by Judith Curry
Climate researchers are now engaged in a debate about whether their science is being crippled by a compulsion to conform. They wonder if pressure to reach a consensus is too great. They ask if criticism is being suppressed. No less is at stake than the credibility of research evidence for climate change and the very question of whether climate research is still reliable. – Spiegel
The Bengtsson affair is continuing to stimulate some important discussions on the climate consensus and its ‘enforcement.’ Here are some recent thought provoking articles.
Lennart Bengtsson
Uppsalainitiativet has a blog post Lennart Bengtsson: My view on climate research. Bengtsson’s essay is prefaced with the following text: In a series of recent blog posts, we in Uppsalainitiativet have sharply criticized meteorologist and climate scientist professor Lennart Bengtsson (post 1, post 2, post 3). Unfortunately those 3 posts are in Swedish, it would be interesting to see what they have to say. Here are excerpts from Bengtsson’s essay:
As a result of chaos theory, weather and climate cannot be predicted, and how future climate will turn out will not be known until future is upon us. It would not help even if we knew the exact amount of greenhouse gases. Add to this the uncertainty about the future of the world. This should be clear to anyone, simply by moving back in time and contemplating what has unfolded from that viewpoint. As Daniel Boorstin put it: “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge”.
I’m concerned that this is the problem of the present, and the real reason for me to choose to partake in the climate debate over the last couple of years. I don’t think anyone disputes that I have been highly critical of those who completely reject the effects of greenhouse gases on the earth’s climate. This is however not the problem, but rather how much, how soon and to what extent “climate change” will happen. There is no 97% consensus about this, and even less concerning how weather and climate will turn out in Västerbotten [West Bothnia] in 80 years. This is why it unfortunately is misleading of SMHI to show their beautiful maps, because people may actually believe that this is the way the climate will turn out. The climate scientists of SMHI know this, of course, but for the users this is not clear.
What is perhaps most worrying is the increased tendency of pseudo-science in climate research. This is revealed through the bias in publication records towards only reporting results that support one climate hypothesis, while refraining from publishing results that deviate. Even extremely cold weather, as this year’s winter in north Eastern USA and Canada, is regarded as a consequence of the greenhouse effect.
That I have taken a stand trying to put the climate debate onto new tracks has resulted in rather violent protests. I have not only been labeled a sceptic but even a denier, and faced harsh criticism from colleagues. Even contemplating my connections with GWPF was deemed unheard of and scandalous.
I find it difficult to believe that the prominent Jewish scientists in the GWPF council appreciate being labeled deniers. The low-point is probably having been labeled “world criminal” by a representative of the English wind power-industry. I want to stress that I am a sworn enemy of the social construction of natural science that has garnered so much traction in the last years. For example, German scientists have attempted to launch what they call “good” science to ensure that natural science shouldn’t be driven by what they view as anti-social curiosity-research by researching things that might not be “good”.
The comments are entertaining – Dana Nuccitelli and Chris Colose show up to tell Bengtsson that he doesn’t understand the science.
Spiegel
Spiegel has an article Heated Debate: Are Scientists Being Forced to Toe the Line? Subtitle: After joining a controversial lobby group critical of climate change, meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson claims he was shunned by colleagues, leading him to quit. Some scientists complain pressure to conform to consensus opinion has become a serious hindrance in the field. Excerpts from what scientists have to say:
Gavin Schmidt a climatologist and climate modeler at NASA described the “alleged connection to McCarthy” as “ridiculous.”
Nevertheless, by joining the political lobby group, Bengtsson opened himself up to criticism that he had taken a position inappropriate for a scientist of his stature.
University of Washington climatologist Eric Steig says the activities of the GWPF are more reminiscent of McCarthyism than Bengtsson’s case. GWPF, for its part, calls itself a think tank that documents arguments stating why climate change as a problem is being overestimated.
Reto Knutti of the ETH Zürich technical university is also critical. “Organizations like the GWPF contribute to whipping scientific debate into a religious war,” he argues. “Jochem Marotzke, who is Bengtsson’s successor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, says, “GWPF works deliberately in a selective way. They mention only arguments that suit their purposes. Counterarguments are kept under wraps.”
Professor Myles Allen, a climate researcher at Oxford, says, “The problem is their anti-science agenda, clearly illustrated by the fact that they refused point blank to submit their recent report criticizing the IPCC 5th Assessment Report to the same kind of open peer review that the IPCC report was itself subjected to.”
GWPF Director Benny Peiser challenges assertions like that. “We are not an interest group; our scientists have no official or collective opinion — to any topics. If there were no taboos in climate science or climate policy, the GWPF would probably not exist.”
Roger Pielke Sr. of the University of Colorado says, “Unfortunately, climate science has become very politicized and views that differ at all from those in control of the climate assessment process are either ignored or ridiculed. From my experience, I agree 100 percent with the allegations made by the very distinguished Lennart Bengtsson.”
But who is doing the politicizing? Knutti says that it is pretty easy to tell. “If you are on the left politically, you believe in global warming,” he says. “If you are on the right, that is much less likely.” He adds that the line between opinion and fact is often blurred, even among scientists.
“Each side maintains the other is politicizing the debate,” explains Werner Krauss, an environmental ethnologist at the Helmholtz Center for Materials and Coastal Research in Geesthacht, Germany. He says climate research is dominated by “strongmen” who know how to exploit the media whenever they like.
At the same time, Heinrich Miller of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research says, “I find the way his colleagues reacted shocking. Apparently there is now pervasive disappointment because a shining scientific example is making his scientific doubts public,” he says. Miller adds that the Bengtsson case reminds him when politicians use “dirty tricks” to muzzle opponents.
Pielke Jr. confirms that climate research is a tough business. “We see hardball politics,” he says. “I have personally seen very strong social and professional pressures over the years. These include threats to my job, professional ostracism, public misrepresentations of my research and views, efforts to prevent me from speaking publicly and personal threats, many of which have been publicly documented.” He advises that “anyone who wishes to participate in the public debate on climate change should do so knowing how the politics are played today — dirty, nasty, destructive.”
Miller says that scientists were politicized more than anything else by having to seek a consensus on results for the 5th IPCC report. “Global warming is taken as dogma. Anyone who doubts it is bad,” says the renowned researcher, who was branded a “climate skeptic” after questioning the scientific validity of computer simulations.
Knutti, by contrast, warns about overemphasizing the lack of certainty about the evidence. He says that sitting back and waiting until all the questions are answered is not an alternative, and describes a large portion of what has come to be called skepticism as deliberate deception.
Pointman
Pointman has a hard hitting essay The Age of Unenlightenment. Excerpts:
That slick expression you’re entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts, now has a deeper meaning in this latest stage of the post-enlightenment. If your facts plainly contradict someone else’s orthodox beliefs, then you are simply being “unhelpful” or even “harmful” and should therefore be suppressed. That’s to be done not by logical refutation or counter argument, but intimidation, bullying, shunning, character assassination and threats to a person’s career or livelihood.
The next line of defence was declaring that it was all settled. It had been so thoroughly proven, incidentally an impossible thing for any scientific theory, that it was no longer an open question. Move along now. The proof had been done by taking a vote and the novel idea of science by consensus rather than scientific method was born. There was to be no debate but it fell foul of that rebellious child it largely shaped, the skeptic blogosphere, which insisted on taking a can opener to every hermetically sealed debate, and so often found Blake’s great red dragon of chaos ready to emerge from it grinning in triumph.
By now, they were increasingly desperate men in a hurry towards some finishing line only they could see, and acted accordingly.
Bengtsson had to be destroyed. Not only was he opening up a dialogue with the climate skeptics, which meant he was straying away from the teachings of the one true church, but he’d also called into serious question the ability of the computer models to generate credible climate predictions.
Their very public and violent intimidation of Bengtsson will probably ensure there won’t be another attempt at rapprochement by a high-profile warmist with the skeptics. They are in effect skipping over the bargaining phase in the death of their belief system.
JC reflections
I have heard that a number of leading scientists are pretty disgusted with the way Bengtsson has been treated and see the larger issues of concern about the social psychology of our field. People are talking about writing blog posts for professional societies, trying to get signatures on a statement, etc. I hope that these individuals follow through, and that the ‘climate’ for climate research can improve.
This is a very welcome change from the 2009 reactions to Climategate, which reflected most silence, but solidarity with the climate scientists whose emails were made public.
With regards to Pielke Jr’s statement: “anyone who wishes to participate in the public debate on climate change should do so knowing how the politics are played today — dirty, nasty, destructive.” I agree with this statement. As someone participating in the in public debate on climate change, I certainly expect barbs from the media and advocacy groups. What concerns me greatly is other scientists behaving in a dirty, nasty and destructive way, in other words, playing dirty politics with their science.
Can climate scientists please stop the intimidation, bullying, shunning and character assassination of other scientists who they find ‘not helpful’ to their cause? Can we please return to logical refutation of arguments that you disagree with, spiced with a healthy acknowledgement of uncertainties and what we simply don’t know and can’t predict?
This has been a long time in the making, it was shown to be in existence by the Climategate emails, it is only now that a reasonable number of genuine Scientists are prepared to speak out against it.
Well done JC for being one of those, I hope you all get much more support from your fellow scientists.
I remember well your first Post on WUWT and the stick we gave you at the time, my apologies for that as you have stuck to your principles and grown in to someone who doesn’t take nonsense from either side of the debate.
+1
Standing ovation!
“who doesn’t take nonsense from either side of the debate.”
Equivocal nonsense.
One side is trying to expropriate carbon value through dictates and contrived totalitarian “science” authority and the other is trying to do what? Stop them?
How does the “nonsense” ever get equalized in light of these different agendas?
What a strange narrative to try to build on top of such a shambles.
Bengtsson’s been shown to have lied outright and suffered zero negative consequences for his lying, except only that the publication that already rejected his substandard submission on grounds of lack of value and lack of quality has found itself needing to defend its honor and its reviewers by publishing the full letters of rejection.
Dr. Curry’s supposedly suffered how again, exactly? She’s in a position of prestige and power at a much larger and more powerful institution than the IPCC.
Dr. Gray? Hardly could have a career of more support from federal politicians, nor hardly could have produced less of value for so much support.
Dr. Christy? Not suffering for funding, support or power.
Dr. Spencer?
Dr. Lindzen?
The list goes on and on; while the 3% (and people who claim to be within the 97% but nonetheless are on speed dial for the GWPF) is smaller, it’s not exactly small, and it’s far from powerless.
Do we force advocates of phlogiston theory to toe the line? No, we look at the substantive body of evidence and reject their claims.
Do we force people whose submissions add nothing new to the field to toe the line? No, we simply don’t see reputable journals dedicated to advancing their field publish those submissions.
Do we force people who use or seek to furnish support for invalid arguments to toe the line? No, we simply let them know in peer review that they have used or produced support for invalid argument.
That’s what happened to Bengtsson.
What is “forcing to toe the line”?
Is it as SE Cupp claims, scientists like 67-year-old stringbean Bill Nye bullying politicians and the public with fact and reason?
Or is it more of http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/03/a-skilful-counterstrike-john-holdren.html where a sitting US Senator accused scientist John Holdren of perjury, based on the support of Roger Pielke Jr.’s misleading previous testimony?
Who’s using force on whom?
And who’s using fact and reason?
You need to close your gadfly, barty. You impressed about four other clowns with that offensive rant. I am sure I don’t need to identify the anonymous little creeps. It’s the usual suspects. What is it that you hope to accomplish with this crap? Do you think you are going to get your carbon taxes by incessantly trolling a website that attracts mostly skeptics? Get your own side on board first, you clown. Did you see that little Bernie Sanders and Babs Boxer have introduced a bill for a $20 a ton carbon tax in the Senate? That’ll get about 20 votes, if Dingy Harry let’s it come up.
Bart, thanks for reinforcing the point, again. Your diatribes simply prove that one side is out to suppress discussion via intimidation. Own goal I’d say.
Oh, Bart R, I’m sorry; I hope you didn’t read that brute.
========
I agree, Professor Curry has shown great courage and wisdom in the climate debate.
To answer the question: Yes, grant funds are used to force climate scientists, cosmologists, astronomers, nuclear scientists, planetary scientists, solar scientists, etc., to fudge the results so they appear to agree with post-1945 STANDARD MODELS of the climate, the cosmos, stars, the nucleus, the proto-planetary nebulous, the Sun, etc.
omanuel: Maybe your opinions are for sale. But for most of us, they are not.
Bart R wrote:
Bengtsson’s been shown to have lied outright
Immediately going to the character assassination. Didn’t take more than a sentence or two to get there. Thanks for making your techniques so obvious, Bart!
Maybe your opinions are for sale. But for most of us, they are not. … Pride is more valuable than money. Some people cannot be bought, regardless of cost
A C Osborn
+100
One might think the 97% would welcome those, no matter how misguided in their scientific inquiries, for looking at the system with a minority view and finding holes in the theory, or shedding additional light on the climate system. It’s not as if the 3% have actually changed policy.
