of salt”.
(When will they ever learn?)
WUWT compiled articles and sources on Climategate and on polls. e.g. Brits Question Global Warming More Than Americans & Canadians
Maibach, et al. also assert:
Again “global temperatures are rising” – When? Yes from 1977 to 1998.
Not significantly from 2000 to present.
What do they mean by “human activity is a significant contributing factor”? Do they mean significant = detectable? (> 5%), major (>50%), or almost all? (IPCC very likely >90%) etc.etc.
No mention of the “null hypothesis” or distinguishing anthropogenic from natural. They sound like they are preaching to the choir and raising support for the IPCC.
Canadians are inclined to trust their experts (high)
Americans respond in a libertarian manner (middle)
The Brits respond to being told what to believe in a paternalistic manner by just deliberately dismissing the take home message. (low)
Doctor knows best …
I’m OK Jack. You got a problem with that?
Judith –
So we see that conservative TV meteorologists who were “skeptical” of climate change saw “climategate” as evidence that their skepticism was well founded.
Is that your evidence for “Climategate as a crisis of public credibility in climate research?”
Joshua: We can argue over the specific degree of damage caused by Climategate or whether it is an actual crisis, but it certainly did not help the climate change movement, which has been losing ground for some years now.
Speaking for myself, I used to defend climate change. But after Climategate I became an opponent and I now actively fight the climate change orthodoxy via the ballot box, letters to government officials, blog comments and in interactions with friends or family.
Climategate was my threshold. I know that I’m not alone in that.
I don’t doubt that you aren’t alone, huxley – but that doesn’t validate Judith’s claims.
My problem is when people state, with “certainty,” that there was a significant impact without having any verified data. Maybe there was a significant impact – but where’s the evidence?
It seems to me that the claims of significant impact are mostly bravado on the part of “skeptics,” and that only a relatively small # of Americans know much about climategate in detail, and that the majority of those who did find it significant were already strongly predisposed towards rejecting AGW theory anyway for political or other ideological reasons. Other claims such as Judith’s about the impact of climategate seems to be a projection of personal experience onto a wider group of people without verification.
That’s not to negate your experience – only to question how representative it is.
I’m not sure how to accurately measure the effects of Climategate either, but for some number of individuals such as myself, it moved us to opposition, while many of the orthodox ended up spending a fair amount of time and energy defending the movement against renewed skeptic attacks based on Climategate. That is obvious. Unless you can argue that the orthodox so successfully beat back the Climategate controversy and turned it to an advantage, you are stuck conceding that it was a setback.
Then we are left arguing how significant a setback it is, which strikes me as a waste of time.
It’s clear though that in terms of political clout, climate change grows weaker by the day. For instance, Rick Perry — a public climate skeptic — could very well become the US President next year even though liberals are working hard to paint him as an anti-science fool.
You and I went around with this once before. I think that your assessment is accurate to an extent, but premature.
Obviously, Perry’s handlers have told him that a “skeptical” plank in his platform is a politically expedient move. Time will tell. I think that there’s a pretty fair likelihood that on that issue like others, his candidacy will be too extremist for him to be electable.
FWIW, in my assessment, the long-term nature of climate change is a far more salient factor given that people won’t likely be affected directly by climate change for perhaps decades. The apparent recent spike in concern is probably reflective of a spate of more extreme weather recently (whether attribution is valid or not), and I would expect that with colder winters or extreme summers the poll numbers will fluctuate accordingly – noise that obscures the longer term trend. Looking at short-term trends and pronouncing victory one way or the other doesn’t seem particularly prudent or “scientific” to me.
But at any rate – my argument isn’t so much about how significant a setback “climategate” was, but about how people’s confirmation biases are displayed when they over-interpret uncontrolled data to discern trends with certainty. Like I said, that would mean “skeptics” for whom “climategate” was apparently yet another in an bottomless bag of “final nails in the AGW coffin,” and others like Judith who assign significance with “certainty” but don’t seem to have any substantiating data. Often trends of polls on opinions about climate change are cited – but those data are not controlled for a variety of potentially important variables, and I’m stunned when people concerned about misinterpretation of data are so sloppy in their analysis.
I plotted global mean skepticism vs. time, based on proxie data. It clearly shows that GMS was very steady for thousands of years and suddenly started increasing shortly after climategate.
Of course, the post-climategate data is based on comments at this website (that is the real data). The proxie data showed the flat level of skepticism prior to and I spliced on the real data based on Judith’s traffic which has increased after climategate. I made a hockey stick.
Did you plot the data on concern about anthropogenic global warming?
If so, what did the data show comparing the 20, 15 and 10 year trends as compared to the trend since “climategate?”
“My problem is when people state, with “certainty,” that there was a significant impact without having any verified data. Maybe there was a significant impact – but where’s the evidence?”
Joshua – can you direct us to examples of your “problem” with IPCC affiliated climatologists who stated with “certainty” that the world is now warmer than at any prior time in history? And while you are at it, please let us know where the IPCC verified data is, because Steve McIntyre, & others, have been notably unsuccessful in obtaining it from those same climatologists.
Ah yes. “Mommy, mommy, they did it first.” Now where have I seen that before?
Oh, that’s right. All over many threads at Climate Etc.
So, Joshua, from your non-reply, I gather that you have swallowed the IPCC policy agenda – hook, line, & sinker?
Joshua’s metric for objectivity is whether Judith sees the flaws in both sides.
However, when you ask Joshua to apply the same criteria to his own thought, he has a standard reply which really doesn’t answer the question.
Like Joshua I have problem with people who claim with certainty that climategate had an impact. I see the pros and cons. I’d say the evidence is not conclusive.
Unlike Joshua I have no problem answering questions directly about the failures of skeptics or the failures of the IPCC. It’s really not an issue of who did it first, or an issue of all sides do it. there is no mommy to complain to. There are only other adults who ask fair questions. All we have is the ability to keep our own team clean. Like Joshua I believe in AGW. unlike Joshua I think we have not done the best job we could. Climate scientists like hands Von Storch agree. I’m glad that some in the science community take the issue of uncertainty serious. Tim Palmer is another one. They don’t, as Joshua does, try to turn the discussion into a farce. Thank God. There are problems in climate science like any other human endeavor. Those that support it have one obligation. Improve it.
Joshua: “majority of those who did find it significant were already strongly predisposed towards rejecting AGW theory anyway for political or other ideological reasons.”
It is called “evidence”.
And we see lefty hack meteorologists swallow AGW.
“Mommy, they did it toooooooo”
It’s all about confirmation bias and motivated reasoning, hunter, on both sides. What I laugh at is when “skeptics,” supposedly concerned about “tribalism” think that only the other side is afflicted.
I am some kind of skeptic and I know that tribalism occurs on the skeptic side.
However, given that the orthodox are demanding that human society be rearranged to their satisfaction at the cost of trillions of dollars while maintaining the fiction that they are not tribal, I view their tribalism as more significant.
huxley –
If you read these pages of Climate Etc. – which are predominantly filled with the comments of skeptics – you will see that a very large % of the comments are infused with a fairly radical political orientation that is not objectively described as having a less significant impact on shaping future world events than the policies of the “warmists” you decry.
The very nature of tribalism implies that it is a human characteristic, not something that is disproportionately applicable to people of one political persuasion or another. IMO, in terms of human attributes, the differences among “warmists” and “skeptics” is probably equal in magnitude if not greater than the differences between “warmists” and “skeptics.”
I think that “skeptics” are more liminal than tribal.
there are certain rites of passage you have to go through to belong to the AGW tribe. Certain things you cannot say. You cannot say, Mann was wrong. You cannot say Jones broke the law.. or if you say anything remotely close to that you must quickly caveat it. You cant say, “global warming exists, but we shouldnt do anything drastic to prevent it.”
The skeptics exhibit certain properties of belonging to a tribe, but they are really defined oppositionally. they are held together by the common bond of having broken a rule of the governing tribe. Some break the C02 rule, some break the sensitivity rule, some break the moral boundaries. Some break the rule about reaching out. Will this collection of rule breakers have some other characteristics that they share? sure.
.
Joshua –
If you read these pages of Climate Etc. – which are predominantly filled with the comments of skeptics – you will see that a very large % of the comments are infused with a fairly radical political orientation that is not objectively described as having a less significant impact on shaping future world events than the policies of the “warmists” you decry.
You don’t read much, do you? Until the last 2 weeks or so, I’ve read ALL the posts and comments on this blog for nearly a year. And your statement bears no relation to reality. Except in that it’s a reversal of reality.
Just one example – at no time have I seen skeptics demand that all the coal plants in the US (and Europe) be shut down immediately. But you WILL find that demand on the warmist side of the dance floor.
In fact, it’s become a reasonable hypothesis that those on the warmist side have no sense of either history or economics and don’t care about the cost of the policies they propose – in either economic or human costs. Exactly like a three year-old who demands their ice cream cone when mommy can’t afford groceries to feed the family.
Well, Climategate motivated the IAC review of the IPCC. In the U.S. we have heard presidential candidates say some climate scientists were doctoring the data. Etc. examples are too numerous to cite in my 30 second reply.
The ISC ins’t the public.
Politicians of a like political persuasion called AGW a “hoax” prior to climategate..
Judith – you have made a strong assertion, and the best you can do is provide these explanations? No verification? No quantification?
No analysis of the “certainty” of the widespread phenomenon you identify?
er. IAC.
Climategate gave government media and academia a choice.
Nearly without exception they chose to coverup and rationalize rather than investigate.
Judith –
Climategate had a larger effect than either you or Joshua are giving it.
If you compare the media headlines before and after, the shrill hysteria disappeared very quickly. As did many of the CAGW advocates on many email lists and blogs. Not, of course, on those lists and blogs inhabited by the Church of CAGW devotees – in those places, denial became the order of the day. As it is today – witness Robert’s constant stream of denial.
The media, in fact, stopped reporting the more lurid CC/GW scare stories for a while. And came under heavy pressure from the leftist/alarmist/enviromentalist organizations for that change in direction. They’re still not back to where they were 4 or 5 years ago in this respect.
In the political world, does anyone believe that Copenhagen was unaffected by Climategate? Yes, I know – Robert does and perhaps Joshua, lolwot and tt, But they’re all Church members and can’t face their own cognitive dissonance yet.
On a personal basis, I know several hundred people who have taken a closer look at the entire subject – and recanted their previous views. Not including anyone on this blog.
IOW, The entire gestalt of the subject has shifted in ways that are not pleasing to the Team and their supporters. So much so that the rhetoric from that side of the dance floor has become ever shriller, dogmatic, sometimes incoherent and more full of ad hom attacks.
There are those who fail to see (or perhaps to look), like Joshua, but the effect is real and visible to many of those who’ve been involved over the last decasde or more.
Sorry to go off topic on such an inspirational topic, but Peter Davies posted something interesting for all the cyclomaniacs in the audience. http://xxx.lanl.gov/html/physics/0105109 The inverse squared law of climate?
It’s quite possible.
It’s notable, though, that at the moment public opinion appears to be moving in the other direction — less denial, a larger majority (83%) acknowledging the reality of climate change — a larger proportion of the public than believes in evolution.
Perhaps being associated with fraud, plagiarism, and the anti-science right-wing fringe is beginning to fatally injure deniers’ credibility.
What can deniers do to turn this situation around?
* People who believe in evolution are stupid.
* More people (83%) acknowledge the reality of climate change
* Gallup: More Than 90 Percent of Americans Believe in God
This indicates that …
1) Stupidity is the lowest common denominator
2) It’s easy to misrepresent with statistics
My argument is fallacy but then again … So what?
All arguments are fallacious. It doesn’t make them appropriate or inappropriate. It doesn’t mean that it is easy or difficult to detect the fallacy.