Policy is what it is because of the expensive nature of implementing CO2 neutral policies. I’ll point out here in CA, we need 33% or so of energy by renewables (one article, the old ones are 20%). Hydro and Nuclear do not count, for some strange reason. You can see clearly and obviously CA policy is not addressing CO2 concentrations only. It’s a hodge podge of Green environmental concerns. Nuclear, Bad. Hydro, bad for the fish. Ineffective Green Cars, expensive CO2 neutral energy, good. Oh, and CA is also implementing “Energy Storage,” despite that there isn’t a known energy storage technology that can scale up. It’s based on faith. It’s expensive, and its going to make a lot of people mad as their energy prices increase for no meaningful abatement of CO2 concentrations.
China isn’t building Coal fired plants because of the 3% who say “Well, maybe it’s wrong.” They are building Coal fired plants against the opposition because it’s the right policy for their people despite the 97% consensus.
The anger of Warmists is misdirected. You want to put it where it belongs, get angry with the Sierra Club. CA is committed to spending its citizen’s money to implement some very expensive energy plants, and it won’t change CO2 concentrations in a meaningful way. That money could have gone into nuclear power that is 30 or 40 years more advanced if the Greens hadn’t put the kabash on nuclear plants, for instance. Maybe nuclear would be cheaper, and could have provided the power the Chinese need.
Or get angry with other Greens who are pushing insanely expensive “Electric Cars,” despite they won’t make a dent in CO2 concentrations.
Also, you should get angry at the influence of Greens on Climate Scientists. The advocacy of Greens in the IPCC leaves a lingering taste that it is nothing more than a religious rag, with Polar Bears dying, Ten Million (or was it twenty million) Climate Refugees by 2010, melting Himalayas by 2030. Or other prognostication of climate disasters cast in old testament Claptrap: “The Seas will Rise, plague and pestilence will rule the day, Climate Wars, Drought, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Fire and Flood” etc. Didn’t happen on your timescales. Oh, it was fun to get the articles written up, but it has made people doubtful about the certainty of your views.
Stop blaming the honest 3% Scientists who stick their necks out trying to understand the complexity of planet earth’s climate system, or who actually try to measure the effects. They have done no damage to your cause. Greens, and a lot of your own religious zealotry, as evidenced in Climategate, the IPCC, “An Inconvenient Truth”, and the future damage done by religious “Green” advocacy groups has and will continue to.
Of course, maybe your damage to your own cause is a good thing. How has all this warming messed up planet earth? Expensive energy is killing old folks in Great Britain (30K deaths last year due to cold), rising costs of food probably killing folks due to the misguided and CO2 concentration increasing gasahol, but where are the proved negative influence of CO2 induced heat, outside of these misguided attempts to reduce CO2 concentrations?
If you want to know why this world relies on fossil fuels, look in the mirror. Stop blaming the 3% for problems you yourself made.
A C Osborn@1:54pm
http://diggingintheclay.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/jude-of-arc.jpg?w=340&h=338
I agree that Dana’s comment on Bengtsson’s article is one of the comic highlights of the Climate Wars. Go Dana! You tell that half-wit Bengtsson where he left his trousers!
I also think the real importance of the Bengtsson affair is ultimately that it adds another distinguished name to list of scientists that refuse to accept the IPCC-backed consensus. This is because, for any office-holding politician to start rolling back anti-CO2 legislation, there must exist a creditable scientific ‘side’ for them to select. We are getting closer to this critical mass all the time.
More at http://jonathanabbott99.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/scientists-one-by-one/
Senator George Brandis, Australian Parliamentspeaking against
The Finkelstein Report 2012 recommended restrictions on
freedom of the press and against proposed 18c clause of the
proposed Racial Discrimination Act said:
‘The practitioners of political correctness have grasped the
connection between language and and thought, so that limiting
what may be said , they seek to limit what may be thought … As
Winston Smith discovered, there is hardly any distance between
speech crime and thought crime. So the censorship of language,
which the Left finds objectionable is not merely about the
censorship of language which the Left finds objectionable. At
a deeper level it is an attack upon intellectual freedom itself.’
Controls on what may be said, what may be published? So what
about consensus fortresses like the IPCC? Isn’t it time fer the
walls ter come tumbling down?
beth the serf.
Un-critiqued and unchallenged science is not science at all.
Jonathan Abbott
and Beththeserf
Well said
+ π^(10*π)
Pingback: Climate Scientists | Transterrestrial Musings
Yes, next question.
The only question is if and when it will change and how. What will it take to restore scientific values to the “scientific” debate?
It will take a heroic effort by the Scientific community as a whole to restore public trust. The Scientific community needs to reprimand the behavior of individuals who undermine the integrity of Science and Scientific Research. The reprimand should include political organizations and NGOs who are gaming Science.
I’m amazed scientific organizations have allowed this Climate Science Creationism to last this long.
It’s almost certainly most common and widespread in Climate Science but is found in virtually all disciplines. This is why yours and others commitment to “just the facts” is absolutely crucial. It serves to define a line that must not be crossed if facts are to drive both science and policy. It is currently writ large as regards Climate Science.
I first tumbled to the political advocacy collision with science too many years ago with regard to wolf behavior. There’s a famous author, Farley Mowat (“Never Cry Wolf”) who claimed that wolves were essentially harmless predators that mostly ate mice. He claimed to have lived on his own on the tundra doing research to support this assertion at the behest of the Canadian Wildlife service. His associates at the time eventually came forward to say that dear Farley had never been left alone in the wild…ever. When confronted, Farley said words to the effect of, “So what? It’s too important not to make the case for wolves no matter the facts.”
To this day, I’m a wolf fan in so far as their place on the food chain is concerned. They do work that needs doing. However, they do both kill and maim wildlife for reasons that have much more to do with prey drive than with need. I’ve seen this first hand in Wyo after the reintroduction of wolves there. To my mind, the contribution of a high order predator is best evaluated without regard to how much he looks like Fluffy or how closely she aligns with our sensibilities.
Likewise Climate Science. It will never be helpful to align CS with our values. In fact, every attempt should be made to ignore values in evaluating evidence. This represents the mashing of ethics and science into a new and meaningless mush. It corrupts both science and ethics.
Just amazing. A heavily discredited work of fiction remains to this day a successful environmentalist call to action.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Cry_Wolf
…Farley said words to the effect of, “So what? It’s too important not to make the case for wolves no matter the facts.”
Replace the word wolves with “global warming” and you have the sentiments of much of the consensus scientists. It is their duty to convince the public regardless of the facts because it is too important not to make the case. I am sure many would gladly admit to this. How sad for science.
What? You mean he didn’t go piss all around his territory? Well, shoot, I’m demoralized.
============
Was the German citizenry forced to turn its eyes to what was happening under its nose or did these citizen’s anti-Semitism come first?
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
Why would this sort of behavior be allowed in any scientific field? I don’t understand what the political goal is that is driving people to do what they are doing.
The love of money (and power and position) is the root of all sorts of evil .
Clearly evident in the actions of those advocating for climate alarmism.
It is time for science to return to Science and stop being “bought”.
Revkin had a piece on Gavin Schmidt and his view of models that was entertaining:
Why models are always wrong and yet still wonderful
Pretending that academia is being forced to toe the line is just living yet another lie.The CAGW movement also can trace its roots to as early as the 50′s when, “a longstanding inclination among some members of the upper class,” according to Dr. Donald Gibson, was broadcast nationally (with the help of a willing mainstream media). “This inclination was to redefine achievements in science and technology as either evil actions threatening to nature or as futile attempts to reduce human suffering that was said to be the result of overpopulation.”
GWPF Haram
Wonder no longer, Judith Curry!
• Article 1 “It is increasingly clear to me that Lennart Bengtsson in recent years has brought great confusion and great harm to the Swedish climate debate. […] Let me, for clarity, to emphasize that I in these words do not encourage anyone excommunication of him or his opinions, or suggest that his writings are burned at the stake. What I call for is only a slightly higher level of critical thinking (and correspondingly lower degree of naivety) in facing him, now that we got so clear information on what kind of agendas that drive him.”
• Article 2 “Lennart Bengtsson’s decision itself is naturally gratifying, but I would also have liked to see a different tone in his emails. There is apparently not a shred of remorse or admission of the unwise in gifting to the GWPF the propaganda victory they got in through his connection […] which if truth be told is a tad pathetic.”
• Article 3 “It is becoming increasingly clear that Bengtsson’s allegations that his article was rejected because it was politically inconvenient do not have anything to do with reality.”
Conclusion Not for the first time, and not for the last time, an elderly scientists has failed to keep pace with the advancing literature, has made imprudent public statements, and has aligned him(her)-self with ideology-driven special-interest organizations of doubtful objectivity and morality.
As post $2 says, “If truth be told, Lennart Bengtsson’s story is a tad pathetic.”
Take a lesson, Judith Curry and Climate Etc readers!
Uppsala Initiative is very much the Swedish version of Real Climate. It was set up specifically to attack the long running & wildly most popular Nordic climate skeptic blog – Climate Enlightenment (very much like a Swedish WUWT) – http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/
As you can see, the UI comments are very much derogatory. UI does not usually get much traffic. Maybe publishing this Bengtsson Article was a means to remedying that end … says skeptical me.
Troll FOMD expects everyone to accept his “conclusions” as if they came from On High. In fact, he is like a train on a track; unable to deviate from his destination; the insular alarmist world of James Hansen, Naomi Oreskes, and the like as he arrogantly and condescendingly criticizes those who disagree with his simplistic glyph-ridden “wisdom.”
In Sweden Uppsala Initiativet are regarded as crackpots. Olle Häggström is known to be a querulant. No one takes him/them seriously.
cue Climate Etc. trolls to chime in raging against Judith Curry, rather than thinking through these issues….. 3….. 2…… 1
How dare she question the formation and aggressive imposition of “The Consensus” ?????
ha ha, cross-posted with FOMT
easy prophesy
hot air by FOMT
sunlight disinfectant by Judith Curry
Ideology-driven extremism advocated by Skiphil, science-respecting moderation advocated by FOMD.
That’s common-sense, eh Climate Etc readers?
FOMT, it is ludicrous to characterize any of my comments as “ideology-driven extremism”
I am for more intelligent dialogue not less, but you are in a continual war against intelligent, fair-minded discourse. Your spaghetti rants are predictable, shallow, dishonest, and tedious.
Sometimes I feel like returning your mockery, that is all. You cannot bear the anti-FOMT because I point out and remind people of the kind of charlatan you are. I hold up a mirror to you and your vicious, dishonest ilk. If sometimes I mirror a bit of your own tone and tactics, that is merely so that you can see (if you were honest and not such an ideological extremist) how your rantings come across to independent, non-fanatics.
yet again, FOMT fails to provide the slightest attempt at rational defense or analysis for his drive-by smears.
He truly is a pathetic dishonest troll….
Our hostess asks “Can climate scientists please stop the intimidation, bullying, shunning and character assassination of other scientists who they find ‘not helpful’ to their cause? Can we please return to logical refutation of arguments that you disagree with, spiced with a healthy acknowledgement of uncertainties and what we simply don’t know and can’t predict?”
I am afraid the answer is “Not yet”. At sometime in the future, climate “science” will come back into the scientific field, but conditions, at present, prevent this from happening.
I suspect one of two things need to happen before the wishes of our hostess come to fruition. Either
1. There is overwhelming, irrefutable, observed data which shows CAGW to be what it is; a hoax,
Or
2. Some scientist of immense stature puts his/her career, prestige, health, etc. on the line, and calls out the proponents of CAGW for what they are; charlatans selling snake oil.
I don’t hold out much hope for the latter, unless someone like Dr. Susan Seestrom sees that a very strong message indeed, is sent to the President of the American Physical Society. There may be very long shot for the former, if Arctic sea ice really rebounds substantially this season, and the NW passage does not open up for traffic without the use of icebreakers.
But I am not holding my breath. At the rate things are going, I suspect that it will be at least 5 years before sanity returns to science in general..
It isn’t snake oil, it’s political culture and peer enclaves. It might smell the same in your backyard but they are very different commodities.
Dr, Curry gets my respect when she crosses the Rubicon and admits what the “cause” and who culturally runs it from inception long ago are and is. That she was a member, the Whittaker Chambers moment;
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2001/04/whittaker-chambers-man-of-courage-and-faith
“I know that I am leaving the winning side for the losing side, but it is better to die on the losing side than to live under Communism.”
–Statement before the House Un-American Activities Committee, August 3, 1948
This is sequentially how climate fraud dies.
She said ‘Please’. Like a dreamer wishing the nightmare would end.
Hey, sometimes it works.
============
One event, one person, can do it once the climate (npi) is right. Remove Sir Paul Nurse from the Royal Society presidency, for example, and the floodgates could open.
The cool thing is that it is often possible to awake from a nightmare when the disconnect to reality gets outrageous. We’re about there with consensus alarmism.
==========
Speaking of which, you should read Ambrose Bierce in a work with that title.
=========
“Nevertheless, by joining the political lobby group, Bengtsson opened himself up to criticism that he had taken a position inappropriate for a scientist of his stature.” But joining a green group is OK, and then you can be an IPCC lead author? I wonder if there is a widespread blindness to the fact that enviornmental groups are in fact political lobby groups.
If a scientist joins a group, he’s open to criticism. So what? Is this really that hard?
The scientist Bengtsson says tipped the scales was a US government scientist (above somebody implies Gavin Schmidt was either accused of being this person or somebody has denied he was).
As an example of a US Government scientist, how many green lobbying groups has Stephen E. Schwartz joined?
JCH, before you dismiss Bengtsson I suggest walking a mile in his shoes. I have made my skepticism of global warming/ climate change/climate disruption know to friends and colleagues only to be quite viciously attack, en masse. It was very eye opening tome how not a single person wanted to discuss facts, but they all wanted me to shut up and quickly. Lots of name calling, and not by me. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be for a climate scientist who expresses skepticism.
At the same time, Heinrich Miller of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research says, “I find the way his colleagues reacted shocking. Apparently there is now pervasive disappointment because a shining scientific example is making his scientific doubts public,” he says. Miller adds that the Bengtsson case reminds him when politicians use “dirty tricks” to muzzle opponents. …
What colleagues? What are their names? What did they say?
Lol. Just one little ray of sunshine on this matter would be fantastic because right now the evidence of Bengtsson’s mistreatment is missing in action in a darkroom.
If anybody knows a scientist who communicated something to Bengtsson about his affiliation with the GWPF, I suggest they start posting their communications on the internet. They need to follow the example of the editor.
I’m starting to think Bengtsson wildly exaggerated the level pressure placed upon him. His failure to provide examples could mean he’s crying wolf. Some people are drama queens. It’s just the way they roll.
JCH- Just can’t deal with reality, eh, J? You have mastered the psychological defense mechanism of rationalization to a tee. If evidence was forthcoming, it wouldn’t be the right kind. Then it wouldn’t be enough. Then it would be tainted. On and on and on. Just deal with how the warmists react to those who have differing views It is obvious to reasonable people. Which leaves you out.
Are denying Gavin Schmidt’s published comments or that he withdrew from a paper with Bengtsson? Does this constitute crying wolf?
Asking for evidence of his claims, and the claims others are making based upon Bengtsson’s claims, is not a rationalizing.
People smearing a large number of human beings when Bengtsson has provided not a shred of evidence are the ones doing the rationalizing.
High-tech lynchings are justifiable because the lynchers think they know the evidence. Here there is no evidence. All I have done is ask for the evidence. So far, with every tiny release of fact, Bengtsson backs off.
If Bengtsson’s claims are false JCH, please tell us the motives.
By the way, calling an eminent scientist a drama queen sort of proves his point, no?
JCH, if you wish to contact Heinrich Miller of the Alfred Wegener Institute, it probably would not be too difficult.
Run off and do your research and we’ll wait for you to return with the results.
As Pointment says, what we are witnessing here is nothing less than the end of the Enlightenment. Don’t think it’s just climate science because there is a whole range of topics (race, IQ, GM foods, genetic differences between men and women, etc.) that cannot be discussed. The West is, sadly, turning away from rationality towards a strange kind of pseudo-religious dogma and heaven help you if you blaspheme.
Very true.
We absolutely do have a climate problem, but not the weather related kind.
I think I’m more hopeful than you are though. We’re not seeing anything we’ve not seen before, and in the relatively recent past. There will be the inevitable backlash when things get bad enough. Already I’m seeing some liberal commentators recoiling at some of what’s going on in our universities. It’s a good sign.
ended long ago, probably never existed
Lives on in our dreams.
==============
Neuroscience is very close to being able to read thoughts of individuals. As they perfect that technology, wait for the ultimate thought police to emerge. This kind of intimidation
is child’s play compared to what is coming in a few decades.
“Neuroscience is very close to being able to read thoughts of individuals.”
Human beings can’t even read their own thoughts. There are 100 to 500 trillion synapses in the average human brain and the active firing rate is typically about 100 useconds. The number of logic pathways that neurologists/neurochemists have been able to identify is zero. Reading what is going on in my CPU, on this laptop, from a mm away is peanuts compared to being able to ‘read thoughts of individuals’, with an intact skull.
How much ‘information’ leak do you think you can detect from a single neuron?
Doc-
I would have thought it impossible 5 years ago, but research at several universities are making great strides. I recommend “Future of the Mind” by Kaku. They do have problems to overcome, but what they have accomplished to date is stunning.
Gavin Schmidt a climatologist and climate modeler at NASA described the “alleged connection to McCarthy” as “ridiculous.”
Schmidt’s comments were more like “Lysenkoism” than “McCarthyism”, including the communist/Maoist/religious commandment to do penance. His “[appearance of bad faith]” comment was especially gross.
“For example, German scientists have attempted to launch what they call “good” science to ensure that natural science shouldn’t be driven by what they view as anti-social curiosity-research by researching things that might not be “good”. ”
Somehow the understandable lack of linguistic precision…though the meaning is all too clear….makes this even more chilling. I make an effort to avoid black and white thinking in my own life, but there are times when it can’t be helped. There are good guys and bad guys in the climate wars, and they’re as easy to identify as the villains and heroes in old cowboy movies. All you have to do is look at the color of their hats.
Knutti: “GWPF works deliberately in a selective way. They mention only arguments that suit their purposes. Counterarguments are kept under wraps.”
This is absurd. The counterarguments are widely disseminated by the IPCC, and are cited by GWPF-affiliated writers..
A rough English translation of what we at Uppsalainitiativet labelled “Post 1” appears at Rabett Run: http://rabett.blogspot.se/2014/05/laffaire-bengtsson.html
The others (Post 2, Post 3) you can get at least the basic gist of from the Google Translate translations provided by the “fan of *MORE* discourse” above.
We also posted a rebuttal to the Bengtsson guest post today: http://uppsalainitiativet.blogspot.se/2014/05/these-are-just-some-of-shortcomings-of.html
Well, you can take Climate Science seriously, but never take yourself too seriously.
Anyone who’s convinced that climate conformism is breaking up should spend some time reading a recent book, “The Climate Change Debate: An Epistemic and Ethical Enquiry” (http://www.amazon.com/The-Climate-Change-Debate-Epistemic/dp/1137326271).
Scary.
Looks interesting
Lest we forget …
“In 1905 Boltzmann corresponded extensively with the Austro-German philosopher Franz Brentano with the hope of gaining a better mastery of philosophy, apparently, so that he could better refute its relevancy in science, but he became discouraged about this approach as well. In the following year 1906 his mental condition became so bad that he had to resign his position. He committed suicide in September of that same year by hanging himself while on vacation with his wife and daughter near Trieste, Italy.” (Wikipedia)
And more:
Boltzmann’s kinetic theory of gases seemed to presuppose the reality of atoms and molecules, but almost all German philosophers and many scientists like Ernst Mach and the physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald disbelieved their existence. During the 1890s Boltzmann attempted to formulate a compromise position which would allow both atomists and anti-atomists to do physics without arguing over atoms. His solution was to use Hertz’s theory that atoms were “Bilder”, that is, models or pictures. Atomists could think the pictures were the real atoms while the anti-atomists could think of the pictures as representing a useful but unreal model, but this did not fully satisfy either group. Furthermore, Ostwald and many defenders of “pure thermodynamics” were trying hard to refute the kinetic theory of gases and statistical mechanics because of Boltzmann’s assumptions about atoms and molecules and especially statistical interpretation of the second law.
Around the turn of the century, Boltzmann’s science was being threatened by another philosophical objection. Some physicists, including Mach’s student, Gustav Jaumann, interpreted Hertz to mean that all electromagnetic behavior is continuous, as if there were no atoms and molecules, and likewise as if all physical behavior were ultimately electromagnetic. This movement around 1900 deeply depressed Boltzmann since it could mean the end of his kinetic theory and statistical interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics.
After Mach’s resignation in Vienna in 1901, Boltzmann returned there and decided to become a philosopher himself to refute philosophical objections to his physics, but he soon became discouraged again. In 1904 at a physics conference in St. Louis most physicists seemed to reject atoms and he was not even invited to the physics section. Rather, he was stuck in a section called “applied mathematics”, he violently attacked philosophy, especially on allegedly Darwinian grounds but actually in terms of Lamarck’s theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics that people inherited bad philosophy from the past and that it was hard for scientists to overcome such inheritance.
In 1905 Boltzmann corresponded extensively with the Austro-German philosopher Franz Brentano with the hope of gaining a better mastery of philosophy, apparently, so that he could better refute its relevancy in science, but he became discouraged about this approach as well. In the following year 1906 his mental condition became so bad that he had to resign his position. He committed suicide in September of that same year by hanging himself while on vacation with his wife and daughter near Trieste, Italy.
For several dozen examples, see The Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics survey article Founders of thermodynamics and suicide.
Why thermodynamics in particular? The modern-day synthesis of quantum information theory and symplectic geometry shows us that thermodynamics is — in Ed Witten’s phrase — “a piece of 21st century science that fell by accident into the 19th century.”
Conclusion Those who tackle tough scientific questions, that have urgent practical and moral consequences, yet who are armed with manifestly inadequate mathematical tools and physical postulates, must inescapably grapple with doubts and confusion, and sometimes with despair.
On June 2 the EPA is set to announce sweeping climate change rules and regulation. Having a distinguished scientist in the field try to publish a paper that says we know a lot less than we think we do a few months before the announcement and then join a skeptic think tank a few weeks before challenges the credibility of the science these regs are based on. Given the reluctance of the world to warm as predicted, I suspect the EPA is looking to have its spotted owl moment where rules were established to stop logging before the world realized it was an invasive species problem. Once those rules were in place, no amount new research showing the real issue would dislodge them.
Distinguished? Bengstton recently wrote:
“Because of chaos theory it is practically impossible to make climate forecasts, since weather cannot be predicted more than one or several weeks. For this reason, climate calculations are uncertain even if all model equations would be perfect.”
http://uppsalainitiativet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/guest-post-by-lennart-bengtsson-my-view.html
Is there a single other climate scientist in the world who agrees with that?
“Is there a single other climate scientist in the world who agrees with that?”
Why would they not? Bengstton’s point is simple – even if they models captured all of the planetary and solar physics to include cloud formation etc. they would still not accurately forecast the future. The reason is because of stochastic events. Volcanoes and solar storms come to mind.
Except climate models clearly do do a good job of hindcasting the past, and even of forecasting the future.
‘In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system�s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.’ AR3
‘The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation.’ Wally Broecker
‘Lorenz was able to show that even for a simple set of nonlinear equations (1.1), the evolution of the solution could be changed by minute perturbations to the initial conditions, in other words, beyond a certain forecast lead time, there is no longer a single, deterministic solution and hence all forecasts must be treated as probabilistic. The fractionally dimensioned space occupied by the trajectories of the solutions of these nonlinear equations became known as the Lorenz attractor (figure 1), which suggests that nonlinear systems, such as the atmosphere, may exhibit regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change.’ Julia Slingo and Tim Palmer
‘‘Prediction of weather and climate are necessarily uncertain: our observations of weather and climate are uncertain, the models into which we assimilate this data and predict the future are uncertain, and external effects such as volcanoes and anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are also uncertain. Fundamentally, therefore, therefore we should think of weather and climate predictions in terms of equations whose basic prognostic variables are probability densities ρ(X,t) where X denotes some climatic variable and t denoted time. In this way, ρ(X,t)dV represents the probability that, at time t, the true value of X lies in some small volume dV of state space.’ (Predicting Weather and Climate – Palmer and Hagedorn eds – 2006)
‘Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena, dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature. This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing processes that introduce structural instability into the model. Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision.’ James McWilliams
It seems that all leaders in the field do believe that leaving Appell fulminating like some street evangelist with an end is nigh sign.
Climate is obviously very predictable — look at the regular cycles of the ice ages over the last million years.
Look at the predictions from the 1960s and 1970s, which are now coming true.
Apple-
That is a very reasonable position to be taking. All you need for evidence are all the laughable predictions that were total fails. It takes hubris to think otherwise. But then the consensus have plenty of hubris. They just lack common sense. That is how you differentiate teenagers from adults. I will put my money on the adults every time.
Wally was prescient or lucky that warming started 2 years later than his 1975 paper.
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/files/2009/10/broeckerglobalwarming75.pdf
This is of course the article that kick started ‘global warming’. He was a bit wrong on ‘cycles’ – both timing and the deterministically chaotic nature. You can be smart or lucky but it is better being smart and lucky. Appell seems neither.
Currently predictions of non-warming for decades seem more relevant – especially if they were made a decade or more ago.
Which scientific predictions, specifically, were “total fails?”
How about this prediction?
“Understanding Climatic Change: A Program for Action,” National Academy of Sciences (1975).
– page 43: “[changes of mean atmospheric temperature due to CO2 excess] could, however, conceivably aggregate to a further warming of about 0.5°C between now and the end of the century.”
https://ia801806.us.archive.org/7/items/understandingcli00unit/understandingcli00unit.pdf
Actual warming from January 1975 to December 2000 = 0.44 ± 0.06 °C, according to the NASA GISS dataset of monthly average global surface tempertures.