“People who believe in evolution are stupid.”
You should definitely make that a cornerstone of your argument for denialism.
And remember the next time you get an infection: you want penicillin and only penicillin. Since bacteria don’t evolve resistance to antibiotics, that’s all you need.
“My argument is fallacy but then again … So what?”
The denier philosophy in a nutshell.
More Than 90 Percent of Americans Believe in God
Social philosophy in a nutshell.
By deniers do you mean people who claim the earth is warming when it isn’t?
By deniers do you mean “scientists” who claim trees are good thermometers until 1960?
Bruce, 83% of the public isn’t buying your “no warming” spin.
Deniers have lost the confidence of the public after being caught exaggerating your credentials, stealing and copying others’ work, issuing threats to climate scientists and in one case, mass murder of the hated “leftists” attending a summer camp.
You didn’t answer my question. How are you going to regain the public’s trust and turn these falling poll numbers around?
It isn’t spin. Spin is what deniers like you use to pretend warming didn’t stop in 1998.
Sea Level is dropping Robert. Who cares if you can find a poll of 100 adults who think it is still rising.
Maybe you could poll people about tide gauges … which your cult denies show decelerating sea level rise in the 20th century.
It isn’t warming, which explains why your cult keeps trying out new names … Klimate Change, KKKlimate Disruption, First Church of CO2.
Why be a denier Robert?
And …. more importantly, why do Klimatologists think trees made good thermometers until exactly 1960?
You Deniers sure hate science Robert.
Robert,
You do the best Baghdad Bob ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXl1GkWWGmA
So long and thanks for the fish……
You can run away if you want, hunter, or continue to hysterically reppeat the same failed ad hom over and over, but why so afriad to answer the question?
Deniers have lost the confidence of the public. How are you going to regain the public’s trust and turn these falling poll numbers around?
maybe if Anthony watt’s makes a few more hilarious mistakes the public will feel sorry for the deniers
That’s just about the only thing I think they can hope for.
Oh and global cooling. They can hope for global cooling. But global warming will absolutely finish them.
You can run away if you want, hunter, or continue to hysterically repeat the same failed ad hom over and over, but why so afraid to answer the question?
Deniers have lost the confidence of the public. How are you going to regain the public’s trust and turn these falling poll numbers around?
Deniers have lost the confidence of the public.
Oh? … That’s interesting
I feel a sucking inrush as the vacuum lock is broken and expert credibility enters into free-fall
“I feel a sucking inrush as the vacuum lock is broken”
That’s why people like you should not clean their ears with Q-tips. ;)
You’re daft, of course. You know who polls all the time? Politicians. And right now there are almost no politicians willing to bring up global warming. It is a political loser, period. Only complete nutbars like Waxman or Markey bring it up. Atheistic eco-fascists such as yourself are a very small voting bloc. Whatever small political support you have will almost disappear after next year.
What poll are you looking at, some phony one like your “97% of all climate scientists” rubbish? Try a Gallup poll…
http://www.gallup.com/poll/149207/World-Top-Emitters-No-Aware-Climate-Change-2010.aspx
Do you see the “of those who are aware of climate change” trend? Down 11% since 2008. Yeah, you are definitely delusional. You are one cold winter and fall election away from the ash heap of history in this country.
“You’re daft, of course.”
How did you manage to type whilst plugging your ears and whimpering? That’s quite a trick.
Facts are facts. Your effort to evade them is humorous — “Oh, polls don’t matter — oh, wait, here’s a poll I think supports me, refute that.” Kind of pathetic, no?
You haven’t answered my question. I’ll repeat it:
How are you going to regain the public’s trust and turn these falling poll numbers around?
Kind of hard for anyone to take you seriously when you won’t touch a Gallup poll.
“How are we going to regain the public’s trust?” We’re not the ones with the disgraced scientists and corrupt U.N. organization, you are. The Republican Party will regain the trust of their voters when they pass more budget cuts specifically aimed at “climate change,” like these…
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/18/republican-house-votes-to-defund-environmental-protection-agency/
http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2011/01/20/house-republican-group-proposes-to-kill-ipcc-funding/
You’ll see a lot more like that in 2013. Too bad we’re playing different games here. Our side would like to take the political reigns next year and stomp a mudhole in your funding. Your side, as usual, is content to be arrogant poseurs on the web.
C’mon, little man! Entertain us some more!
“Kind of hard for anyone to take you seriously when you won’t touch a Gallup poll”
You said polls were meaningless. Then you pointed to a poll as proof. I know it’s hard to keep all the lies straight, but you need to try.
You need to make up your mind which line of bull you’re selling, and you need to face facts and answer the question on the table:
Deniers have lost the confidence of the public. How are you going to regain the public’s trust and turn these falling poll numbers around?
who are th 2.3% who indicated the climategate made them more sure that climate change was happening???
It reminds me of the 4 out of 5 dentists who recomend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum. Who is that 5th one? A dentist who just bought a new Jag and needs to fill more cavities to make the payments.
Meteorology and Natural Variability Quiz time.
Here’s a picture puzzle for meteorologists.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:60/from:1960/detrend:0.64/plot/esrl-co2/mean:60/offset:-336/scale:0.009/detrend:0.64
The graph shows temperature (red line) from HADCRUT since 1960, smoothed, detrended to emphasize variability and compared to CO2 level scaled and treated to act as the horizontal axis.
This represents a graphical claim that CO2 explains the majority of temperature, and poses the question, “What moved the ‘unexplained temperature’ away from the CO2 axis?”
Was it the sun? ENSO? Cosmic rays? Clouds? Particulates?
(You can do the same exercise the other way around, plotting any of these natural components in place of CO2 level.. except for CO2 level giving such a great explanation for temperature. Drop the detrend term and increase the smoothing from 60 to 360 to see.)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:60/from:1960/normalise:0.64/plot/esrl-co2/mean:60/offset:-336/scale:0.009/normalise:0.64
So I don’t know what I’m doing but I would expect to see a huge increase rise in CO2 levels accelerating from 1990 onwards due to the rapid growth of industrialization in Asia.
CO2 levels should be going through the roof. They aren’t yet.
Why?
Raving
No clue.
The world’s full of various CO2 sinks, and is large and complex. During parts of that period, land use patterns shifted heavily, Russia somewhat de-industrialized, many nations apparently worked toward Kyoto targets, and really, I lack the data to speculate.
I doubt it’s a question meteorologists are as well-suited to answer as the one about causes of global temperature highs and lows in the past half century.
Meteorologists love to track their pet theories about causes of natural variability. The ones who spot their pets in the pattern, win.
The ones who spot their pets in the pattern, win.
Matching data does not prove it is right.
Herman Alexander Pope
You are absolutely right.
Matching data is not proof.
This exercise is intended as a game for people who like pattern-matching, and no proof is expected.
However, nonmatching data may indicate disproof, all other necessary conditions being met.
Winning has little to do with being a scientist.
Winning is important for making money
Raving
Sure, if you equate the ones who walk away with the money with winners.
In my experience on the basis of money, the race goes not always to the fleetest of foot.
Personally, I’ve never believed there was much connection between how fast we dump CO2 into the atmosphere, and how much remains there. Atmospheric CO2 is transient, and the controlling element in how fast it’s removed is an enzyme called Ribulose bisPhosphate Carboxylase, RuBisCO for short. Along with, of course, the controls used by plants on its rate of activity. Tropical deforestation and ecological changes to the ocean (e.g. overfishing and/or whaling) seems intuitively more likely to be responsible to me.
AK
You may have a point, however the http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/07/global-portrait-of-greenhouse-gases/ and http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/24/co2-discussion-thread/ threads throw some obstacles in your way.
Most particularly, Ferdinand Englebeen’s well-supported point that stimulation of CO2 exchange in plants by addition of CO2 concentration has at most a 1:3 ration under ideal artificial conditions, if I understand his claims correctly — and he’s an exceptionally clear and powerful communicator, well-founded in depth of knowledge of the subject.
In other words, RuBisCO can never remove CO2 even one third as much as CO2 concentration rises.
I haven’t had a chance to read his comments, but I’ll point out that the reaction rate of RuBisCO depends on the ambient concentration of CO2 at the enzyme. Multiple controls are in place that can place barriers between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and those within the appropriate cell(s). For instance, stomata in the outer wall of the leaf.
Stomata are known to often close in response to shortage of water, limiting CO2 intake to the minimum needed. I’d need to see the actual reports of the experiments before even venturing a guess whether the research in question actually addressed the possible ability of plants to draw down CO2.
Again, intuitively, I would expect the higher concentration of CO2 in the cell to drive something like a 10-fold increase in carbon fixation by RuBisCO, absent other controls. But those other controls are in place, we don’t know what they are, and I’m talking about intuitition here, based on what I know of other enzymes. Not actual research.
A quick Google search found two interesting papers, which I’ll try to scan in my copious spare time, and maybe report back an estimate of whether we can even estimate the actual kinetics of RuBisCO at this time. Unless somebody already familiar with the research already knows and can save me the time. (And perhaps even correct for my own ignorance on the subject.)
Determining RuBisCO activation kinetics and other rate and equilibrium constants by simultaneous multiple non-linear regression of a kinetic model
A Theory and Model for the Kinetics of the Two-Substrate Ordered Reaction of Rubisco with Rate-Determining Steps, and the Effects of RuBP Regeneration on the Hierarchy of Limitations.
I really doubt these are the best papers to start with, but they’re both open access (at the moment), and they may have references that are more appropriate.
AK,
I think the oceans play a role as a CO2 sink as well.
AK
“I would have expected that a small rise in concentration would have resulted in a substantial increase in absorption. Not, perhaps, in individual plants, but through increased density, micro-evolution, species replacement, and the like.”
Yes, it appears your intuition does not entirely fit the observed data, though there’s little enough that there may be room for some uncertainty, and more importantly you do have a valid point.
In the USA at least, there is more forest today than a century ago, however this is not a global trend, and the way land is used worldwide has radically changed. Fertilizer use has increased, watersheds have been wholesale modified, desertification has been significant and our understanding of the desert cycle of expansion is poor.
The carbon cycle and CO2 removal is a complex subject. Certainly complex enough to lead to opposite conclusions about much of it by leading experts from the same data. While I believe a diminishing rate of about 1/3rd net of the additional CO2 concentration is removed by photosynthesis, and one sixth or so net mainly by ocean stoichiometry in the medium term, explaining pretty well where all the CO2 is going, it’s not like it gets there by straightforward processes.
Meaningful remediation is important, but you are right that we’ll want to avoid gilding the sequestration lily — some ‘remediation’ merely stamps what would have happened naturally anyway with a human signature. Further, we’ll want to avoid remediation that damages natural sequestration, or squanders resources by inefficiency or political expediency.
However, most of these issues are technically well-enough understood that there is no case for delay for technical reasons, only because some technical solutions are so subject to baseless political and social resistance.
I commend pricing CO2 (and all GHG emissions other than H2O) budget: your emission costs, your absorbtion at about a 1/50th level (as 49/50th’s absorbtion is natural) discounts costs, the revenues paid per capita to those who own the carbon cycle — all of us.
Unsophisticated and illegitimate opponents view pricing the limited resource of GHG budget as a tax, and see CO2 pricing as a new carbon tax, a great sadness and mistake.
This GHG emission budget pricing is the best and fairest way to employ the democracy of the market to solve the structural market problem we have. More than any one other cause, the perverse rewards and price distortions of subsidy and unpriced GHG emission are the cause of this problem.
The “massive destabilization” you fear has been happening to the world economy for well over a century.
Every distortionate measure applied to artificially cheapen the cost of some types of energy over others, or to net reward waste over efficiency, or to tax other market segments while granting holidays to the fossil industries, or bailouts, or massive centralized government programs that draw on fossil disproportionately is destabilizing, and the market inefficiencies and failure to innovate that result are a drag we cannot see, as we can never know what opportunity never existed due the crushing stupidity of government interference married to failure of government to enforce the ownership rights of the commons over the carbon cycle.
The argument that returning the economy closer to its undistorted state is harmful is a lunatic inversion of economic sense that preys on ignorance, fear and misplaced avarice.
Nasty, brutish, and short.
===========
Sadly, BR, you’ve merely assumed the common need for CO2 remediation. What’s the effect, overall, of anthropogenic CO2? I don’t see it in climate; I do in the biosphere.
=============
kim
Why does everyone leave off, “solitary, poor,..”?
It’s greening up the commons, Son; bring another cow to the meadow; we’ll feast this fall.
==========
kim
Indeed, per Occam, I make the minimum necessary assumptions. Harm of CO2 is not one of them.
If increased CO2 is good, and you wish to benefit from it, then it falls to you and those of like conviction to pay anyone who doesn’t share and consent to that belief a fair and just compensation.
Give me my money.
Not so fast, first we audit the net costs and benefits, and then we distribute.
Who’s this ‘we’, White Man?
H/t Tonto.
============
Sorry, Bart: “However, most of these issues are technically well enough understood that there is no case for delay for technical reasons, only because some technical solutions are so subject to baseless political and social resistance.’ assumes the common need for CO2 remediation.
You can run past that, but you can’t hide it from us.
==============
kim
“..first we audit the net costs and benefits, and then we distribute..”
Kinda like going to a restaurant and not paying for the meal until everyone weewees and poops and audits their ‘net benefit’.
What sort of central planning way to run an economy is that?
Oh, I know. It’s communism.
Give me my money, you we-ist.
“assumes the common need for CO2 remediation”
Indeed, my solution does not assume, nor form the common that your we-ism does run past.
With CO2 emission explicitly priced, the democracy of individual actors in the fair market determines the undistorted allocation of this limited resource.
The limited nature of the resource is not an assumption, but a demonstrable fact.
As too is the fact of the superiority of Capitalism over your collectivist approach to the use of other people’s stuff by you and your friends.
Simple question before we pay the bill, Bart; do you think the net will be positive or negative for the human race?
============
Better, Gaia’s paying, so is fizzing up her life to her benefit or not?
==============
kim
Who are you or I to decide for the whole human race?
I say let every human decide for themself using the democratic mechanism of fair market capitalism.
Why are you so afraid of democracy and letting people choose?
Pay me my money, and stop presuming to interfere in the privity of the contracts others have with Gaia.
You aren’t her friend, her trustee, her lawyer or her agent.
Or mine.
Gaia’s finally found an oxygen breather possibly able to reverse the consumption wasting her body. Perhaps, if the magic gas is powerful enough, descent into an icebound earth can be forestalled.
Me, I think she’s got vain hopes; the oxygen breather is consumed with guilt.
=========
Wonderful, ain’t it? You slapping me with the invisible hand and me siccing Gaia on you. We need to change costumes. You look funny in Diamonds.
============
@Bart R…
I made a comment somewhere about marginal agricultural societies being extremely conservative wrt non-incremental changes. It was relevant to this issue. Making rapid large changes to the price of energy is definitely a non-incremental change. When such changes have happened without (known or admitted) intent, the results have been uniformly unfortunate. IMO we need a way to deal with the problem that doesn’t involve such steep price changes. Period. Finding a way to (relatively) cheaply jump-start an exponential growth of technology for removing CO2 is a far superior alternative. Especially since it could probably solve the problem prior to any effort to increase carbon prices that could actually be achieved politically. I don’t care whether you call such a price increase a tax, a reverse subsidy, or “paying their fair share”, it’s not going to happen, shouldn’t be tried, and would have worse consequences than anything the IPCC has projected (but not Hansen) from climate change. (IMO, of course.)
AK
Thanks for the links.
In general, as I understand it, real (as opposed theoretical) plants reach their absorbtion limit for CO2 between 800-2500 ppm (species and conditions dependent, and also dependent on plant adaptation usually vis stomata change).
Past this point, additional absorbtion is minute or the higher CO2 levels become detrimental, mainly due CO2’s action as an ethylene inhibitor and its other effects on plant hormones.
Indeed, anything much past 500 ppmv CO2 has minimal added beneficial effect on plants, somewhere between 80%-99% of the benefits having been reached (again dependent on species, adaption, and of course Liebig’s law of the minimum).
In soil microbes and planktons, the parameters are even more convoluted. Some microorganisms (and seeds, eg tomato) go dormant from CO2 just as others kick into high gear. There’s some concern in forest biology circles that there may be unknown tipping points for some CO2-promoting microbes where they will past some concentration experience runaway feedback. Sounds alarmist to me, but I’m no soil biologist, despite many years digging holes.
I’ll see if I can locate links for these statements; I’d had them when Englebeen was taking me to school on earlier threads, either from him or that I found while trying to refute him.
Plants will cease to be an effective CO2 sink at some point, probably around 450-500 ppmv.
Actually, Bart R, my point was that plants may have slowed down being an effective CO2 sink during the 20th century, and that’s why the concentration has been going up. I would have expected that a small rise in concentration would have resulted in a substantial increase in absorption. Not, perhaps, in individual plants, but through increased density, micro-evolution, species replacement, and the like.
Perhaps my intuition is wrong, but it seems to me that large-scale deforestation may have produced just those effects, but in the wrong direction. Ditto over-fishing and perhaps whaling. (These produce changes to the balance of plankton species, an extremely complex subject we know very little about.)
AFAIK there’s a large fraction (one fourth? one third?) of the excess carbon entering the atmosphere (the excess itself due to fossil fuel burning) that we don’t know where it’s ending up. IMO we need a much better handle on where this “vanishing” carbon is going, and why various amounts are going where they are (instead of other amounts). Until then, risking a massive destabilization of the world economy would be premature.
But what wouldn’t be premature would be a heavy focus on remediation. Atmospheric CO2 is a resource. Not a particularly valuable one today, but with the right (or wrong depending on your POV) technological developments it could become so cheap that we would have to ration or otherwise control peoples extraction for private purposes the way we have to control fishing today. (Just to keep the amount from going so low we get another ice age.)
AFAIK the most severe types of “mitigation” proposals are targeting a 30-40 year time frame for reducing CO2 emissions to some pre-industrial level. IMO with the right incentives technology to remove it from the atmosphere could be launched onto an exponential curve that could have the problem solved within 20-25 years. (Compare the development of communications and information technology during the last 25 years.)
Of course, without prior planning (which probably won’t happen, knowing how real-world politics works) we could end up with the opposite problem (see above). But I don’t see any valid technical reason to make people give up their comfy lifestyles (for the well-off in developed cultures) or their hopes of same (for the less-well-off and less developed cultures) just because too many alarmists can’t imagine any other solution than turning off the switch.
Here’s an example of what I’m after:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:60/from:1960/detrend:0.64/plot/esrl-co2/mean:60/offset:-336/scale:0.009/detrend:0.64/plot/jisao-pdo/from:1960/scale:0.05/offset:-0.25/mean:60
The blue PDO index appears to possibly lead the red temperature variance line by about 3 years. The fit isn’t perfect, however after the 95% or so global temperature change that is explained by CO2 levels, the PDO’s 3 year predictive power appears to have power as a fair indicator.
This doesn’t prove anything, of course, but it’s suggestive and bears some further research, one could argue.
How far ahead can the PDO index be predicted?
Raving, try your plot but beginning in 1900. You will see that the CO2 increase only tracks a fraction of the plot, when temps happened to rise. This coincidence is the basis for AGW.
Tried it for 1950 and 1900 too …
Those saw tooth temperature slopes were remarkable.
Then I decided to plot the derivative. (Changing the scale of the derivative doesn’t seem to do anything.)
It’s almost as if industrialization has had a moderating effect.
David Wojick
In the case of woodfortrees.com, the CO2 increase only tracks the fraction of the plot that woodfortrees has data for CO2 to plot.
Coincidence indeed. The coincidence of working with the data available instead of making stuff up out of one’s butt.
Also, not entirely certain I understand the point of Raving taking the derivative of a curve with a constant offset. It amounts to the same value without using the offsetting step. And the derivative of a 5-year mean is.. how did you hope to interpret the derivative curves? I’m very curious.
I wonder if the fact that most television meteorologists are not funded by government might have something to do with their proportionally greater skepticism regarding CAGW than government funded climate consensus scientists?
Has anyone conducted a poll of scientists, let alone climate scientists, divided along those lines? In other words, what happens to that famed 97% consensus if you poll those whose livelihood does not depend directly or indirectly on government funding?
In the U.S. anyways, virtually all climate scientists have government funding, even those that work for NGOs and even in the private sector. The scientists that don’t have government funding are emeritus faculty members. “Going emeritus” (with an implication of senility or at least not keeping up with the scientific literature) is an oft used excuse for dismissing the opinions of emeritus faculty members.
Hammer meets nail GaryM. As for;
“In the U.S. anyways, virtually all climate scientists have government funding, even those that work for NGOs and even in the private sector.”
Just spitballing here Dr. Curry, doesn’t that self-identify most as Democrats in inclination? What’s so hard about connecting this dot?
How long is that road to Damascus anyway?
“Going emeritus” (with an implication of senility or at least not keeping up with the scientific literature) is an oft used excuse for dismissing the opinions of emeritus faculty members.
I find that little gem much more offensive than the “D” word. It speaks volumes about those who use it and those who fail to call them on it.
(and no, I’m not yet of an age where it could be applied to me were I in academia)
So I guess the headline should be:
“97% of government funded scientists believe that government funding of scientists should be increased – CAGW, no wait, global warming, no wait, climate change the cause.”
Amazingly, almost all firefighters, police officers, ambassadors and other diplomats, military servicepeople, and the Surgeon General have government funding too.
And not a few dog catchers, epidemiologists, food inspectors and judges.
Is there a point?
“Is there a point?”
How many chemists, physists, engineers, biologists, geologists, etc… rely on government funding to continue their employment? Virtually all? I think not.
Point is… why is this so for climate science and not other scientific feilds? I don’t see climate scientists filling the same role in society as firefighters, police, etc… who perform their job as public safety servants…. bad comparison IMO, not apples to apples.
John Carpenter
A lot more chemists, engineers and geologists make their living on the public purse than you might be ready to acknowledge.
The massive tax expenditures, gifts, subsidies, tax holidays, bailouts, loopholes, infrastructure spending and so forth for geology and chemistry intensive fossil fuel industries and their engineering-employing automotive dependents boggle the mind, and the ratio of these expenses to the amount spent on climatologists easily exceeds 100,000:1.
So, you’re making a lot of noise about 0.001% of the scientists in the same boat.
Unless you really believe the for-profit fossil fuel industry deserves the same public safety kudos as our front line military, firefighters and police officers?
Bart R,
“A lot more chemists, engineers and geologists make their living on the public purse than you might be ready to acknowledge.”
I acknowledge that… I am one. However, for me, it is not the majority of our income, less than 1% direct to our company. Perhaps as a second or third tier from military related hardware we handle, it may come closer to 25%. Significant, but far from the majority.
Understand the majority of government money going into manufacturing (aerospace, firearms, vehicles, etc..) is for military end use and thus defense related.
“and the ratio of these expenses to the amount spent on climatologists easily exceeds 100,000:1.”
I’d like to see those numbers. I understand the number of chemists, geologists, engineers etc… far out number climate scientists, the interesting number is, how many private industry climate scientists are there? And what is the ratio of public money to private money per scientist?