Or this?
“1978 Antarctic Prediction Fulfilled”
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/05/1978-antarctic-prediction-fulfilled.html
The predictions that warming would continue at 0.2 degrees C/decade.
‘A vigorous spectrum of interdecadal internal variability presents numerous challenges to our current understanding of the climate. First, it suggests that climate models in general still have difficulty reproducing the magnitude and spatiotemporal patterns of internal variability necessary to capture the observed character of the 20th century climate trajectory. Presumably, this is due primarily to deficiencies in ocean dynamics.’
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16120.full
It seems in fact due to deficiencies in cloud dynamics related to ocean dynamics.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png.html?sort=3&o=106
And just in case Appell can’t find the citation by Googling Palle and Laken 2013.
http://www.benlaken.com/documents/AIP_PL_13.pdf
“David Appell
Except climate models clearly do do a good job of hindcasting the past”
that is because they are fits and so of course they fit the past, but even there they are regionally crap.
“and even of forecasting the future”
Just how do you live with yourself? You know that statement is untrue.
Over the last 30 years (shorter time periods aren’t indicative of climate), the Cowtan & Way dataset shows a surface warming of 0.19 C/decade.
No, climate models aren’t “fits,” they are numerical solutions to the PDEs that describe the physics of climate.
“Hansen’s 1988 Predictions,” Tamino, 3/21/14
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/hansens-1988-predictions/
Climate is chaotic on decadal timescales.
e.g http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00626.1
So the relevant periods are 1979-1997 over which the residual warming is some 0.1 degree C/decade.
e.g. http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00626.1
And 2002 to date – in which the trend is effectively zero.
Climate is chaotic on decadal timescales.
That change is calculated by climate models, like this one:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-useful-paper-on-one-models-results.html
The researchers used a climate model, a so-called coupled ocean-atmosphere model, which they forced with the observed wind data of the last decades. For the abrupt changes during the 1970s and 1990s they calculated predictions which began a few months prior to the beginning of the observed climate shifts. The average of all predictions for both abrupt changes shows good agreement with the observed climate development in the Pacific.
“The winds change the ocean currents which in turn affect the climate. In our study, we were able to identify and realistically reproduce the key processes for the two abrupt climate shifts,” says Prof. Latif. “We have taken a major step forward in terms of short-term climate forecasting, especially with regard to the development of global warming. However, we are still miles away from any reliable answers to the question whether the coming winter in Germany will be rather warm or cold.” Prof. Latif cautions against too much optimism regarding short-term regional climate predictions: “Since the reliability of those predictions is still at about 50%, you might as well flip a coin.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130822105042.htm
The changes are observed – and models are equivalent to tossing a coin. Swanson et al 2009 – quoted above discuss the reliability of models on shifts.
Very odd and superficial thinking indeed that GCM models chaos at all well – or even that we have the mathematical functions to do so.
David Appell | May 24, 2014 at 5:08 pm |
Except climate models clearly do do a good job of hindcasting the past, and even of forecasting the future.
__________
That’s a good one?!! Hahahaha.
Oh, wait, it wasn’t sarcasm?!?!?!?
Well riddle me this then, what is climate and who predicted this year’s climate and when did they do it?
Hint: temperature isn’t climate.
http://www.ted.com/talks/gavin_schmidt_the_emergent_patterns_of_climate_change
In my long quest to understand things, we have help from David Appell:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-useful-paper-on-one-models-results.html
A graph comparing natural to forcings results with some climate models. We can see that when the forcings are added the lines that had a near zero trendline now have an upward one and that matches pretty well with the historical record.
We might assume that what was variable was the CO2 levels plus the sensitivity factor.
CO2 X 2.5.
I think some have suggested that the only thing that makes the GCMs match the historical record is something like: CO2 X 2.5.
What we might say is the GCMs don’t work without CO2 X 2.5. Now is this proof? CO2 X 2.5 would show a warming if CO2 was increasing which it has been doing but is this good enough? The GCMs seemed to be based upon a fairly constant increase in CO2 times a multiplier. Such a straight forward driver and answer. But some lines snapping into place by such a simple thing? Changing from a near zero slope to an upward one.
The models fail without this assumption. When we add CO2 X 2.5 they work. We can’t get the line to trend up without the assumption.
If the assumption was partly a recovery from the LIA (LIA) would the GCMs then work?
To guess at it:
LIA X 2.0 + CO2
Some tuned version of the immediate above might make the GCMs work. Would it prove something?
CO2 X 2.5
Frankly, I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
Climate models calculate the effects of CO2, they don’t assume it.
Generalissimo
Is this Appell?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3256/3161773578_f697dc7b76_b.jpg
Max
@ David Appell
“Except climate models clearly do do a good job of hindcasting the past, and even of forecasting the future.”
When your published ‘predictions’ are effectively ‘from DC to daylight’ it is pretty certain that one of them will match the observed frequency pretty well. That does not mean that the prediction that matched was in any way scientifically superior to the predictions that did not.
I don’t know what “from DC to daylight” means. Enlighten me.
Context supplies indirect lighting, and in that light it is funny as Hell. Give me a couple of hours, and I’ll explain, David.
==============
David Appell, “I don’t know what “from DC to daylight” means. Enlighten me.”
DC or direct current is zero hertz and day;light is around 600 tillion hertz. That would be a large spectrum.
Well, dangit, Cap’n, that’s marvelously apt. I had an entirely political interpretation which is way funnier but less apt.
=================
David Appel, in yesterday’s thread I defended climate models. However, your gross over-simplification of their utility in the climate debate is pathetic. The best of them do track with broad changes in the climate. However, they over-estimate the amount of warming and are useless as support for the pseudo-scientific claims of extreme weather and hottest year ever nonsense that you periodically come forward with.
The best climate models do capture broad movements.
They cannot be used to look at decadal measurements.
They do not resolve to sub-continental weather.
They are not at this point in time adequate for informing policy makers.
When Bengsston, Curry, Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen, John Christy, Roy Spencer and dozens, if not hundreds, of other eminently qualified scientists point this out to people like you, you usually change the subject.
Thom: Climate models don’t need to capture every decadal variation to know that CO2 is creating, and will create even more, big problems.
In fact, you don’t even need a climate model at all to know that — you just have to understand past changes in climate.
Ah, thanks, David. I’m so glad you brought that up. We do so thoroughly understand past changes in climate.
============
David Appell writes:
Distinguished? Bengstton recently wrote:
“Because of chaos theory it is practically impossible to make climate forecasts, since weather cannot be predicted more than one or several weeks. For this reason, climate calculations are uncertain even if all model equations would be perfect.”
Is there a single other climate scientist in the world who agrees with that?
Firstly, we cannot know if they agree with that exact statement without asking them. How many have you asked? That said, there are plenty of scientists who hold similar views and as a journalist familiar with the debate I would expect you to know of them anyway. The fact you claim not to seems surprising. The list is long but here are a few to get you started:
Dr Demetris Koutsoyiannis, professor of hydrology at the National Technical University of Athens
Dr Timothy Cohn, John Hopkins University, USGS risk expert, AAAS congressional fellow, one time governing member of the APS
Dr Harry Lins, PhD climate science
Dr Alberto Montanari, professor of hydraulic works and hydrology, University of Bologna
I can’t speak for these people but these distinguished geoscientists would be top of the list to ask if they would agree with Dr. Bengtsson’s comments. Note some of them have backed up the points made by Dr Bengtsson directly with papers published in the peer reviewed literature directly on the topics raised.
Come back to us when you have asked these scientists their views on the topic (although something tells me you will find a way to dismiss them). For what it is worth, to show that there is something predictable within a chaotic system you need to show you have an invariant property of the attractor or prove it on out-of-sample data beyond what would be expected by chance alone. Pointing at hindcasts (which are not out-of-sample) or data mining the plethora of old predictions to find one that matched what happened do not meet either of these criteria (since a stopped clock is right twice a day).
> [D]ata mining the plethora of old predictions to find one that matched what happened do not meet either of these criteria (since a stopped clock is right twice a day).
How to build an impractical requirement in one easy step:
http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/publications/pdf/otluotgp.pdf
Willard,
Not at all. If I check a clock 20 times, and determine whether it gives the correct time on all 20 occasions, I can be very certain that it is not giving the correct time by chance. If I check it 20 times and it only gives the right time once, there is a high chance that it got that time correct by chance alone.
There is no high bar set here, just basic standards of evidence. If that is beyond your understanding, I cannot help you.
De Apple wrote:
Except climate models clearly do do a good job of hindcasting the past
Good thing I wasn’t drinking a cake when I read that. Am I to infer that Appel sees this as a strength of climate models? Really? Is it possible that in the 21st century there exists a human so completely ignorant of the foundations of statistics and modeling?
I’ve seen this before — the claim that climate models hindcast the past with only a few parameters. Unfortunately, there is a wealth of statistical literature that shows how meaningless is the claim.
A great example of this exact problem was shown me by the late Stewart Freedman, a physicist at Berkeley, with the results from the original “cold fusion” neutrons from Utah. He was able to show that with exactly ONE degree of freedom, the ability to choose when to start and stop measurements, he could obtain 5-sigma neutron count signals from pure noise.
Hindcasting means nothing. Repeat that with me: HINDCASTS ARE MEANINGLESS in evaluation of a model’s ability to forecast.
Seriously, dude, this is stuff that any grad student should know inside and out. Isn’t even a little embarrassing to spew this kind of nonsense in a public forum, putatively defending “science?”
“Can climate scientists please stop the intimidation, bullying, shunning and character assassination of other scientists who they find ‘not helpful’ to their cause? Can we please return to logical refutation of arguments that you disagree with, spiced with a healthy acknowledgement of uncertainties and what we simply don’t know and can’t predict?”
Obviously no to the first question and it’s a disservice to act as if this anything remotely new or unique to the climate science debate. Time to move on to the specific drivers of “why” and “who” the aggressor community represents. If we followed your logic Dr. Curry then the police would arrive at the scene of the crime, study the deceased, announce there is an ice-pick in the skull but doubt the importance of knowing why or whom would want to commit such a crime. We would decry ice-picks in general and the use of ice-picks abstractly. It’s even worse, for the police know it’s too upsetting to admit the ice-pick was used in a politically motivated assault (They all know it privately but this political segment runs a good part of society and they hate being associated or embarrassed by their track record with ice-picks. They tend to be more friendly with ice-pick users and help get them elected often enough.), knowing exactly who the political interests are and their culture by wrote. It’s back to the terrible nature of ice-picks and maybe we can build a consensus about them. The body is secondary, the ice-pick is everything.
As to the second question, when was this time? The early 70’s? It was pretty nasty if not a much smaller community debate then. I’m sure the trillions wasted, the totalitarian inclinations concentrated in the climate “cause” are shocking since but there was something pretty wrong right from that time as well. We better do better than turning a clock back to when this evil was incubated and released. Climate science is only a symptom of the actual schism that is painstakingly unassigned and equivocated by many leaning toward “skeptic” who want talk about ice-picks but not so much about the motives and cultures that make them a weapon of routine choice and what that “cause” is really all about in the first place. Do you really think “cause” people are motivated by a sincere “science” belief system in trying to manage carbon output all over the world? Would it ever come to ice-picks if that’s all it was?
That ice-pick consensus culture starts ice-picking each other for not marching fast enough in line instead of their usual targets there is nothing shocking about this historically.
?????????????
Well, it’s a reference to Trotsky, but I was taught it was a geologist’s pick.
=========
No, it was a drinks ice pick,
http://www.antique-used-tools.com/B_Icepick.jpg
not the type shown in the famous newspaper image.
http://murderpedia.org/male.M/images/mercader_ramon/trotsky_icepick1.jpg
this climbing ice-pick was a prop used by the photographer.
Trotsky had a drinking hobby, not a climbing hobby.
“Can we please return to logical refutation of arguments that you disagree with, spiced with a healthy acknowledgement of uncertainties and what we simply don’t know and can’t predict?”
Heretic….. :-)
I’m astonished that Gavin Schmidt wouldn’t understand Bengtsson’s reference to McCarthyism. Likely, the specific concern was blacklisting. Particularly in Hollywood, an entry on the House Un-American Affairs Committee list of people thought to be, have been, or were sympathetic to Communism made it very difficult to get work in the US. You could find your name on these lists without ever having done anything overt.
I wonder what Gavin thought Bengtsson was getting at.
At one time there was discussion on climate blogs by a group of people who were trying to get Schmidt fired for blogging on the government’s dime. They were trying to shut him up. Trying to ruin his career. Lol.
Until examples of communications to Bengtsson from climate scientists who exerted fantastic pressure on Bengtsson are produced, we do not even know that any pressure at all was exerted.
A US government scientist resigned as a co-author. Bengtsson seems to be indicating that resignation was the precipitating event leading to his resignation from the GWPF. There are perfectly legitimate reasons why an employee of the US government would not want his name attached in any way to a lobbying group. So we do not even know why this government scientist resigned. On a personal level, he might agree with the GWPF.
There is almost no evidence in this affair, and the few facts that have come out, like the rejected paper, have led to Bengtsson retreating.