“Unless you really believe the for-profit fossil fuel industry deserves the same public safety kudos as our front line military, firefighters and police officers?”
I never suggested that, I asked if you thought climate scientists are in the same category as public safety servants. You did not answer.
I have no aversion to ending fossil fuel related subsidies etc… the O & G industry make enough profit to stand on their own, IMO. Understand the majority of scientists working in the private sector work outside of O & G. Think pharmaceuticals, aerospace, bioengineering, chemical manufacturing, instrumentation etc….
Firefighters, police officers and military servicemen have no business being lumped in with diplomats, ambassadors and the Surgeon general.
The first three risk their lives in service to their communities and their countries. That is the reason you find so many more conservatives in their ranks.
But I have no problem lumping ambassadors (the majority of whom are political appointees based on campaign contributions), diplomats (lifelong government employees dominated by progressives, who specialize in protecting their own careers), and the Surgeon General (a position filled by one politically correct demagogue after another of late) in with government funded scientists.
The fundamental difference is that policemen, firemen, soldiers, marines, and seamen (and dog catchers, epidemiologists, food inspectors) don’t focus their careers on convincing their political patrons to increase their budgets. They spend their time putting themselves at risk for the safety of others, not looking for ways to increase their budgets and TV face time.
This reminds me of the old adage, if I may call it that, that scientific paradigm changes occur when the old guard dies off and a new generation comes along. In this case, we have a reverse effect, it seems, that scientists are only willing to contradict the “consensus” when they are no longer beholden to the grant authorities and peer review gatekeepers, i.e., when they become emeriti! Fascinating.
+10 advocacy
+2 peer politics
+2 group politics
+5 trending topic
+3 open competition
+1 institutional support
-1 political liability
+4 multidisciplinary
I prefer to view it as Going native … (as in reverting to one’s own covert nature, switching sides, etc)
John Kettley is a weatherman……..
And so is Michael Fish
Shock horror. Discovery of how climate ‘science’ is actually conducted undermines confidence in it.
I’d just question any suggestion that “Climategate” has actually changed anyone’s opinion.
Can anyone point to comments they may have made prior to Nov 2009, and which they now disown, to show I may be wrong in challenging those assertions?
Actually, I think that Judith might be able to do that.
The problem is that she seems to project her own experiences onto the wider public. That leads her to discern a trend that may or may not be there, but for which she has no evidence.
Its changed my opinion: prior to 2009 I made many public statements supporting the findings by the IPCC, which I no longer support. I have made probably dozens of blog posts stating this. Go read the Denizens thread, many people mentioned climategate in either changing their opinion or motivating them to take a closer look.
Did you see huxley’s comments in this thread? He put himself in the same position as you: his opinion was changed significantly as the result of climategate.
Then again, he has also shown that he has a strong political orientation – to the point where he justifies his view that liberals are fundamentally different in behavior than conservatives
How many other “denizens” who changed opinion based on “climategate” do you suppose similarly had such strong tribal influences underlying their transformation?
Joshua,
Your bs in trying to dismiss skeptics by way of politics is transparently wrong and you know it.
Until you are ready to actually answer the question of how many believers have their view shaped by their politics, your trollish obsession with skeptic politics is just dissembling to avoid the point.
hunter –
If you bothered to read with an open mind some of the many posts of mine that you respond to, you will see that I say that confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and tribalism affect people on both sides of the debate. What remains quite interesting to me is that apparently, no matter how many times your read that, it never registers.
I am not trying to “dismiss skeptics” by way of politics.
Political orientation does not make “skepticism” right or wrong. But if a certain segment, relatively small % of the public views climategate as a catalyst behind a “crisis” of confidence, that doesn’t constitute a public crisis. Further, if an overwhelming % of those people whose views were change because of climategate have a particularly strong orientation in one particular direction, that is instructive: More than likely, it tells us something about those whose confidence was shaken by climategate as well as something about those whose confidence wasn’t shaken.
It’s all about the tribalism, hunter.
“Your bs in trying to dismiss skeptics by way of politics is transparently wrong and you know it.”
Denialism is a disease of right-wingers. Numerous studies have shown this:
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/08/inside-strange-world-of-climate.html
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/09/bad-climate-policy-ctd-that-unshakable.html
It’s just factually wrong to pretend that psuedoskeptics are a politically diverse group. The majority of deniers identify themselves as Tea Party members. More than 80% consider themselves conservative, while 3% consider themselves liberal.
These are just the facts. They’ve been discussed here and referenced numerous times. For the vast majority of deniers, conservative politics –> rejecting the scientific consensus (on climate change, on evolution, on vaccines).
There are always exceptions, but you aren’t one of them, so what do you think trying to hide your ideological matching orders gets you?
Once Joshua explores the science he’ll find out it’s all about the science. Nature doesn’t belong to a tribe and the temperature of the earth isn’t going to be about politics.
What is happening is that one tribe is waking up to the perversion of science sooner than the other one.
============
Simple question, Joshua; do you think confidence in the IPCC scenario should be shaken by the ClimateGate revelations or not?
=====================
Not Nature itself, no. But if politics benefits from us accepting X about Nature, and politics funds virtually all the relevant science, perceptions of Nature may very well belong to the political tribe.
A recipe for being wrong, Punksta. Let’s see whose souffle stands.
=================
FAR -> astonishing -> Gore -> implausible -> Climategate -> incredible
And a political brouhaha is to be expected in Post Normal Science.
It’s kind of surprising climategate in itself would change and informed persons mind. It’s been a partisan activist field for decades as many informed in the science community have reported.
Largely the consensus doesn’t give a hoo-ha about the actual science at all. It’s a trapping. The game is about rationalizing policy, central planning policy. I’m not in the camp that making a buck is the primary motive as well. Skeptics can make money as well even if the process isn’t as soft as government funding. It’s about a partisan world outlook in the case of the consensus process. It was a stacked deck from inception, prove AGW which is anti-science from the start.
Judith,
Judith,
Even after the release of the emails you still seemed to be saying sensible things like:
Scientists have no idea how to react to all the criticism being made about their science by advocacy groups, talk radio, etc. Their reaction to criticism coming from right-wing partisans typically makes the scientists appear to be left-wing partisans. So what we are really seeing is the polarizing effect of the advocacy groups and the mainstream media, in forcing apparent partisanship of the scientists.
Incidentally, that’s a very good point. You’re right. Most scientists are just hopeless politically! I first discovered that many years ago as an undergraduate.
and
I staunchly support the IPCC
http://insiderinterviews.nationaljournal.com/2009/12/email-controversy-divides.php
so its not that you suddenly read the emails and decided there was something wrong with the underlying science. That’s what really matters not the machinations of the IPCC, who the chairman, what the chairman did etc.
Temp, it depends on what you mean by “the underlying science.” Dr. Curry’s focus has been the IPCC’s overstated certainty, not the Chairman, etc. The underlying science includes not understanding why climate changes. I agree that is what really matters.
Judith,
I talk with my local meteorologist often and he has a strong dislike to climate science.
The divide between private sector participants and public funded and related is only going to grow. We are in the end days of the fiat money/ Keynesian status quo that ascended in the early progressive era; 1873-1929 and peaked during the WWII range and aftermath. The endgame of the Ponzi entitlement systems and the current credit collapse are the drivers but the excess of gold-plated higher education and research at this scale is going out the window as well. Climate science is an easy and justified reduction. Almost as easy as eliminating state funded, pro-state propaganda in education or media (Like NPR/PBS).
Markets correct all excesses in the end.
Sigh…any competent observer noticed that Climate Science was dubious before Climategate and is still dubious. Note that acclaimed scientists/now bloggers didn’t “notice.” And nothing has changed.
Andrew
May I ask a slightly OT question, please? I have come across many blog claims over the past couple of years that the science on climate change has recently hardened considerably – the implication normally being that it has hardened in favor of serious or even catastrophic consequences. Is it true that the scientific evidence has hardened in this way? If so, can anyone point me to any specific examples that illustrate this?
A global cooling of 0.1 deg C per decade:
http://bit.ly/f42LBO
How about, you are completely incorrect as a starting point?
Climate claims are speculative and unrelated to real world results or prediction. It can always be back-modeled and the experiments are usual abstract. There is nothing that isn’t beyond the range of natural variablity.
Guys — I’m not claiming anything or asking for evidence to the contrary. I’ve seen these type of claims and I don’t know what, if anything, is behind them. To be honest, I would guess “nothing”. But I’m just checking here, like a good boy.
Phil SP,
The only way to illustrate the idea that we are facing a climate crisis caused by CO2 is to use phony information.
Thanks all for your replies, but I really wanted to find out what was in the minds of the people suggesting the evidence hardening. Is there anyone here who thinks this has happened who can help me?
I wish I could help you, Phil, but I’m not sure how. The evidence was very solid a few years ago. It continues to strengthen with more research. Is there a specific area you are interested in?
Thanks for your reply Robert.
No, there’s nothing specific. I’ve just read this general claim several times, but never been able to work out what was behind it. In fact, you said here that the evidence “continues to strengthen with more research”. Do you mean the evidence in favor of the greenhouse effect is now stronger, or in favor of serious consequences of more CO2? If the latter, then just one or two specific examples would help – I don’t care which area.
There have been a ton of Op-Ed pieces in the Times, isn’t that enough?
Robert repeats talking points, then give positive summary opinions on the many state funded parties that support the op-eds. What kind of science are you expecting here?
I’ve got just the thing: the Royal Society did a whole issue (Jan 2011) on the consequences of +4C: http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934.toc
The greenhouse effect is about as solid as the law of gravity, so it’s really not possible to get more confidence in that. There has been a lot of research in the past few years on carbon-cycle feedbacks — processes in which warming (caused by GHG emissions) produces GHG emissions from natural sinks (methane, NO, and CO2). Without affecting the actual, literal climate sensitivity (warming per doubling) these feedbacks suggest an increase in the effective climate sensitivity (warming per doubling of CO2 by humans). For example, if the actual climate sensitivity is 3C, but +3C causes GHG release from natural sinks that causes an additional +3C, then the effective climate sensitivity is higher.
I’ve done a few posts on the recent research in climate cycle feedbacks, all pitched at a very basic level, as befits my novice level of understanding:
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/08/permafrost-and-climate-change-primer.html
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-there-still-clathrate-gun-pointed-at.html
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/09/more-methane-madness.html
Thanks Robert! My original training was in physics, so I know that the greenhouse effect is very solid, but there’s so much more about this that I don’t know. I’ll read through your references as well – again thanks.
Robert says “The greenhouse effect is about as solid as the law of gravity, so it’s really not possible to get more confidence in that.”
Phil, you will have to get used to Robert’s way of illogically comparing things that are completely different.
“The greenhouse effect is about as solid as the law of gravity, so it’s really not possible to get more confidence in that.”
The stupid stick in full display Robert;
http://www.ajdesigner.com/phpgravity/newtons_law_gravity_equation_force.php
Where is that first “law” equation for co2 and temperture in the earth atmosphere Robert??? If you can’t predict an outcome how can you compare this the acceleration of an object of any size dropped from building?
In the range of temperture being discussed youcan’t isolate anything with certainty to co2 with all the other inputs involved. This reminds you of “gravity” as your anology example???? That’s truly dense.
Phil SP,
As you can see, the believers rely on science fiction scenarios and call those evidence.
You asked the right question, but like the naked emperor, the beleivers blame you for pointing the inconvenient.
Phil SP
I’m not offering a definitive list, just scratching the surface, but hardening due improved evidence:
a-e) Arctic Sea Ice levels, both in extent (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/) and volume measures, in data gathering (http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/data.html), and in terms of changes seen related to the ice levels in previously unknown wind and current patterns and animal behaviors.
f-k) CO2 measures in the air (http://www.eol.ucar.edu/deployment/field-deployments/field-projects/hippo_global_1/hippo-in-the-news-pole-to-pole-flight-finds-co2-piling-up-over-arctic) and ice (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5889/680.abstract) have gotten longer, more precise, and more closely scrutinized.
l-n) Plant studies (like http://news.stanford.edu/pr/02/jasperplots124.html) and soil studies (eg http://www.mendeley.com/research/field-study-effects-elevated-co2-plant-species-diversity-ecosystemlevel-gas-exchange-planted-calcareous-grassland/) and long range studies of both.
o-r) ENSO and ocean PH balance, AMO and plankton studies…
s-t) Sequestration and long term carbon cycle studies
u-x) Models improving in granularity, verification, validation, and accounting for strong sources of natural variation..
y) CERN in narrowing the band of Cosmic Ray impacts to a more specific range. Still preliminary, but the confirmation of the effect’s existence (there’d been good previous evidence) and probable limits (still to come) will be important. Prejudging to make any claims yet.
z) BEST (http://berkeleyearth.org/) – not released yet, however once it is completed, will substantially improve evidence of surface temperatures (of somewhat speculative value, but of value nonetheless)
These look like some very good references, thank you Bart! I’m intrigued by (u-x), about models “accounting for strong sources of natural variation”. Is this referring to ocean oscillations? Do you mean that the models can now simulate them? And if so, do you have any more details?
Phil SP
I’d intended something more subtle, merely that models that do better account for such things as ocean oscillations also appear to better explain CO2 influence on temperature.
The multiple Spencer & Braswell-related threads at Climate Etc. provide, for example, lengthy enough explanations and references to support the view that there is hardening of the science and increase in evidence per these items.
It’d take, I think, someone far more learned in the details of models than myself to adequately illustrate the strength of the case as regards your question, and someone more in touch with the scientific community to offer a real sense of how much scientists are influenced by this generally.
Thank you Bart, that’s very straightforward of you. I’ll read through the S&B threads again. I wonder if anyone else here can add anything about the ability of models to account for ocean oscillations?
Phil SP, 9/22/11, Climategate
PSP: May I ask a slightly OT question, please? I have come across many blog claims over the past couple of years that the science on climate change has recently hardened considerably – the implication normally being that it has hardened in favor of serious or even catastrophic consequences. Is it true that the scientific evidence has hardened in this way? If so, can anyone point me to any specific examples that illustrate this?
1. There is no such thing in science as evidence or data hardening.
2. You surely can find accumulating evidence either for climate warming or for climate cooling. Save yourself some headache, and just assume the worst. The Believers will be your friends. Besides, Earth’s climate is always warming or cooling. Contrary to the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) model, it is never in equilibrium.
3. You will find no data, much less an accumulation of data, that humans are the cause of global warming or cooling. The models, called GCMs, designed specifically to demonstrate not the existence, but the severity of manmade global warming – not soon enough to self-invalidate and not too late to engender insufficient alarm – rely on a predicted Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS). The models predict ECS in two equivalent forms, 3ºC or 3.7 W/m^2, for a doubling of CO2, like Baby Bear’s porridge, just the right temperature. This prediction can be scaled back for the observed increase in CO2, or the observed increase in temperature or radiation density can be scaled up. Either way, two recent studies (Lindzen & Choi (2011) and Spencer and Braswell (2011), both discussed on this blog) used satellite data to estimate ECS at about 0.7ºC, outside the extreme limits established by the climatologists. You might call this accumulating evidence a hardening, but under any name, it is tending to invalidate the models.
While both of the studies exhibited problems in modeling feedback, their common result had been predicted on the simplest theoretical grounds, to use IPCC’s own relevant phraseology. Earth’s climate is driven by the Sun but regulated by Earth’s albedo, plus internal heat and gravitational forces. In the warm state, the albedo is governed by cloud cover variations, which the GCMs do not mechanize. Consequently, the models predict an open loop ECS. In closed loop, the inevitable condition for all measurements, clouds mitigate warming from all causes.
AGW model is à priori invalid, and à posteriori tending to be invalidated.
Furthermore, IPCC’s own data show that Earth’s temperature has followed the Sun closely for the last 140 years. Click on my name for details. If human fingerprints existed on the temperature record, they somehow got magically transferred to the Sun. In short, the attribution of observed warming to observed CO2 is erroneous. The ECS, that is the increase in temperature for a doubling of CO2, is in fact too small to be measured – call it zero.
Thank you Jeff. I’ll read your paper too. I’m sure that CO2 has an impact on climate, but have little idea how much. Hopefully, it will be just a little bit – perhaps as you say too small to measure – but it may be more than that. In any case, I think I’ll keep coming back here to learn some more!
Hi Phil,
A cut-out-and-keep rundown of the Laws of Climate:
1) It’s worse than we thought.
2) Delete your emails.
3) Won’t someone think of the children.
4) If you’re losing the argument then shout “Big Oil” or “Holocaust Denier”.
How infuriating to read the survey question: Do you
think that global warming is happening?
Of course it is happening. That is what the data shows.
http://bit.ly/oI8dws
The proper question is whether it is man made, and whether it is only 0.06 deg C per decade (instead of IPCC’s 0.2 deg C per decade).
“Of course it is happening. That is what the data shows.”
So, leaving aside your factual mistake about the size of the trend, what should those of us that know the world is warming say to the 60% of hardcore deniers who claim the world isn’t warming?
How would you go about persuading them?
……….60% of hardcore deniers who claim the world isn’t warming……
Did you make that figure up or does it come from some authoritative source?
It’s from George Mason University’s “Six Americas” study:
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.com/2011/07/minor-myths-most-deniers-accept-that.html
Only a true agw minion would find this source “authoritative”.
Short-term warming or cherry picked time span of not, the primary issue is proving causation and quantifying inputs and real world results of such a theory. The AGW advocate track record couldn’t be worse which is why reinventing language is brought to the fetish level in climate science.
Normally I might say “try again” but all roads lead to nowhere with you Robert.
People can argue temps and data sets on actual real world results. It doesn’t make them nuts either way as you imply. I just consider it small ball because even a 100 year moving average isn’t very compelling or undermining of natural variability. The fact that you think it’s so settled based on largely primative histortical surface records indicates how bought into the kool-aid you really are.
Having trouble with reality? How come?
So right after denying the fact reported in the “Six Americas” study, you admit that, yes, deniers do indeed claim that the world is not warming.
Where did I imply they were “nuts”? That’s your interpretation, not mine. I asked how Girma, who thinks the world is warming, thinks why might best go about persuading those in denial of this fact. Quite the opposite of implying deniers are “nuts,” this implies that they are persuadable.
So how would you persuade deniers the world is warming? Or are you among those in denial about that?
Judith
Thanks for calling our attention to an interesting study.
There is no doubt, based on the survey figures, that Climategate has influenced a group, which carries some weight with the general public on the global warming issue.
So, while the initial public reaction may have been to the “direct external opinion forcing” of Climategate, a secondary reaction may have come from the “opinion feedback” from meteorologists, resulting in an enhanced overall effect.
[And, yeah, a few may have been influenced by political views, i.e. “believing” what they “want to believe”, but statistically this appears to have been relatively minor.]
Max
Interesting that your analysis differs from Judith’s
From Judith:
And from you:
So there is a slight difference in focus in those statements (Judith is looking at political influence on what people pay attention to whereas you’re looking at political influence on how politics influences views on teh science of climate change) – but in general it seems that your views are pretty strongly in contrast.
But anyway, you seem to be quite well-versed in statistics. Where is your statistical evidence (from the poll in question of otherwise) that political views only influences a minority (of the poll respondents or the greater public)?
“I did a blog search on it, and none of the climate blogs mention it (not even Watts). Its an article that is worth discussing” JC
That’s very strange. This information was provided and discussed on ClimateEtc back in February:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/23/hiding-the-decline-part-ii/
and posted and discussed at Watts:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/23/george-mason-university-study-figures-out-what-i-already-knew-climategate-had-a-major-impact-on-tv-meteorologists/
It is based on George Mason University polling of t.v. weatherforecasters. As I explained to you at the time, it shows this group had a ‘loss of confidence’ that was most pronounced among those who are politically conservative or did not ‘believe in global warming’ before this. As with all social polls, the social indicators require consideration and interpretation:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110222140542.htm
“This article also reinforces several other sociological studies whereby peoples preconceived ideas and political leanings act as a filter for what gets paid attention to”
That is accurate. In plain English, it reinforces that those who deny climate change continue to deny climate change and those who accept the science continue to accept the science. There were no (new) impacts from so-called Climategate. This has been examined, studied, and understood.
“scientists (74%) are a more trusted source of global warming information”
While it is arguable what counts as ‘more trusted’, information like this continues to contradict ‘skeptical’ beliefs, pulled directly from mass media hype, that there has been a serious loss of trust in scientists.
cheers
Just more distortions Martha, I’m shocked;
“scientists (74%) are a more trusted source of global warming information”
Just more evidence of the spin nature of the survey. Why not list “scientist” as “IPCC Consensus supporting climate scientists”? The reason, that would poll much lower. So by going generic when helps boost the trust number we lump the hacks in government funded climate areas with the broader pool of the science community that still has a higher trust number.
Einstein was a scientist, I’m a scientist, conclusion? I’m like Einstein?
Would you accept such silly reasoning? Why would you not point out all the strawman building that is so obvious in so many consensus supporting spin polls? It only lowers the credibility of the consensus with the informed. You might get a few added points short-term among AGW Prols but overtime it backfires.
“those who did not believe in global warming”
The prototypical AGW climate hustle, mixing warming and skipping cause when it inflates a positive response. Then it will be relinked without disclosure equate AGW = Global Warming for media and propaganda purposes.
Consensus players in the media act stupid and pretend wording didn’t change the main talking points. This has gone on for 30+ years in this fashion. Relative impact of inputs is seldom polled as well. So if someone thinks co2 has a minor impact they get lumped with the spinners talking about Venus.
Judith Curry, 9/22/11, Climategate
JC: “Climategate”—the unauthorized release of, and news stories about, e-mails between climate scientists in the United States and United Kingdom—undermined belief in global warming and possibly also trust in climate scientists among TV meteorologists in the United States.
Yeah. Either that or,
Climategate, a whistleblower’s leak of e-mails between IPCC lead investigators revealing their successful conspiracy to doctor data, and to manipulate peer-reviewed journals to suppress papers critical of their work, and to publish papers that violated physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, systems science, science itself, and evidence, undermining trust in science in general by the public, policy makers, and professionals in the science arts.
Since foi2009.pdf was provided by an insider should the information be called an “unauthorized release” information from an a whistlblower? If you think… whistleblower then you understand why it all is referred to as CRUgate; otherwise, it is more like a Valerie Plame scandal.
It’s all pretty clear. There are those who trust academia and they are not very intelligent as they have no appreciation for the scientific method or the role of skepticism in science. Then, there are those who feel academia stabbed America in the back for money. Then, of course, there are all of the bureaucrats and the entire big government education industrial complex who don’t care so as long as they have the votes by whatever means to continue bleeding the productive.
It gets so boring debunking the standard strawbuilding found in this survey. “74% of SCIENTISTS” being a good first clue, then the “believe in global warming” as if we are 3rd graders in public school being vote trained.
I read “1984” to my children when they turn 10 as policy. I redact some of the sex but the main points come across, they understand the general processes via personal experience. It’s the world we live in now.
“Climategate, a whistleblower’s leak of e-mails ..”