And now Gavin Schmidt has won an award for his public communication of climate science.
Gee – if I blogged on the governments dime, I would be fired and might go to jail.
if I blogged on the governments dime, I would be fired and might go to jail.
Not if communicating science was part of your job description — as it should be for all scientists.
They were trying to shut him up. They wanted him shut down. They wanted him fired. They wanted him out of the debate.
I rather doubt they ever went after another government employee.
“Not if communicating science was part of your job description — as it should be for all scientists.”
On a non federal Web site? I correct myself. If I were to participate in discussions on federally sponsored web sites related to my job – then my job might be safe. Non federal – tenuous.
Yes, on a nonfederal Web site — which clearly has done good things for climate science.
This blog also isn’t on a state- or federal-sponsored Web site, you’ll notice….
Heh, had it not been for the egregious propagandizing @ RealClimate, the alarmist and totalitarian consensus might hold full sway now. So yes, much social benefit from that bought and paid for site.
==========
RealClimate does a better job of communicating the science than nearly anyone else.
Real Climate does a better job of creating skeptics than almost anywhere else. I know for me it was reading some of the closed minddness vituperation against questions at RC which first made me wonder what is really going on with the “consensus”…..
Folks at RC are not serving the climate science fields very well, imho.
I am not a scientist but I recognize and distrust bullying, intolerance, pressure tactics, and dubious consensus building.
Like many blogs dedicated to communicating the science, RC has opinions about unscientific comments. Calling them out — and calling them wrong — is how science works. Anyone who has studied science knows that well.
Confronted with a blindingly magnificent irony, David averts his eyes. Yes, science is happening, and whoa, baby, it’s unfunded.
===========
Government workers shouldn’t be blogging (spewing) political hate dressed as “science”. He should have been fired.
It is part of a scientist’s job to communicate science, which Schmidt has done admirably. (Hence the award.)
Gavin has appeared to do a great job of communicating consensus alarmism, such the applause. The critic ‘Science’ sits in the audience, and sits on its hands.
===================
Curious and somewhat obnoxious Dr. Bengtsson uses a term to describe routine left-wing political correctness with a word pregnant with left-wing fairy-tales and a pejorative meaning toward conservatives, “McCarthyism”;
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2007-11-07.html
Of course we’ve reached the generational point that many using the term have no idea what it means at all or who any of the parties were. Liberal folklore, successfully planted in the lexicon, in a few generations they have the same ambitions for the words “consensus” and “science”.
The Europhile Sweden culture gap? Likely something else less innocent. Not ten years earlier Sweden was supplying critical war materials to the Third Reich and before that assisting the Bolsheviks and later Stalin. A dis-informative, pompous and arrogant term like McCarthyism might have been reconsidered to describe left-wing cultural inclinations of his peers after all. I’m sure it was a measured and conciliatory use toward his peers as he is cut generally from the same cloth. A spat between friends, not too much contrition for what his friends represent. I’ve seen this before haven’t I?
Gavin Schmidt, call it red meat “science”, 4/30/14;
“The article with the fake quote has done the rounds of most of the major contrarian sites – including the GWPF, right-wing leaning local papers (Provo, UT), magazines (Quadrant in Australia, Canada Free Press) and blogs (eg. Small dead animals). The only pseudo-sceptic blog that doesn’t appear to have used it is WUWT! (though it has come up in comments). This is all despite some people noting that the last line was fake (at least as early as April 2011). Some of the mentions even link to the Snopes article (which doesn’t mention the fake last line) as proof that their version (with the fake quote) is authentic.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/04/faking-it/
Smearing, politicizing in the name of “science communication”.
Congressman (chair of Un-American Affairs Committee) to witness:
Are you now, or were you ever, a member or fellow-traveler of the Global Warming Policy Foundation?
manacker, and the answer would obviously be yes, he publicly declared himself to be a member of that organization and all that goes with it, so the analogy stops there.
McCarthyism is not new as a political adjective. That it has traction in this is interesting.
The instantaneous call for Bengsston to produce the communications that he considers as pressure is telling. It means that the label ‘McCarthyism’ is perhaps uncomfortably close to the truth.
Gavin Schmidt got an award for ‘ public communication of climate science’?
That’s like giving Michael Mann an award for ‘transparency in science’.
David Appell
A correction:
There. That ought to get it right.
Max.
> I wonder what Gavin thought Bengtsson was getting at.
But is Gavin honest, anyway?
> The instantaneous call for Bengsston to produce the communications that he considers as pressure is telling. It means that the label ‘McCarthyism’ is perhaps uncomfortably close to the truth.
The instantaneous call for Aussie scientists to produce the communications that they considers as death threat was telling. It meant that the label ‘hate mail’ was perhaps uncomfortably close to the truth.
Until the FOIAs, at least.
More FOIA to Bengtsson.
Release the clowns.
Bengtsson joined an organization dedicated to (let’s not pretend otherwise) negating and defeating the consensus position on manmade climate change.
So why should scientists who agree with the consensus respect him — and let him know their opinions?
Really, you can’t see why they shouldn’t act the way they have towards him (and many others)?
It’s the same reason why the UQ shouldn’t act the way they have toward Brandon Shollenberger, which you clearly understood and I which gave you credit for on your blog. Some principles of good behavior transcend the debates of the moment. Not acting like a dick towards people you have an intellectual disagreement with should be one of those. If the idea of consensus is that you don’t “respect” people who disagree with you and you can and should throw out all rules of polite discourse then it’s a pretty sorry concept of consensus. Consensus is an inclusionary word and in the dictionary is defined as “general agreement”. It does not mean forced totalitarian conformity.
“Bengtsson joined an organization dedicated to (let’s not pretend otherwise) negating and defeating the consensus position on manmade climate change.”
Even, if that were wholly true (and I doubt that was his reason for joining) so what? That’s life in science. A theory holds up or it doesn’t based on its merits. That’s normal. You’re acting like Bengtsson was associating with a group dedicated to killing off climate scientists like it was some kind of Robert Ludlum novel come to life. “The Bengtsson Identity”, anyone?
No, life is science is most definitely not joining nonscientific groups who are dedicated to undermining science. Bengtsson was extremely naive to think otherwise.
Also, biologists can’t join Creationist societies and still expect to be respected.
David, do yourself a big favor and drop that particular analogy. It only appeals to those but lowly informed. It is not in the least apt.
=====================
So acting like dick is fine if you disagree with someone enough? Again, a sorry standard for trained professionals. And not very persuasive to those one the fence.
Who, specifically, acted like a “dick,” and in what way? Specifically.
David, it’s being a ‘dick’ when you refuse us the use of your cowbell. How selfish of you.
============
My colleague and collaborator is a born again Christian and Creationist. He is a Chemist, and not a biologists, but I don’t think that matters.
All the practicing Muslims I work with are Creationists, a Saudi told me that Adam and Eve were our mother and father.
In two weeks time I have a Saudi scientist visiting the lab; do you think I should question his views about evolution and kick him back to Medina if he affirms his faith?
As I understand it, under US law, it would be illegal to discriminate against someone for their religious faith and this would include your views on what it is and what it isn’t allowable for biologists to believe.
You are, of course, free to make your own decisions. And others are free to make theirs — which weren’t about Bengtsson’s religious views, but about his wisdom.
Religion? Who brought up religion? But now that you bring it up, let’s talk about your faith.
===========
Counter-factual comparisons are sometimes useful even if there can never be a conclusive argument stemming from such hypotheticals…..
Try to imagine a young Bengtsson in the first years of his scientific career, a young scientist with exactly the same intellect and capabilities and types accomplishments as the actual Bengtsson had at that age.
His career would now be toast. There is no genuine tolerance for freedom of thought and expression in this field.
Compare to someone like a young Michael Oppenheimer, who spent the first 2+ decades of his career as scientist for political enviro lobby group the Environmental Defense Fund. Not only does Oppenheimer get to enjoy a promnent role with the IPCC consensus making body, but for the last decade or so he has enjoyed the jump from a “political” lobby group (much more uniform, aggressive, and well-funded than can possibly be said of GWPF to date) to a senior tenured position at Princeton University.
He even gets to be Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy!
http://www.princeton.edu/step/people/faculty/michael-oppenheimer/
oooh, but we are told that Bengtsson has violated some fixed barrier between academic science and “advocacy”!!
The hypocritical double standards in this field are breathtaking.
Really? Do you have any idea of the funding of IPCC? Most of the work is done almost without any funding, and largely on spare time of the authors.
Why would any young scientist join an organization that denies the findings of his field?
You might as well ask why didn’t a young Stephen Hawking join the Flat Earth Society.
Pekka, I was referring to the EDF as “political lobby group” which yes, is funded to many millions of dollars per year…. sorry I didn’t make that clear.
The IPCC is indirectly extremely well funded if one counts all the contributions from full-time scientists and bureaucrats as “in-kind” funding, but I understand that such a comparison is controversial and not accepted by scientists who maintain that their work for the IPCC is volunteer.
So I did not mean to assert a position on the IPCC funding issues, only on the EDF, which I think is more clear-cut.
Pekka, thank for helping (I hope) to spur me to make my comment more clear.
“Really? Do you have any idea of the funding of IPCC? Most of the work is done almost without any funding, and largely on spare time of the authors.”
Spare time in a profession in which there are no strict time accounting standards is an intriguing concept.
Spare time in a profession in which there are no strict time accounting standards is an intriguing concept.
Sure, let’s make the thinkers of the world punch a time clock. That should solve everything, right?
I know, let’s intimidate government scientists into not donating spare time to the IPCC. Let’s make them fear for their jobs if they communicate with the public. Otherwise, there might be McCarthyism in the wind.
“Sure, let’s make the thinkers of the world punch a time clock. That should solve everything, right?”
Are you being deliberately obtuse? Let’s not wax poetic about their noble contribution of spare time in support of a cause in which they believe and will likely further their career.
Spare time is, indeed, a flexible concept. Some of the IPCC authors have been released of part of their regular duties during the busiest time by their home institutions, but for many the work on the reports is really on top of regular duties. As far as I know most are paid as before, even the travel costs are in most cases paid by their home countries in some way, not by IPCC.
The motivation to participate is based on other factors than direct economic compensation.
RealClimate.org is a valuable use of Gavin Schmidt’s time — not that it appears very large at all.
Is Judith Curry wasting taxpayer dollars by blogging?
Which is more valuable, suppressing or expressing dissent?
================
Straw man. RealClimate communicates the science, whether you like it or not.
RealClimate communicates a ‘science’, a consensus that is alarmingly moving out of concert with nature.
================
Funny — the 5AR says the science has never been stronger.
But I’m sure you know better than the world’s experts, of course.
Science stronger than ever, policy even more deluded than ever.
=============
“Funny — the 5AR says the science has never been stronger.”
Yep – the summaries written by the political appointees say the science has never been stronger. The science sections written by the volunteer scientists – not so much.
The 5AR WG1 science sections put more confidence on the findings that man is responsible.
Oh, David, you do crack me up. It’s as if you’ve never heard of the ‘attribution’ argument. C’mon, ‘A’ is the first letter of the alphabet.
==============
And ‘M’ is smack in the middle. What is it about ‘moving out of concert with nature’ that you don’t understand?
==========
“RealClimate.org is a valuable use of Gavin Schmidt’s time — not that it appears very large at all.”
If he got maintaining a somewhat snarky, non-federal blog on NASA’s time written into his job description – more power to him.
Compare the professionalism and civility of Dr. Curry’s posts to his. The taxpayers are not getting a good deal.
“The 5AR WG1 science sections put more confidence on the findings that man is responsible.”
ROTFL – and how exactly did they come to that conclusion?
I think Gavin Schmidt’s professionalism and civility compares favorably to anyone’s.
He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. That is an attitude that has served science well over the centuries, and all scientists learn it during their education and training.
and how exactly did they come to that conclusion?
Is there something physically preventing you from reading the 5AR WG1?
This comment was meant to go here, re: Real Climate, consensus, and “climate communicators”
Just one example of serious problems with how Real Climate seeks to enforce a consensus in self-defeating ways.
As mentioned, I cannot assess a lot of the scientific issues (but as a citizen and taxpayer I have every right to decide on my own who/what I find credible).
These are a couple of threads which gave me strong distrust of the Real Climate team, and a lot of respect for Steve McIntyre. Raging sarcasm, straw men, and careless dismissals from Real Climate; calm, thorough, dispassionate rebuttals from McIntyre. Now you can say until blue in the face that McIntyre is wrong and that I am wrong to respect him more than Real Climate, but until there is a far more careful and impressive rebuttal from RC, they are doing poorly at climate communications.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/06/28/cru-abandons-yamal-superstick/
Yes, I know very well that I am speaking of impressions rather than the details of the science and statistics….. also that tree rings are not atmospheric physics etc.
I am merely addressing the issue of whether or not the Real Climate team does an effective and convincing job at “science communications.”. For me, they are often striking out, to date.
Pekka,
My Admission’s committee assignments are on my “spare time.”
My dissertation committee participation is on my “spare time.”