This makes the most sense to me.. I think Richard Muller subscribes to this view, which is interesting. Anyone doubting the damage climate-gate did to the establishment case need look no further than our host who, as I understand it, began to move in a more skeptical direction as a consequence. Dr. Curry certainly can’t have been the only insider to have been so affected. In fact speaking of Muller who has come out so strongly against the Hockey Stick, wasn’t it the “hide the decline” and “Mike’s trick”
that got him on the case in the first place?
I’ve always thought that this AGW nonsense would have to come apart from the inside. I think Climate-gate will one day be looked back on as the beginning of the end.
It was going to end anyway, in some ways it’s a distraction for skeptical resolution. Dr. Curry has a very odd point of view regarding the consensus which she is afterall part of. Perhaps she is a “mad scientist” sterotype by maintaining a completely obtuse postion regarding the poltical representation and inclinations of the consensus. I doubt this of course.
Still, if we buy her talking points Boulder Colorado, UCO, Grateful Dead concerts, Pete Seeger and the Hollywood Ten are/were all bi-partisan enclaves just like the IPCC and we shouldn’t discuss their political MO with any degree of “certainty”. Makes lots of sense right?
Plenty of board support for “we only talk science” here.
This is why I listen to unicorns for advice.
I hate it when they trumpet out of one horn, then the other. Judy heard the bugle well before ClimateGate. She’s got sharp ears for a ramblin’ wreck.
==============
I would argue that TV meteorologists experience with computer weather models are predisposed to distrust computer models. I.E. When they trust the models and the models end up being wrong they end up being the joke of the day.
Hence, something like ‘climate gate’ has a big impact on their perception because so much of ‘climate science’ is based on models.
Just paraphrasing yesterday mornings weather forecast for Seattle…
Computer guidance suggests we will have rain to the North, that doesn’t mean that we won’t have rain to the South as well, just that the likelihood is less
But the alarmists have real climate scientists like Bill Nye the Science Guy.
They promoted that Craven guy too, didn’t they?
The best way to communicate across time and cultures is to start by protecting the integrity of the scientific method. And, scientists must stop giving shelter to liars and tools.
The Utopia of the Left which sees the ideal of community-based altruism as trumping individual liberty has become a simple-minded doomsday ethic that has been facilitated by purveyors of mass media mania self-dealing Weathermen of Western academia who are engaged political fearmongering to line their own pockets.
And at no point, did you have to be a meteorologist or be privy to some leaked emails to become skeptical of climate science. Not much more than a cursory examination of how the “science” was/is presented is enough to see that it’s inconclusive.
Andrew
“And at no point, did you have to be a meteorologist or be privy to some leaked emails to become skeptical of climate science.”
That’s right: just a right-wing-fringe ideology and a hefty dose of the dunning-kruger effect, and you’ve got all you need.
We forgot for a moment. Generally those who can’t do, teach. But now all of the schoolteachers are superheros out to save the world from the kind of right-wing-fringe ideology that was codified in the Constitution.
Waggie
Without looking it up, how much of the Constitution can you quote?
I know it starts with “We The People…”
Andrew
Bad Andrew
Are you sure?
That sounds like awfully collectivist language, compared to say, “I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
Now, that’s a true American-born framer of Constitutional truths who said that.
“That’s right: just a right-wing-fringe ideology and a hefty dose of the dunning-kruger effect, and you’ve got all you need.”
Bobbie,
You don’t need any of that. You just need to use your brain.
Andrew
Robert, I think I hear the pot calling ….
Corporatism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
Corporate statism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_statism
Fabian Society (Fabianism)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabianism
Robert
I would appreciate your view on this.
What harms do you think a warmer world will bring, and what is your source of information to make your fear these conditions are likely to happen? It would seem to me that most of the feared future conditions are based upon climate models. Would you agree? I would appreciate you listing what concerns you and why.
“The Utopia of the Left which sees the ideal of community-based altruism as trumping individual liberty has become a simple-minded doomsday ethic that has been facilitated by purveyors of mass media mania self-dealing Weathermen of Western academia who are engaged political fearmongering to line their own pockets.”
Dark view, but I’m certain there’s enough truth to it. And yet the right is no better. Possibly worse. Power corrupts, money corrupts, corruption corrupts. We need to start with term limits.
If I may stir the sewage…
When the right engages in fearmongering, it’s at least based on real history rather than proxy reconstructions.
History did not start the day the Climategate dossier was released into the wild. I think it is a fair reading of history that meteorologists were in fact a significant part of the backbone of the skeptic movement *before* Climategate.
Before attempting to deal with Earthly climate idiosyncrasies caused by a holistic interplay of myriad natural phenomena beyond contemplation we should first understand our limitations. Before the modeling and mathematics begin let us all remember that fear of global warming is a phenomena of Western civilization. And accordingly we in the West have ample reason to question our collective sanity in the area of climate change.
First off–and, I am only agreeing with Pielke Senior on this — we need to drop the word ‘change’ when referring to ‘climate.’ The Left has turned English into a liars language and the global warming Tower of Babel that the Left has constructed is not the only thing is falling down. We are witnessing the fall of Western civilization in our lifetime.
The first thing that struck me was the arrogance of Edward Maibach, James Witte, and Kristopher Wilson.
They published the article in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society yet refer to Meteorologists as “weathercasters”.
Perhaps we should return the favor and refer to climatologists as soothsayers?
If climatologists possessed a fraction of the real world experience a Meteorologist takes for granted, we would be far closer to understanding the Climate System.
John from CA
Could you tell me how many hours of real world experience in a makeup chair add up to credentials in understanding climate?
What number of lines on a teleprompter equal a PhD?
What sort of greenscreen competency qualifies as solving partial differential equations?
Bart R
You simply prove my point. Climatologists, like the authors, appear to have an exaggerated view of their actual value.
There’s a huge distinction between a Weather Bunny and a Meteorologist.
If Climatologists got their noses out of the models and applied some practical experience the models would be far more accurate.
Exactly… which is why non-Western scientists liken climatology to the ancient science of astrology and the casting of chicken bones for foretell the future.
Ah.
So, my examples of meteorologists are weather bunnies, and your examples of ivory tower elitists are climatologists.
Makes perfect sense.
And what of those climatologists with direct, hands on field work in zones of extreme climate, or up-close with the most direct feed to satellite data, or who have been grilled for months or years leading up to the defense of their work by the most experienced, grizzled veterans of their respective specializations?
I’m thinking your climatologists are purely fictional, as I’ve never seen one except in the farfetched imaginings of conspiracy theorists, op-ed columnists with an axe to grind, and scriptwriters, while I see weather bunnies in makeup standing in front of greenscreens reading teleprompters regularly.
Bart R
I’m uncertain why you fail to see the article for what it is — offensive propaganda.
IMO, the article is biased, patronizing, misleading, and offensive.
The article is titled:
“CLIMATEGATE” UNDERMINED BELIEF IN GLOBAL WARMING AMONG MANY AMERICAN TV METEOROLOGISTS.
1st para:
“Television meteorologists are a potentially important source of informal climate change education in that a large majority of American adults watch local TV news…”
2nd para:
Often, weathercasters are the only person in their newsroom with any science training.
Climate change is one of the science topics most frequently discussed by local TV weathercasters (Wilson 2008). A significant minority, however, hold beliefs that conflict with the scientific consensus about climate change (Wilson 2002, 2008, 2009). For example, nearly a third (29%) of AMS weathercasters surveyed agreed with the provocative assertion made by a prominent TV weathercaster [he’s a Meteorologist] that “global warming is a scam”; a larger proportion (41%) indicated that their primary obstacle to reporting on the topic was “too much uncertainty” in climate science (Wilson 2009).
laster in the article:
What is surprising, however, is that weathercasters who were more credentialed in the science of meteorology (as measured by their level of professional certification), on average, responded to the story in a manner similar to less scientifically credentialed weathercasters. In short, TV weathercasters appear to have responded to the Climategate story more through the lens of political ideology than through the lens of meteorology.
Our investigation of TV weathercasters was premised on the belief that TV weathercasters can potentially become an important source of climate change education for a broad cross section of Americans. While our findings reported elsewhere (Maibach et al. 2010) largely support this premise, we conclude from the current analysis that Climategate has been, at least temporarily, an impediment in efforts to encourage weathercasters to embrace the role of climate change educator.
=========
The title s/b, Brain washing weathercasters is proving to be difficult.
This Left vs. Right thing in science has a bit of irony. Not long ago scientists looked in disgust as Postmodernists “deconstructed” science, asserting that scientists and their lofty pretensions are nothing more than social constructs. This was too much for even a leftist scientist like Alan Sokal to stomach, who produced a clever hoax that exposed the scientific ignorance of these fools. Or at least I thought they were fools: maybe they were on to something? The interaction of “science” with the AGW program leaves me increasingly convinced that much of the real science is about the scientists themselves: their agglomeration into homogeneous thought-communities, and how their practice of the “scientific method” is a metaphor for the enforcement of power relationships. I am aghast at myself for even writing this, but maybe a dose of Deconstructionism Revisited is in order.
“When the right engages in fearmongering, it’s at least based on real history rather than proxy reconstructions.”
Of course all those threats about Saddam Hussein and mushroom clouds, and the connection between Iraq and Bin Laden et al were as solid as solid can be. Right?
Yeah, there is nothing worse than to see someone like Bush stand up for America with his whole heart.
Iraq attempted to assassinate George Bush Sr. That alone should have qualified Iraq for destruction/invasion.
However, do try and remember that Bill Clinton launched 300 cruise missile at Iraq in 1998 to force Iraq to give up its WMD’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Iraq_(December_1998)
And, he also authorized the overthrow of the Iraqi government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act
OTOH .. why did Clinton and the US/UN Air Force bomb Serbia back to the stone age? They were no threat to the USA.
Leftists hate Bush because he blocked Kyoto like the lone Chinaman who stood in front of the commie tanks at Tiananmen Square in 1989. There will be a paper someday perhaps explaining how it came to be that the Left abandoned science and in their distrust of humanity sought to destroy it.
It will be published in Energy and Environment after being laughed out of peer review.
If only you were making the point you thought you were instead of the one you actually did.
… after being laughed out of peer review. …
Yeah [snort] …
That’s the whole point. Peer review ensures science is a safe haven by keeping away the riff raff
Deep down Leftist ideology has never been about reform but rather the Left’s view that a free man cannot be trusted.
“That’s the whole point. Peer review ensures science is a safe haven by keeping away the riff raff”
If by “riff raff” you mean “incompetent blowhards,” then, yes, peer review can be rather hard on your kind.
But since anyone can chose to become informed and competent if they want to, it’s hardly a discriminatory practice.
Waggie
Technically, Bush wasn’t alone against Kyoto.
Indeed, with allies from Canada and other fossil producers, Bush could be more reasonably seen as the guy driving the tank.
It was Clinton, Al Gore and US Senate who were against Kyoto.
Senate voted 95-0 against with Al Gore presiding.
Bruce
Aha!
The conspiracy revealed at last. It was Clinton/Gore pulling Bush’s puppet strings all that time!
No secret plot can long escape your keen eyes.
Al Gore/Clinton/DNC took a lot of strange money from China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy
China has definitely benefited from Kyoto which left them to burn vast quantities of coal.
Bruce (& Bart R) –
You miss the point that without Gore, Kyoto would never have happened at all. He was the spark plug that pushed it into existence.
Also – IIRC, the 95-0 was the number of Senate names on a letter sent to Clinton that advised him to NOT send the treaty to the Senate because it would NOT be ratified. IIRC, Clinton, in fact, never signed the treaty.
Bush did NOT refuse to “ratify” the treaty – he didn’t have the power to unilaterally do that in any case. He was, in fact, in the same position as Cliinton in that respect – with a Senate that would have simply rejected it out of hand. The leftists/warmists, of course, blamed Bush for failing to get it ratified – while conveniently forgetting that that should have been Clinton’s job if it were to actually happen.
I wonder if anyone’s noticd that Obama hasn’t made any move to ratify it either – even with a Senate majority on his side (more or less).
Western Europe, NZ and Australia preceded America down the dead end road of anti-capitalism by way of the AGW pseudoscience/CO2 fearmongering detour from sanity. Thanks primarily to the steadfastness of George Bush, America was the last industrialized country of the West to be dragged down economically by the secular, socialist AGW eco-whackpot juggernaut of AGW Big government science authoritarianism.
And perhaps because it was last, America also was the last to have raised its collective IQ above the nihilism of the global warming alarmist herd of the Left. NZ is now openly antagonistic to the AGW hypothesis; and, there is no longer a consensus of opinion in Australia.
The UK has had its nose rubbed in the fraud and collusion that marks the AGW Climate-Man Cult. Canada has begun to realize that growing wheat may no longer be possible there. The insane trading schemes of the Scandinavians were thoroughly routed in Corruptenhagen. And, all of the anti-America nations of dead and dying old Europe have learned to live through frigid cold winters for years now and have begun to accept the reality of global cooling for perhaps many more decades to come.
So what do you think your ability to spin this right-wing-fringe fantasy shows?
Surely you don’t think anybody normal believes this garbage?
It really doesn’t serve any purpose, since the whole evil-leftist eco-marxist decline-of-the-West nonsense has already been laid out in Anders Behring Breivik’s manifesto — the one he self-published before setting off to murder dozens of the hated “leftists” at a summer camp (http://www.scribd.com/doc/60744006/2083-a-European-Declaration-of-Independence).
How does your story change or improve on Breivik’s?
Typical and offensive smear from Robert. We should talk about the sort of politics found at Jonestown or the Unibombers notes?
We should compare the mass killing of left vs. right wing cultures? You do realize cross over quality of NAZI culture that was well coordinated and modeled after communism right Robert? Even if you mislabel do you think it’s anywhere near close in total political deaths? How insane would that argument be?
Of course we can see in real time where you ilk is going;
Michael Moore promises riots if the “rich” don’t cooperate;
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/09/22/michael_moore_threatens_the_rich_lets_deal_with_it_nonviolently_now-comments.html
So dumbo, are you endorsing such comments? Where there any published notes or entries that effectively any of the 100% of the conservative or libertarian factions endorsed from Breiviks manifesto??
Of course not, a total nonsense and insulting proposal based on your fringe fantasies. About your usual standard.
You would do better at the NYTimes or the Village Voice posting your hateful views.
Darn, too bad, automatic fail: Godwin’s Law. You lose.
Thanks for playing. :)
You who can’t stop using the word “DENIER” (Liberal Newspeak) which = HOLOCAUST DENIER = Godwin Law violation claim it as a defense?
You haven’t figured out what the NAZI party was modeled after regardless of nationalist or right of center incorporations? You are especially clueless Robert and you have the largest set of nasty board habits. You’re sitting at your computer relating conservatives to a mass murderer to score a board point in your twisted ignorant mind?
Take the meds and a timeout and think abut why you are offensive.
cwon14 –
Some friendly avice – remember that Robert is the most ignorant troll you’ve ever run into. He’s totally ignorant of economics, science, history, religion and a number of other subjects. So…. he brings nothing to the table but the most atrocious lack of manners and civility and the most vicious set of lies and ad homs he can find while digging in the middens of the fever swamp. In general, he’s incapable of either coherent conversation or useful input. At one time I seriously thought he might be a pre-adolescent, but that didn’t last long. There was at one time a TV program titled something like “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader”. I watched it exactly once. Personal opinion is that Robert “might” be smarter than a 2nd grader. But note that there’s considerable uncertainty about that. For all his claims about “schooling” people, he doesn’t know enough about anything to do so.
Keep in mind that he’s proven himself a coward as well. Which probably plays into the reasons for his nastiness and puts the lie to his claims of winning or spanking or beating people. He talks a nasty game but lacks what it takes to walk the walk.
IOW, don’t let His Nastiness upset you – it’s not worth what it does to your blood pressure.
Thanks Jim, I’ll keep that in mind. Stupid or arrogance comes with the turf but it’s that special added blind hatred with ignorance that can push a button on occasion. An ignore button would improve this or likely any board.
cwon14 –
BTDT. Used to let the ignoranuses get to me. Then decided it gave them too much power over my life. Not acceptable. That was 10 years ago.
Now the Roberts of the world are just entertainment – when I have time and inclination for that kind of activity.
Have a good weekend – or what’s left of it. I get to go back to the flood zone and play in the mud and the cr@p again soon. Maybe next week. Oh well, I DID volunteer.
Judith,
I keep seeing the term “global warming”. I thought the issue was anthropogenic global warming (AGW) or even CAGW. Also, meteorologists have a variety of levels of education and training, and many are highly qualified technically even though they work as TV weather-people. In fact I would rate many meteorologist as more qualified to give an opinion on the validity of AGW or CAGW, if they read a reasonable amount of the technical literature or even discussion on the web (based on their experience and education) that a person trained in Biology or tree ring science, or many of the other types that call themselves climate experts.
Why did you think that?
So we may better evaluate your ability to assess the knowledge of others about climate change, what is your own expertise in that area? Education, work history, publications?
Robert said;
“So we may better evaluate your ability to assess the knowledge of others about climate change, what is your own expertise in that area? Education, work history, publications?”
Whoops! You made a bit of a faux pas there. These ares some of the many references to Leonard Weinstein in connection with the science.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=1&oq=leonard+weinstei&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DSGL_enGB415GB416&q=leonard+weinstein+global+warming
tonyb
“Whoops! You made a bit of a faux pas there.”
Do you know what a faux pas is? Because I don’t think you’re using the term correctly.
You seem to be suggesting that unless the answer to my questions is “I have no expertise” that I was wrong to ask the question. Why? Is it wrong to ask a question to gain information? Are you admitting that you only ask rhetoric questions to which you already know the answers?
I am not so cynical. I still await Leonard’s reply.
….”what is your own expertise in that area? Education, work history, publications?”
Heh, I been waiting on that same info about you too… am I any closer?
Too funny
Most people expect there to be a critical, skeptical, and thorough probing of controversial issues. Most believed science would prevail and we would gain a much deeper understanding of the world around us.
What many have failed to realize is that people with ideologically-motivated preconceptions are willing to collude and knowingly participate in a fraud to take advantage of the ignorance, superstition and fears of others to advance a secular, socialist political agenda.
Those in the physical sciences have simply failed to appreciate the non-science implications of the global warming hoax. And, many lack the courage and intellectual integrity to step up.
lol!
Wagathon – I seriously love your posts.
Judith – did you read that one?
The poll suggest you’ve failed to convince the public with your story of a magical world-wide “socialist” conspiracy to fabricate global warming. And no wonder.
Can you cite even a single piece of evidence for such a conspiracy?
It was actually Margaret Thatcher trying to kill off the coal mining unions.
http://www.john-daly.com/history.htm
I chuckled at your mention of Anthony Watts. I am sure he is puffing out with pride at the inferred accolade.
As for the MSM, I do not see a balance (as they are trying to tie volcanos and earthquakes to it). But I do see less hysteria (not mentioned as often.
Some highlights that knock my socks off:
1) I think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past decade as a result of variability–that explanation is wearing thin. I would just suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also do some checking on the sulfate issue, just so you might have a quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong [THESE PAPERS ARE THAT ARE BEING PUBLISHED RECENTLY]. Otherwise, the Skeptics will be all over us–the world is really cooling, the models are no good, etc. And all this just as the US is about ready to get serious on the issue. We all, and you all in particular, need to be prepared.
2) Yeah, it wasn’t so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a longer – 10 year – period [IT IS 13 YEARS NOW!] of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you might expect from La Nina etc. Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also. Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects and the recent cold-ish years.
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 [IT IS 13 YEARS NOW!] of data and it isn’t statistically significant.
Who is the real denier?
This has never been seen the history of science! Ever!
“Yeah, there is nothing worse than to see someone like Bush stand up for America with his whole heart.”
WHat in the heck does his whole heart have to do with it? How about using his head? This has to be the most vapid, ill-conceived, and facile defense of Bush and the Iraq war it’s yet been my displeasure to read. His whole heart? Gee, that makes me feel so much better. Are you kidding me?
You see no correlation between belief in AGW and a host of self-defeating personality disorders like climate fear mongering, Hot World Syndrome and Bush derangement syndrome?
Bottom line, this is a really interesting finding, and may help explain why, even though the vast majority of the public never heard of the fake scandal of “climategate,” there did ensue a period of greater confusion among the public which was a definite propaganda coup for deniers, although more recent surveys show the pendulum of public opinion swinging back towards real science.
Given these findings, I wonder if one to make an impact by organizing educational events for meteorologists — who, like the public at large, presumably trust climate scientists over non-scientists by a large majority — in which the professionals could run brief courses on global warming basics.
In the realm of science education, these findings suggest that focusing on meteorologists could have a force-multiplying effect, and be a time-effective use for our best science communicators.
After a decade of hiding the decline and it is a travesty we cannot account for lack of warming, you want more “climate education”.
The only positive from the recession is we may not pay carbon tax. When people are unemployed and pay no tax, government’s don’t have cash to waste on AGW.
“After a decade of hiding the decline and it is a travesty we cannot account for lack of warming . . .”
After a decade of lying about “climategate,” why do you think you’ve failed to persuade the public?
What can you do to win their trust back?
A decade of lying about a two-year old scandel?
I can see why you believe in the climate models now, not to mention your peculiar interpretation of public opinion polls.
Climategate was less than 2 years ago, You been sniffing neutrinos?
“After a decade of lying about “climategate,” why do you think you’ve failed to persuade the public?”
Whoa, it’s 2019 already? Classic, Robert, just classic.
“What can you do to win their trust back?”
Point to you as the alternative.
Polls say your ad homs are failing; the public trusts scientists, not deniers.
What else you got?
What else we got? The lack of any politician willing to put his/her a$$ on the line to do something you imply 84% of the public is behind.
Hmmmm….what’s wrong with this picture?
–> the vast majority of the public never heard of the fake scandal of “climategate,”…
Whistling past the graveyard at a time when climatologists, statisticians, time and nature have all slapped the pseudo-science of the global warming fearmongers upside the face with a cold dose of reality like a stinking dead fish from Corruptenhagen and while any scientist with a reputation to protect has long since made a beeline for the UN exits?
Leftist environmentalist, Philip Stott captures all too well what it really is that motivates the continued self deception of the deniers in the West of the obvious, that climate change is natural, the same deniers of reality who also believe that it is capitalism and George Bush that have destroyed America, when the real culture destroyers are the nihilism and the secular, socialist politics of the political ideologues.
“Whistling past the graveyard . . .”
Reality: polls show 83% of the public believe global warming is real, <15% of the public agree with the deniers — half of them straight from the Tea Party.
So why is denialism losing steam?
How did you come to lose the trust of the public?
You don't have a hope of turning the situation around until you face reality. But I suppose if that were your strong suit, you wouldn't be in the position of trying to sell this snake oil!
Obviously it’s all political: If AGW was about science and not politics it would not be a Left versus right issue, would it?
For all of the evolution of man, mastery over the vagaries of nature was as prized. But now, truths that once had value do not matter anymore.
Stated another way, do you prefer George Washington, or Mao Tse-Tung?
The answer is simple:
If you are a Tibetan Buddhist monk, you prefer a God-fearing protector of personal and religious freedom like George Washington and George Bush.
If you are a tenured professor in liberal academia, Ward Churchill is more inspiring than Winston Churchill, mass murderer Mao is your philosopher, and Bush-haters Castro and Chavez are your comrades.