My community outreach and night time lectures are on my “spare time.”
My office hours for students is on my “spare time.”
My committee (Local, State, Federal) participation is on my “spare time.”
Etc etc etc
My “spare time” is no less or more encumbered than IPCC work.
Please spare me the song and dance.
“Appell
He doesn’t suffer fools gladly. That is an attitude that has served science well over the centuries, and all scientists learn it during their education and training”
Please do not speak for ‘all scientists’. Some of us recall that when we first went into the lab, we were fools too.
Skiphil, every time I see Oppenheimer’s name mentioned I can’t help but wish we could redefine the ‘Streisand effect.’
Paid for fools
They get the jewels.
What a waste;
It’s all just paste.
==========
Yes, but Oppenheimer helped save the world. His policy paper saying that the world would warm 0.3 to 0.8 C per decade helped get the IPCC started. As usual, the effects were exaggerated about 10-fold.
… and this thread describes, with link to Oppenheimer et al. (1987) position paper projecting global temp. increases of 0.3C to 0.8C per DECADE, how politically oriented activists shaped the movement toward UNFCCC and IPCC right from the pre-dawn. Oppenheimer himself boasted of it (in 2007), the founding was political, not scientific:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2352447
Pekka, the funding is roughly $10 million. Not exactly bare bones.
_________
David Appell | May 24, 2014 at 4:43 pm |
Why would any young scientist join an organization that denies the findings of his field?
_______________
I’d call her someone with an open mind and likely to be a success. Science is ALWAYS about challenging the findings and searching for new answers. Otherwise no one would have ever thought to look for the atom as the consensus was it didn’t exist or need to.
Pekka, this is what I was trying to refer to, an annal budget currently at $120 million per year (certainly not all for climate issues, for sure):
http://www.edf.org/finances
David Appell, the comparison of GWPF to “Flat Earth “Society” is not accurate; whatever you may think of them, Lindzen, Bengtsson, et al. are not like flat-earthers!
btw, I applaud David Appell for promptly publishing that University of Queensland recent letter to Brandon Shollenberger. Whatever the other disagreements in various areas, I hope that many/most can agree that David’s action was admirable.
Well, I admit to being surprised in a good way. My impression of Mr. Appell altered slightly. But I think you’re setting a low bar for what qualifies as admirable. Then again, perhaps in today’s world it does merit the word.
I’m sorry, I’m just cynical enough to believe that David Appell thought the University of Queensland was demonstrating its superior legal and ethical position with that correspondence.
Hey, we could ask. How about it David?
============
I detect an even more severe enforcement of orthodoxy on one very significant aspect of concerns relating to global warming and climate change: no discussion of human/government intervention of the type called “geoengineering.” More than 150 US patents describe technology used in “geoengineering” changes in weather and climate. Worse, mounting evidence proves these techniques are fully deployed worldwide and have already caused tremendous destruction to society and to natural climate.
If you haven’t noticed it, the head guru of US intellectuals actually has a book out called “The Case for Geoengineering” in which he argues for spraying 20 million tons of sulfuric acid into the stratosphere annually. The sulfuric acid proposal is a ploy allowing Keith to hide behind the natural events in which volcanoes emit sulfur into the air. Keith himself has noted that nano-sized aluminum particles are many times more efficient in diffusing sunlight – what he calls “solar radiation management.”
Aluminum, strontium and barium are the primary metals being sprayed by classified jet aircraft flights daily according to techniques which determine rainfall, drought, temperature and other vital details of weather and climate. See the evidence gathered and shared by scientists at http://geoengineeringwatch.org and inquire with head researcher Dane Wigington.
Tragically, geoengineering is the single most destructive force at work in the environment, and it most certainly endangers our future. It is well along in the process of producing the “Al Gore Predictions.” He undoubtedly knows about it, but pretends all the trouble is being caused by pesky humans working for a living.
Hogwash. There is no evidence at all that anyone is deploying geoengineering, let alone worldwide.
Take your conspiracy theories elsewhere.
Ditto that, Appell.
No conspiracy, a popular delusion, but we were well on the way to sulfides until someone worried about cooling.
=============
Wayne: Your chemtrail and spraying theories are all unproven junk. I think you are on the wrong Web site.
David I am not so sure.
Chris Colose:
“It is not lack conformity to the consensus that leads to being shunned, but the association with obviously wrong ideas…”
https://twitter.com/CColose/status/470287719873400833
Marvelous fella to elucidate a distinction without a difference. Was he trying?
=========
he meant wrong people.
He meant wrong ideas. That’s why he wrote, “wrong ideas.”
Heh, moshe; Appell exposes his rotteness.
==================
David Appel, your numerous efforts at wit do not exempt you from looking at evidence. I have credentials in engineering, law and economics, not climate science, but I know evidence. And you are not exalted above examining it. Look at the rainfall samples, the soil tests, now even water runoff tests – all with aluminum content far, far above any natural explanation. Look at the metering of UV-B radiation in northern California last summer – 14 times the natural portion of UV reaching the surface. Look at the many, many videos of jet aircraft actually spraying. No jet engine every made emits aluminum particles or leaves emissions that remain across the skies from horizon to horizon, as tens of thousands of people are seeing daily across the world.
Yes, the ideas are so obviously wrong that they can never see the light of day. By the way, Bengstsson was going to act as an advisor to GWPF. He did not say he agreed with every word they had ever written.
Wayne Jett seriously? chemtrails?
David.
How does one “associate” with wrong ideas?
One has wrong ideas or one does not.
Further read the quote again: Here is a hint. the wrong ideas are not in conformity to the consensus.
I will tell you that its association with the wrong people, and not the ideas.
t
Perhaps Chris meant something weaker than “to endorse,” and something stronger than “to find interesting.” It may be nearer “to find interesting” than “to endorse.”
Mileage varies.
willard pumps up a flat tire without removing the nail.
=========
The Koldie with a thorn on the side.
Excellent post.
Thank you Dr Curry
This by Pointman is good:
There was to be no debate but it fell foul of that rebellious child it largely shaped, the skeptic blogosphere, which insisted on taking a can opener to every hermetically sealed debate, and so often found Blake’s great red dragon of chaos ready to emerge from it grinning in triumph.
That rebellious child it largely shaped. And this was to be expected, the stronger the consensus became, the more the push back against it. That the more the consensus down played uncertainty the more they were vulnerable to the as he writes, red dragons.
“Knutti, by contrast, warns about overemphasizing the lack of certainty about the evidence. He says that sitting back and waiting until all the questions are answered is not an alternative, and describes a large portion of what has come to be called skepticism as deliberate deception.”
Not a quote but deconstruction of this set of statements might go far to explain one of the problems of climate science.
I read it as
1) Uncertainty exists (to what extent???)
2) Don’t overemphasize it (how do you know when you’ve crossed the line???)
3) If you do, maybe even by just 1mm beyond the consensus, then I’ll accuse you of deliberate deception (who made you the policeman???)
Forced to toe the line?
Forced is probably the wrong word.
And there is no well defined line to toe to.
What happens is quite different.
There is an invisible not very well defined thin green line.
If you cross it, you will be punished, sometimes.. and the punishment will vary.
The line has no real definition for very good reason. If it was defined it could be challenged. Its much more effective social control to leave the line ill-defined. That way people cant cozy up to the line. This ensures that most people will stay well away from the actual line.
Further the punishments doled out for line crossing are somewhat random.
Some times the punishment is slight, a strong letter from a friend. Being left off the list of speakers being removed from a journal, losing co authors. it works best when no connection is made between the line crossing and the punishment. So, if you have a tribe member who crosses the line, you never tell him “you lose funding because of this bad deed” instead, you just cut his funding. make him wonder. fear of random punishment works better than knowledge of sure punishment at controlling people.
The randomness of the punishments, the fact that the punishments dont fit the crime, is a very effective enforcement policy.
It has been an Extraordinary Popular Delusion, and there are those who’ve goaded the herd to catastrophic madness.
==============
Nice straw man argument. But was Bengtsson’s funding cut?
Did anyone threaten to cut it?
Does he even get any funding anymore?
Bengtsson bleeds and Appell watches.
============
If Bengtsson is bleeding, it is self-induced.
The knives are in the back, David, but nice try there.
===========
“Nice straw man argument. But was Bengtsson’s funding cut?”
You are being obtuse!!! Clever though. Making a straw man argument whilst accusing Mosher of same.
How is Bengtsson bleeding?
Was his funding cut?
Has his ability to do science been impaired?
To communicate it?
He’s been communicating more lately than ever before.
Heh, I’ve noticed his communication. He seems to have developed a model which can predict the debate weather out about 7-9 days.
===================
“The randomness of the punishments, the fact that the punishments dont fit the crime, is a very effective enforcement policy.”
This is how it’s done by the real pros, but the concept is the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAVpTrqlLGw&safe=active
Starts at about 1:40, narrated by the inimitable Christopher Hitchens.
(Hint, McCarthy was a piker.)
David Appell. Im not talking about Bengtsson. I’m explaining why the concept of forcing people to toe a line is not what goes on in these types of social situations.
GaryM
precisely
Mosher, my brother-in-law is a Rugby Football Referee. He told me that a referee never tells a player or the captain “If ‘X’ happens again, then I will be forced to do ‘Y'”, because it destroys authority.
Instead, one says something along the lines of ‘unsafe play is dangerous to all and can be punished robustly’. That way the players cannot know your views of team discipline and generally become very cautious.
Don
“If ‘X’ happens again, then I will be forced to do ‘Y’”, because it destroys authority.”
Yes, a good tyrant never draws a line in the sand. When you draw a line explicitly in the sand you create a symbol for the resistance. And people are encourage to do all manner of behavior that approach the line but dont cross it.. or step across and then pull back.
every two year knows how to test and expand boundaries.
So, you keep people in line by having general guidelines ( play safe) and then you randomly enforce that rule.
Of course if you are too unfair or too random you’ll drive people too crazy.
So it requires a good touch.
“You are being obtuse!!! Clever though. Making a straw man argument whilst accusing Mosher of same.”
Trust me if I could ban appell from the team I would. bad optics and worse reasoning.
Somedays I think the skeptics planted him on our team just to make us look stupid
Most days I think plenty of commenters here were planted on the team the appear to play for just to make them look st00pid. On both “teams”.
You don’t get half the cleverness, moshe. Some of them we get your team to pay for.
==========
BEST is now a member of some “team?” Interesting, given Muller’s history — I don’t see any team that really needs him. Curious that you find that necessary.
kim
in korea there is fun new fad of getting paid to eat on TV.
guys do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV6z5CAsmJ4
this gal earns 9K a month.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYGPCFdjUlY
it seemed relevant
I hear the North Koreans will work cheap.
========
Speaking of being forced to toe the line, I’m outta here.
One too many arbitrary Curry moderations.
Yeah, sure, retreat to a rational world. How enlightening you’ve been.
========
Thank you Dr. Curry..
Beware your wishes, Robert.
“Beware your wishes, Robert.”
Wishes? More like appreciation.
I wish willard would wonder well. Naw, that’s sounds too much like a curse.
=============
Bart R was a pleasure to read. His absence will diminish the quality of the comment section.
Are you suggesting you’d prefer an edulcorate version of Judy’s, Robert?
Brilliant, crystalline, nasty, and cynical. You’re not even crystalline, willard.
=============
I hope joshie doesn’t join in your boycott, bartski. We would be left with no entertainment.
Bart R was a pleasure to read. His absence will diminish the quality of the comment section.
Are you suggesting you’d prefer an edulcorate version of Judy’s, Robert?
Interesting observation and I respect your appreciation for his style of interaction. I obviously have a completely different response. I generally ignore his posts. My most recent interaction a couple of days ago was typical. Rather than engage on any particular topic he changes the subject.
In conversation, I call the behavior all transmit – no receive. I avoid people like that.
I’m glad our hostess also has reservations about some of his posts.
Bart R will be back sometime next week, so I wouldn’t count chickens, etc.
> My most recent interaction a couple of days ago was typical.
Citation needed, Robert.
Also, two questions:
First, if you ignore Bart R’s comments, why complain about them?
Second, if you ignore Bart R’s comments, how can you judge them?
It’s a paradox, willard. If you’ve got a lot of time, I might not try to explain that to you.
==========
That would be prejudicial to paradoxes, Koldie.
willard
“First, if you ignore Bart R’s comments, why complain about them?
Second, if you ignore Bart R’s comments, how can you judge them?”
There appears to be an epidemic of reading comprehension problems today. I typed: “I generally ignore his posts.” you misquoted me (twice):”..if you ignore Bart R’s comments… ”
Do I need to explain how I formed my opinion of Bart R and how I came to engage with him recently more than that?
Heh, David, I’ll translate moshe for you. He means the ‘alarmist’ team, to which he amusingly sometimes attaches himself to, for the irony, you know.
===========
Well, shoot, that translation got lost in the threading. It’s supposed to be a response to David Appell misunderstanding moshe’s use of the term ‘team’ to mean BEST.
=============
Robert,
If you “generally” ignore BartR’s posts, how come you can judge them?