“Obviously it’s all political”
Obviously it’s all political to you: you don’t “get” science and reason, and base your beliefs on whatever serves your right-wing extremist ideology.
Global warming isn’t a “left-right” issue, it’s a “far right” versus “normal people of every orientation” issue.
The fact that you talking your marching orders from the right doesn’t prove anything about the scientist against whom you’ve launched this crusade.
But you’re still ducking my questions:
So why is denialism losing steam?
How did you come to lose the trust of the public?
You are being disingenuous–about like global warming alarmists’ claims of a consensus.
But you’re still — still — ducking my questions:
Why is denialism losing steam?
How did you come to lose the trust of the public?
What can you do to win the public’s trust after the plagiarism, the death threats, the lying?
Why are you so afraid of these questions that you keep trying vainly to change the subject?
Robert, one way I am thinking they can salvage their reputations and regain public trust is if they implement rigorous QA procedures on their blogs, including a system of accountability for mistakes and investigations into how they occurred.
Of course it may be too late for even that to work, but it would be a start at least.
I absolutely agree, lw. Every mature political movement has to rein in the fringe. Coming down hard on those who threaten violence, make absurd claims of conspiracy, or deny basic physics is essential if they want to break out of the 10-15% of the market they hold now.
It’s the unconscious ironies that are the best. Is CAGW as a political movement showing signs of senescence, now that the fringe is in charge?
=============
Kim,
It is the ignorance of NOT having knowledge that should have been easy to follow.
Massive confusion of many theories missed the matter of simple measurements and simple calculation that show how to change this planet by changing it’s speed.
Past evidence is flushed away for picking out certain time frames to boost a theory.
If you pick a time frame of 10,000 years ago, then of coarse the planet is warming as it has done many times in the past.
Cherry picking 150 years out of 4.5 billion is just plain politics for funding and career safety.
“‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices…
“We hear a great deal about ‘dangerous climate change’ from the likes of Al Gore and Nicholas Stern. By contrast, I wish to speak about dangerous ‘Green’ economics…
“We forget at our peril that a significant portion of the ‘Green’ movement has striven for over 40 years to undermine the whole of our economic system…”
~Philip Stott
–Phillip Stott
To me this is just as wackily alarmist as anything the AGW crowd is claiming. The chances of our whole economic system being undermined by global warming belief is about on a par with the earth warming and the seas rising due to Co2…
Both sides are delusional in my humble opinion…
Posted on November 17, 2009 by Anthony Watts
AMS TV weathercaster survey on climate raises eyebrows
From Alabamawx.com by Bill Murray
source: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/17/ams-tv-weathercaster-survey-on-climate-raises-eyebrows/
excerpts:
“Most of the warming since 1950 is likely human induced.” A full 50% disagreed or strongly disagreed. 25% were neutral on this question. Only 8% strongly agreed.
“Global climate models are reliable in their predictions for a warming of the planet.” Only 3% strongly agreed and another 16% agreed. A full 62% disagreed or strongly disagreed.
Note: its interesting that other AMS survey questions were not included in Maibach, Witte, and Wilson article.
The reliability of global climate models has very little to do with the Climategate scandal.
John,
Your right!
Most people have not even heard or remember the climategate scandal.
Scientists are paid to be the experts for our society so that we do not have to check up on their work as we trust they are honorable.
Robert: “After a decade of lying about “climategate,” why do you think you’ve failed to persuade the public?”
Climategate was less than two years ago. The proof of collusion to corrupt peer-review, destroy data under FOI requests, and blatantly refuse to follow the Scientific Method by “climate scientists” is only beginning to get into the public mind.
So when it comes to lying about Climategate, or just lying about climate, I think we know that you are just engaging in projection.
Nah it’s over. You lost it already.
The public see through blatant industry-fanboy attempts to deny climate change just as easily as they see through blatant greenpeace attempts to over-exaggerate it.
People know something is up with the climate and they trust scientists more than anyone. The skeptics played their best climategate hand and it didn’t work.
Patrick Moore, founder and past president of Greenpeace, had the intellectual courage to stand up against eco-terrorism. Compare that to an EPA that applauds the Left’s jihad on energy for humanity.
Gonna see a whole load of skeptics jump that boat within the next 2 years. Enjoy the La Nina while it lasts.
“The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030–2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.” ~Nikola Scafetta
Try this one on for size:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-administration-ban-asthma-inhalers-over-environmental-concerns_594113.html
“Climategate was less than two years ago”
I stand corrected. I should have said: “After a decade of lying, most recently about climategate.”
The rest of your post is a nice summary of some of the more popular lies. Why do you think your lies have failed to catch fire with the public? Do you think the repeated debunking of those lies by multiple investigations has rebounded to hurt “skeptic” credibility?
We all should exercise a greater degree of scientific skepticism here. Obviously, there are a lot of ideologically-idiots who do not care about the truth but, you understand that the Earth has been in a cooling trend for a decade, right?
“you understand that the Earth has been in a cooling trend for a decade, right”
Well no, it hasn’t.
Facts are facts: GLOBAL WARMING HAS STOPPED!
“What does the science say about the temperature of the oceans – which, after all, constitute about 70% of the Earth’s surface? The oceans store approximately 80% of all the energy in the Earth’s climate, so ocean temperatures are a key indicator for global warming.” ~ Roger Pielke, Sr.
It isn’t just logical, it’s Physics 101: “If ocean cooling does occur, it DOES mean global warming as stopped during that time period.” (ibid.)
“The predicted temperature in 2100 by the IPC is simply an extension of the warming trend between 1975 and 2000… As a result, the IPCC prediction during the first decade of the present century has already failed.” ~Syun-Ichi Akasofu
“Facts are facts: GLOBAL WARMING HAS STOPPED!”
Facts are facts: you’re wrong.
What evidence do you have for that extraordinary claim?
“If ocean cooling does occur, it DOES mean global warming as stopped during that time period”
We don’t have ocean cooling
And temperature is following the IPCC projection not Akasofu’s.
Interesting that at the very first moment we were able to accurately measure ocean temperatures, global warming stopped.
Gaia’s Guffaw.
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“Somehow Hitler keeps popping into the discussion. Gore draws a parallel between fighting global warming and fighting the Nazis. Novelist Michael Crichton, in State of Fear , ends with an appendix comparing the theory of global warming to the theory of eugenics — the belief, prominently promoted by Nazis, that the gene pool of the human species was degenerating due to higher reproductive rates of “inferior” people. Both, he contends, are examples of junk science, supported by intellectual elites who will later conveniently forget they signed on to such craziness.”
~Joel Achenbach, “The Tempest,” Washington PostSunday, May 28, 2006
My strategy for reading this blog is as follows. Skip past every post by Joshua, Robert, lolwot, etc, and then read any responses to them. That way, without wasting hours on trolls, I get the gist of what they have said, plus the reaction to that.
If any of the trolls respond to this posting, I hope to find out what they said and the answer to that in any replies to them. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have discovered such an efficient method of significantly cutting my reading time.
Sort of like injecting yourself with a pylori bacteria to prove to the consensus that ulcers are not caused by bad eating habits and to get rid of them you must change your entire way of life?
Just reading one side in a debate sounds like a perfect case of confirmation bias. Even more efficiently, I generally read neither side when this crew gets going, finding both sides equally lacking in substance. It is all a low level mix of politics, ideology and psychology, delivered by assertion and rant. Note however that this weak mix captures a lot of the actual debate. Hence it has its place.
“My strategy for reading this blog is as follows. Skip past every post by Joshua, Robert, lolwot, etc, and then read any responses to them. ”
Amen to that!
AGW team=>name-calling-team-who-want-our-money
This completely ducks the central problem.
It’s not a question of scientists on one side, and advocacy groups on another. What Climategate incontrovertably showed is that the leadership of the so-called scientists are themselves just advocacy groups in scientists’ clothing. And the deafening silence from the bulk of the the rank and file signals their acquiesece in this fraudulent ‘Consensus’.
Punksta,
They aren’t just in scientists clothing. They are disguised as humans too!
Yes, we’ve seen authoritarians cloaked as humans before.
==========
Judith, no individual board or blog is under any obligation whatsoever to provide “freedom of speech” to every adolescent who thinks he knows it all and who desires more than anything else the last word.
A little quality control is required for posts on this board otherwise it will sink under the weight of invidious politicking from a minority that has no objective except to play politics and attack you personally.
Some threads go a bit over the top, I will check this thread. I do quality control on the technical threads
marchesarosa,
Many times Judith has clipped my responses as they are too truthful for the current crowd to understand.
There’s also the ancient online proverb: Don’t feed the troll.
I like the revised version:
It’s easier to starve the troll by banning it first.
Actually, I enjoy the delusion on display. It allows me to fantasize that skeptics are winning.
================
This journal article is a very interesting piece, more for what it omits than what it says. It was written by folks from the Center for Climate Change Communication, the Center for Social Science Research, and the School of Journalism, and funded by the National Science Foundation, an (independent) government agency.
1) The major omission is a definition of terms. The result is an exercise of the Fallacy of Ambiguity: the use of a word or phrase in more than one meaning. Specifically, it conflates “climate change” with “anthropogenic climate change”, “climate change” with “global warming”, and “global warming” with “catastrophic global warming”. As a result, one does not know what interpretation the respondents were using. In my opinion, the authors should have known better.
“Climate change” is inherently change in any direction. Here it is associated with “warming” without mentioning “cooling”.
2) A second omission is the basis upon which the respondents’ opinions were reached. “News” and “media” are mentioned. The contents of the Climategate files (FOI2009.zip) are not mentioned as a source, whether all or in part. The consequence is that we do not know whether the results are an effect of political philosophy or better information found by those who were skeptical of IPCC claims.
This second omission is not due to Climategate information being impossible to obtain. McIntyre, in “Uber-Viral” (2009) notes search activity at 32,000,000. The complete zipped file (FOI2009.zip) may even now be downloaded here: http://junksciencearchive.com/FOIA/ and a link to a search capability here: http://www.yourvoicematters.org/cru/
This journal article strikes me as more of an evaluation of a marketing plan’s effectiveness with meteorologists than a statistical study. Permit me to recommend reading the marketing plan, “RulesOfTheGame.pdf”, contained in FOI2009.zip. See in particular items 1.3, 2.8, and 6.20. See also “HARRY_READ_ME.txt” in the same zip file.
Re the first omission: The journal article refers to “Global Warming” 61 times, “Climate change” (unqualified) 30 times, “Anthropogenic climate change” 2 times, “news” 19 times, media” 8 times, “FOI” 0 times (as in FOI2009.zip), and “cooling” 0 times.
Re the second omission: There were ample contemporary references, not to mention current discussions:
McIntyre, Steve. 2009. Uber-Viral. Scientific. Climate Audit. December 5. http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/05/uber-viral/
And, as a category: http://climateaudit.org/category/climategate/
McIntyre, Steve. 2009. Curry: On the credibility of climate research. Scientific. Climate Audit. November 22. http://climateaudit.org/2009/11/22/curry-on-the-credibility-of-climate-research/
Curry, Judith A. 2009. On the Credibility of Climate Research, Part II: Towards Rebuilding Trust. Opinion. Climate Change – Georgia Tech. http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/climate/towards_rebuilding_trust.html
Smith, E. Michael. GIStemp. Analysis. Musings from the Chiefio. http://chiefio.wordpress.com/gistemp/
Your first point – Orwellian is the official language of climate science. Bureaucrat scientists are obliged to speak Orwelian.
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
But oh, how we improve our style
Once we have practiced for a while.
H/t Frances La Fere.
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Meteorologists are irrelevant to climate science.