See? Adding that “generally” changes very little to my question, if nothing at all.
There are lots of commenters I generally don’t read. I can’t say I’d be happier if their comments were not here. It would make little sense for me to say so.
I. Generally. Don’t. Read. Them.
Judging and criticizing imply you read. You can’t judge or criticize what you don’t read. That’s not complicated.
***
Also, I think you forgot that link to that discussion you had with Bart R, so that Denizens can judge what you’re talking about.
willard, from you, Joshua, and others, I get zero insight into climate. Bart R could bring that occasionally, heck even David Appell manages the feat, now and then.
Try, sometime. You might like it.
=================
Try this, Koldie:
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2014/04/objective-probability-or-automatic.html
Report.
kim | May 24, 2014 at 10:44 pm |
“From you….I get zero insight into climate. ….Try, sometime. You might like it.”
‘I have zero insight’ might be closer to the mark.
Koldie is terrified of the next ice age……20,000 yrs away.
===> ” JCH | May 24, 2014 at 4:44 pm |
Until examples of communications to Bengtsson from climate scientists who exerted fantastic pressure on Bengtsson are produced, we do not even know that any pressure at all was exerted. ” <===
It really is rather spectacular. Self-described "skeptics" and scientists such as Judith and political scientists such as RPJr. tripping over each other to find the most apt analogy for l'affaire Bengston. .
"It's McCarthysism. No it's Lysenkism. No, it's like Goebbels. No, it's a reign of terror. No, it's the end of the enlightenment."
And yet, none of these self-described "skeptics" can even tell us what kind of treatment Bengtsson was actually subjected to.
Conclusions drawn in the absence of evidence.
Y'all crack me up.
Corruption by any other name would stink as badly.
==========
Good point. Everyone reads into these things what they want to see. Actual facts are few.
==> “Actual facts are few.”
It’s remarkable. People who pride themselves in their “skepticism” – in their steadfast refusal to believe something w/o overwhelming evidence in support.
All of them, absolutely convinced that l’affaire Bengtsson is analogous to some of the worst incidents of intolerance in modern history.
Absolutely convinced.
Not a doubt in their minds.
It’s not a question of whether it is analogous to the worst incidents of intolerance in modern history, but only a question of which analogy is most apt.
All these “skeptics” signing on to websites to comment. Articles being published. “Experts” such as RPJr. weighing in. And as of yet I think that I’ve seen a grand total of one, self-identified “skeptic” who’s even willing to admit that the reactions might be overly-dramatic and hyperbolic: Tim, on these threads.
Remarkable. The power of motivated reasoning is truly remarkable. Smart, knowledgeable people, many of them trained in the practice of careful reasoning, of comprehensive analysis, of not formulating conclusions in the absence of evidence.
Remarkable! It’s spectacular! It’s a work of beauty! A thing of art! Really. I am very, very impressed.
Feel the power, and note its cowardliness.
========
Joshua, you may have missed it (or I may not count as I am a minor voice here), but I did say about a day into the fuss over Bentsson and GWPF that absent hard evidence I thought/think the comparisons with McCarthyism etc. are “overwrought” (I believe that was my term) and unjustified.
That does not mean that there is not excessive peer pressure, along the lines of “no real scientist can be associated with GWPF”….. that sort of guilt-by-association certainly is troubling, but so far there has been no strong evidence presented that Bengtsson has suffered in career terms etc. (of course it is still very early….). I do think that a younger scientist would suffer seriously as the unjust comparisons with “flat earth society” and “creationism” would surely damage career and funding prospects.
Skiphil –
I may have missed it, or I may have forgotten. Either way, I acknowledge it now.
==> “That does not mean that there is not excessive peer pressure, along the lines of “no real scientist can be associated with GWPF”….. that sort of guilt-by-association certainly is troubling, but so far there has been no strong evidence presented that Bengtsson has suffered in career terms etc. (of course it is still very early….). I do think that a younger scientist would suffer seriously as the unjust comparisons with “flat earth society” and “creationism” would surely damage career and funding prospects.”
I’m not going to defend the tribalism on either side of the climate wars. I don’t support many of the reactions to Bengtsson that I’ve seen from many “realists.” It’s certainly part of the same ol’ same ol’, IMO.
But I think that equally destructive, although probably not worse, is the hyperbolic drama-queening – comparing the Bengtsson situation to McCarthyism of Lysenkoism, even while turning a blind eye to the very same sort of same ol’ same ol’ from “skeptics” on the other side of the battle lines.
Until people stop craving the satisfaction they derive from drama-queening themselves and those they identify with as victims, and start recognizing how their behaviors are part of the problem, and even more importantly start evaluating their own conclusions for bias, nothing will improve.
I mean seriously, RPJr. whinging about nastiness, after the ethics impugning does (excused by throw-aways about how nastiness is part for the course in academia)?
Judith, participating in this mess as she has, labeling people as McCarthyists, after telling Mann to put on his big boy pants when he complained about vitriol?
The science is buried under this tribalism. Look at the rate of comments for the posts about Bengtsson, or about Mann. That is where the real energy in this debate is. The science is a proxy for identity aggression and identify protection. How ironic, RPJr.’s comments on this topic so closely aligned chronologically with his recent comments at that conference about the politicization of the science.
Joshua,
What was the standard of proof you expected when scientists of an alarmist inclination complained of harassment and death threats? Are you on record anywhere expressing similar skepticism of those claims?
In fact, were any of those death threats ever documented anywhere?
Who made them?
Robert –
==> “What was the standard of proof you expected when scientists of an alarmist inclination complained of harassment and death threats? Are you on record anywhere expressing similar skepticism of those claims?”
I didn’t compare that situation to McCarthyism, or Lysenkoism, or a “reign of terror,” or Goebbels, or Stalinism, or Sandinista, or Naz*sm, or scientists being “forced to toe the line,” etc. So your analogy breaks down before it even starts.
There is tribalism on both sides of the climate wars. It is abundant. Comparing what happened to Bengtsson, without evidence, to McCarthyism is part of the tribalism. You don’t extract the science from the tribalism by fueling the tribalism. It just doesn’t happen. You don’t advance the cause of skepticism by failing to exercise the most fundamental principles of skepticism, in the most obvious of contexts. It is so easily predictable that “skeptics” would drama-queen this kind of situation, and compare what happened with Bengtsson to the worst cases of intolerance in modern history; to people being brought up on trial because of their beliefs, to people being thrown into Gulags and executed. The very nature of “skepticism” and motivated reasoning predict, exactly these behaviors.
In fact, were any of those death threats ever documented anywhere?
Yes.
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2011/07/death-threat-captured-on-video.html
Robert –
==> “In fact, were any of those death threats ever documented anywhere?
Who made them?”
What difference does that make. How could any answers be, in any way, relevant to the question of whether the hyperbole related to the Bengtsson situation is consistent with honest-to-God skepticism.
Do you not see how asking me those questions is irrelevant? Do you not see how asking me those questions is nothing other than asking to continue the tribalism?
Suppose I gave you evidence. What would do? Would that change your mind about whether “skeptics” are being unskeptical?
Suppose I said that I have no evidence. Would that somehow justify “skeptics” comparing the Bengtsson situation to McCarthyism? Do you not see the logical disconnect? Whether or not climate scientists were threatened is completely irrelevant as to whether how Bengtsson was treated is analogous to people being thrown into gulags.
Completely. There is no logical connection.
That’s a death threat? That’s theater, apple. You should know that. You are a drama queen.
There, Robert –
Now you an argue with David about the threats.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
The video of a Lyndon LaRouche acolyte attempting to give Schellnhuber a noose does not contain a death threat. Neither does the post video explanation of their disruptive behavior. My impression is it was to represent the fatal consequences of alarmist policy.
IMHO, David gets it completely wrong in his final comment.
The video of a Lyndon LaRouche acolyte attempting to give Schellnhuber a noose does not contain a death threat.
Sure — it constitutes a welcome wagon!
Lots of people in this world know what a noose means, Robert, even if you choose to pretend you don’t.
That video does not document a death threat. You are a little liar. Are we clear now?
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Bengtsson is a drama queen, right Joshua.
David
“Lots of people in this world know what a noose means, Robert, even if you choose to pretend you don’t.”
I do, I consider it marginally (very marginally) more civil than throwing a bunch blood on somebody. When left wing radicals do that, it is not considered a death threat.
I think appel is busy getting together the videos, emails, dead fish wrapped in newspaper and court records of some of the many other death threats against climate scientistas. The next one he will share is the story about the guy who mentioned that he had a hunting license. Scared the crap out of 97% of climate scientistas.
Joshua
“I didn’t compare that situation to McCarthyism, or Lysenkoism, or a “reign of terror,” or Goebbels, or Stalinism, or Sandinista, or Naz*sm, or scientists being “forced to toe the line,” etc. So your analogy breaks down before it even starts.”
I don’t think it breaks down. You said there is no proof of Bengtsson’s claims other than his assertion –> therefore the claim should not be used as evidence of the behaviors described. The analogy is, since there are no proof of death threats against climate scientists, then those claims should not be used as evidence of harassment of climate scientists..
Joshua, this should be your theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikOqJ8qYoMw
Can’t you see, whoa, can’t you see
What that woman, Lord, she been doin’ to me
Can’t you see, whoa, can’t you see
What that woman, she been doin’ to me
Can’t you see (oh, she’s such a crazy lady), can’t you see
What that woman, she been doin’ to me
Can’t you see (Lord, I can’t stand), can’t you see
What that woman, she been doin’ to me
Are climate scientists being forced to toe the line?
The tension binding the consenus whole is palpable
We can feel the tremors, we just can’t predict the big one.
===========
Climate science is now the bitterness of asteroids vs volcanoes (dinosaur extinction) or paleontology (my bones vs yours), multiplied to absurd levels by billions of dollars and by political investments.
Someone gave the 3 Chinese curses recently:
* May you live in interesting times
* May you come to the attention of the authorities
* May you get what you wish for
In this video from a few years back, Lindzen comments on Obama marginalization of naysayers, on the university PC environment and that Senator Al Gore:
“Gore did it all the time. He would call scientists who he disagreed with to testify in front of the managers of all the funding agencies so they knew who he was against”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sHg3ZztDAw
min 22-23
1+
Speaking of Junior and Benny, here’s what Junior says of the GWPF:
Just one example of serious problems with how Real Climate seeks to enforce a consensus in self-defeating ways.
As mentioned, I cannot assess a lt of the scientific issues (but as a citizen and taxpayer I have every right to decide on my own who/what I find credible).
These are a couple of threads which gave me strong distrust of the Real Climate team, and a lot of respect for Steve McIntyre. Raging sarcasm, straw men, and careless dismissals from Real Climate; calm, thorough, dispassionate rebuttals from McIntyre. Now you can say until blue in the face that McIntyre is wrong and thatnI am wrong to respect him, but until there is a far more careful and thorough rebuttal from RC, they are doing poorly at climateball.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/
http://climateaudit.org/2013/06/28/cru-abandons-yamal-superstick/
Yes, I know very well that I am speaking of atmospherics rather than the details of the wcience and statistics….. also that tree rings are not atmospheric physics etc.
I. am merely addressing the issue of whether or not the Real Climate team does an effective job at “science communications.”. For me, they are often striking out, to date.
Judith,
I don’t think so. I think the answer is no.
Maybe it seemed expedient for some scientists to indulge in politics / political advocacy on both sides. But while scientists might support certain political agendas and still care about their science, the politicians do not reciprocate. Politicians, pundits, and demagogues care about power, specifically I think power manifested as the cultural dominance of their particular ideology. Logical refutation of arguments that you disagree with? Nah, our numbers show ridicule and ostracization plays better with the demographics we’re trying to manipulate. It’s not about science, it was never about science, and if one’s scientific practices impede the pursuit of power, one can go join Bengtsson on the discredited bench. Nobody cares about the stinking science, unless it means the voters aren’t going to stampede when the next new policy passes into law.
I could be dead wrong about this, and I freely admit I can’t support this suggestion, but I think it’s the case regardless: Put simply, it’s not grabbing the tiger by the tail that’s the problem, it’s letting go that’s the bitch. I doubt it’s as easy as saying, ‘Oh, Judith Curry’s probably got a point there.’
Just my two cents.
“With regards to Pielke Jr’s statement: ‘anyone who wishes to participate in the public debate on climate change should do so knowing how the politics are played today — dirty, nasty, destructive.’ I agree with this statement.”
Oh good. No more “I am surprised by the nasty/dirty/destructive reaction of the (fill in the blank) consensus scientist’s/advocate’s to (fill in the blank).”
Cool.
Please, may it reform. Well, actually better is ‘Please, may it not reform’. What would I do for fun, then.
===============
I will continue to gripe about dirty, nasty, destructive behavior by climate scientists themselves.
“With regards to Pielke Jr’s statement: ‘anyone who wishes to participate in the public debate on climate change should do so knowing how the politics are played today — dirty, nasty, destructive.’”
And yet RP Jr. wrote to Kevin Trenberth’s management when he didn’t like Trenberth’s comments on his 538.org article.
People in glass houses.
Trenberth manages himself, and poorly.
=======
> No more “I am surprised by the nasty/dirty/destructive reaction of the (fill in the blank) consensus scientist’s/advocate’s […]
Well, we do have this to fill the blank:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/24/are-climate-scientists-being-forced-to-toe-the-line
Judith –
==> “I will continue to gripe about dirty, nasty, destructive behavior by climate scientists themselves.”
Excellent. I look forward to your criticism of Lindzen for comparing people to Eugenicists.
And your self-criticism for comparing people to McCarthy will be just fascinating.
Will the post be up this week?
curryja | May 24, 2014 at 6:02 pm |
I will continue to gripe about dirty, nasty, destructive behavior by climate scientists themselves.
//////////////////////
Just not specifically about their political I.D. and motivations that rationalize their actions. Other than the abstract equivocation as if there are really two equal sides in conflict with similar tactics, which is nonsense.
It was always a left-wing power play, right out of the late 50’s and lust for carbon rules. Reform has to start with honesty about the players and their motives which are on their sleeves.
It was always a left-wing power play, right out of the late 50′s and lust for carbon rules.
Actually, it’s an extremely conservative, libertarian idea: those who pollute, pay for its damages.
No one gets to damage the Commons. Pay up. And stop it.
Yikes, what have you done with Bart R, and why are your commons so polluted with ‘externalities’?
============
Would you buy a used GCM from the Prophet Lovelock or Schellnhuber?? et al
James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change
Monday 29 March 2010
One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he added. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change
Another German “Will Soon Unveil A Master Plan For A Transformation Of Society”
By P Gosselin on 29. März 2011
The English edition of Der Spiegel has a recent interview with Prof Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. In this interview Schellnhuber announced that he would unveil his “Master Plan” for transforming society – one no doubt that suits his world view. In Schellhuber’s view, human society needs to be scaled back and managed by an elite group of “wise men” who know what is best for the rest.
snip
The belief that the planet needs to be dictated by a higher authority is what makes people like Schellnhuber so dangerous to democracy. Their impatience and frustration with democracy, and their claim to have superior knowledge, remind us of others who have led us down very dark paths back in the 20th century
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/29/another-german-will-soon-unveil-a-master-plan-for-a-transformation-of-society/
“Building Trust” and FOI Refusals
Steve McIntyre
Jul 23, 2011 at 6:08 PM
Willis, on the other hand, took a position that anyone in business understands: if someone is dishonest with you in business, you are never going to trust them again. That’s just the way it is. You may have no alternative other than to deal with them, but you’ll never trust them. Nor does it mean that everything that they say is wrong. It just means that you will no longer believe them on their word.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/07/23/building-trust-and-foi-refusals/
Hans von Storch: Science Has Failed To Answer Legitimate Questions – Warmists Have Responded With “A Stroppy Reply”
By P Gosselin on 4. Mai 2011
On the loss of credibility, climate science itself is to blame. The science has stirred up scientifically unfounded expectations, says von Storch. The demand that the public has to rapidly accept instructions on how to act in order to save the planet has blurred the boundaries between policy and science. As a result, science has not become something that has to do with “curiosity”, but rather gives the impression that it’s all about pushing a pre-conceived value-based agenda: “As scientists we have become political tools who are to deliver sought arguments to get citizens to do the right thing.”
If anything confirms this claim, it is the WBGU’s master plan unveiled by PIK Director Hans Schellnhuber to radically transform society in what he calls “The Great Transformation”. Indeed von Storch is right. Some elitist scientists are all about changing the current socio-political system, and so distort science in order to get the needed arguments.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/05/04/hans-von-strorch-science-has-failed-to-answer-legitimate-questions-warmists-have-responded-with-a-stroppy-reply/
Von Storch Blasts Climate Scientists: Not The “Keepers Of The Truth” – Says They “Oversold” The Science
He says the climate issue needs to be debated, and warns scientists against acting like they are the “keepers of the truth”.
Snip
HvS has always been critical of scientists interfering in the political process. FOCUS asks HvS if Chancellor Merkel ought not have a climate advisor, to which HvS replies:
Just a single advisor? No.”
FOCUS then asks HvS about efforts by scientists to intimidate any media critical of alarmism, a practice Stefan Rahmstorf is infamous for:
That is a not taking one of the most important institutions seriously, namely the media. Anyone who behaves like that obviously views himself as the judge who knows how media reporting is supposed to be.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/02/26/von-storch-blasts-climate-scientists-not-the-keepers-of-the-truth-says-they-oversold-the-science/
Pointman’s essay contains numerous obvious errors. I attempted to discuss them with him; if you go to his blog, you’ll find a bizarre one-sided conversation, since he suppresses all my posts. Rather than try to reconstruct what I say from his quoting of fragments, its better to read the full conversation from http://stoat-spam.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/the-age-of-unenlightenment-dont-shout.html
I admit to some surprise that you didn’t notice the obvious problems with his essay.
Heh, Connolley thinks of himself as a truth-seeker.
==========
The sentient internet grieves at your disinformation, William, and it has a long memory.
==========
Imagine that, somebody suppressing Connolley’s posts. Why don’t you use Wiki to your advantage? That’ll show him.
> I admit to some surprise that you didn’t notice the obvious problems with his essay.
Read Judy’s harder for less surprise.
Heh, William bemoans censorship and wishes to set the record straight. willard follows obediently into the curve.
============
It would be hard to find a more objectionable post to promote at Climate Etc. I really wonder why prof Curry would do so.
If only already because of all the clear factual errors, some of which William mentions, which no one here has commented on.
We have:
A KKK picture
A Nazi fetish: “Berlin, April ’45, the last bullet and complete destruction.” & A trending post on “Do we call them Nazis or not?”
And a fury of further curse words.
And the titled is not only terrible, but now also turns out be rather ironic: The Age of Unenlightenment. The Pointman is destroying the Enlightenment in an error riddled post claiming others do and betrays all Enlightenment ideals by moderating a critical comment with arguments. Seeing arguments as having some importance in understanding the world was a main innovation of the Enlightenment.
The best fun I’ve had in ages. Kicking his derriere all over the place. You be sure and visit me again real soon Willy, and I’ll do exactly the same.
What’s that thing they say about payback …
Pointman
> What’s that thing they say about payback …
Do you promise to let my comments stand for once, Pointman?
It’s really pathetic that he comes whimpering to Judith.
+1000 points to the Pointman!
Yeah, Don, a wonderful irony. Will get 24 hour special lighting in my museum of ironies.
=========
Basement. Our insurer didn’t like the water damage precautions engineered into the second floor, so we’ve been forced to the sump-pump, with triple back-up, guaranteeed to perform in brownouts and blackouts.
=========
Surely, Mr. Connolley, you’ve been deeply aggrieved. You should take the opportunity to shout about this great injustice to all who will listen.
Perhaps you may consider taking the fight for justice further, say to the point of writing a Wikipedia Article on the “Great 2014 Censoring of William Connolley at Pointman”? Surely this deserves a mark in history. It certainly will provide you with plenty of editing opportunities.
Let’s analyze the case of Reto Knutti of the ETH Zürich. He warns about overemphasizing the lack of certainty about the evidence. He says that sitting back and waiting until all the questions are answered is not an alternative, and describes a large portion of what has come to be called skepticism as deliberate deception.
Reto is one of the main authors of IPCC’s WGI AR5 chapter 12 (about long term projections). After my analysis I understand that Reto has created science fiction and has presented it as if it was actual science. More info on the foundations of my analysis in:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4r_7eooq1u2TWRnRVhwSnNLc0k/
Furthermore, I think that at the beginning of ch.12 Reto should include the disclaimer: projections are inventions with no predictive capacity and since we base our projections in invented values of climate sensitivity parameter: this chapter should not be taken seriously by any reader.
I believe that this example clarifies if scientists are being forced to toe the line.
Climate sensitivity is not “invented” — it is calculated.
You’ve struck out right there.
It’s not calculated, apple. It’s guesstimated.
It’s calculated.
I can always tell when people are starting to lose on this blog — they resort to the ad homs. Monfort is typically one of the first to go.
Hah, it’s been ‘measured’. Thousands of times.
=========
Show us your “calculation” for TCR over the last 15 years. You can do the math, can’t you?
Appell indulges in the blogospheric equivalent of a drive by shooting and imagines that’s a win.
“Climate sensitivity is not “invented” — it is calculated.”
I thought climate sensitivity was an abstraction used as an input to the climate simulations. And that Don is correct – it is an estimate. The estimate is “validated” if climate models can be “tuned” to the 20th century temperature record. Am I wrong?
Critics uncharitably point out that the models have many inputs – climate sensitivity is only one. With enough inputs, a model can be tuned to almost any hind cast. Those uncharitable critics continue by pointing out that the inability of models to make forecasts argues against their “validation” of climate sensitivity.
David
“I can always tell when people are starting to lose on this blog — they resort to the ad homs. Monfort is typically one of the first to go.”
Ad homs as in ad hominem attacks? Hmm. Earlier, your use of straw man was creative. This accusation does not apply to this little thread. Did I miss one up above? What constitutes an ad hominem attack in your mind?
For example – some might consider “RobertInAz is a pathetic loser who only comments here because he does not have a life.” to be an ad hominem attack. I might consider it uncomfortably close to the truth.
Show us your “calculation” for TCR over the last 15 years.
It isn’t a meaningful calculation, since 15 years isn’t indicative of climate, but of (oceanic) weather.
I thought climate sensitivity was an abstraction used as an input to the climate simulations.
You thought wrong. Climate sensitivity is an output of climate models, not an input.
For example, see Manabe and Weatherald, 1975:
https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/Greenhouse-effect/more/Manabe-Wetherald-1975.pdf
Now David, has that output been ‘measured’ or ‘estimated’. Have the models been verified or validated? ‘Calculated’ seems to be a calculated guess, and I calculate you guess wrong.
===========
If temperatures had spiked up in the last 15 years, you would have been happy to shoe me your precise and definitive calculation of TransitoryCR. You are a transparent little apple.
Transient and show
David Appell if you want to know why I said that climate sensitivity value range has been invented, please read my pdf in:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4r_7eooq1u2TWRnRVhwSnNLc0k/
David
“You thought wrong. Climate sensitivity is an output of climate models, not an input.” See link above
That’s mean. Now you are just messing with me. That paper calculates no such thing. Instead is says: “Because of the various simplifications of the model described above, it is not advisable to take too seriously the quantitative aspect of the results obtained in this study.”
Monfort — when you are ready to can the ad homs and stop acting like a boy, let me know.
Antonio: I have learned not to waste my time on amateur stuff like your PDF, which I invariably find to be full of egregious errors whenever I look at them. Sorry.
If you can summarize your point in a sentence or two here, or have some real science to quote, let me know.
Robert: Yes, Manabe & Wetherald 1975 calculates climate sensitivity. Then they give their estimate of its uncertainty.
They certainly didn’t take climate sensitivity as an input, as you claimed.
Amateurs can’t do ‘real science’. You’ve got to leave it to the pros.
Oh, wait a minute, that can’t be right. But it is in bright shiny Appell World.
========
David, sorry for having made such a huge pdf with so many (12) pages. It is indeed an amateur stuff and you should not waste your time with my pdf or my comments. Good bye.
Monfort: I think boys first tried to ridicule me by misprouncing my last name in the 3rd grade. But maybe it was the 2nd.
Welcome to their club.
David
“Robert: Yes, Manabe & Wetherald 1975 calculates climate sensitivity. Then they give their estimate of its uncertainty.
They certainly didn’t take climate sensitivity as an input, as you claimed.”
Are you looking at table 1? If yes, how did the various models calculate that result without assuming a climate response to CO2?
Hanson takes a cut at analytically deriving climate sensitivity using the CO2/temperature relationship coming into the current interglacial. That is how he got 3 degrees. I think the most recent was Hanson 2010? There are a lot of assumptions in that paper.
Robert: Table 1 is the *result* of Manabe and Wetherald’s calculation.
It is getting tiring to have to explain the most basic things to you.
how did the various models calculate that result without assuming a climate response to CO2?
Wow.
Just wow.
It’s like you don’t understand anything.
Climate models are the numerical solutions to the partial differential equations that describe the Earth’s climate system.
If you don’t understand what that means, then go get a B.S. in physics and/or applied mathematics. Then you can come back to the discussion.
Hanson takes a cut at analytically deriving climate sensitivity using the CO2/temperature relationship coming into the current interglacial. That is how he got 3 degrees.
Try reading Hansen’s famous 1988 paper:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha02700w.html
David Appell
“If you don’t understand what that means, then go get a B.S. in physics and/or applied mathematics. Then you can come back to the discussion.”
I do have a BS in Physics. It was a simple question. If the temperature response was the output of the model and CO2 was the varying input – how was the impact of varying input on the output calculated without assuming (or estimating) a climate response to CO2?
Somewhere in that system of equations, the CO2 input is translated into something (possibly watts per square meter) that translates into temperature. That translation is where the climate sensitivity is buried.
RobertinAz raises a very legitimate point – what with all that heat allegedly hiding in the deep ocean, melting ice etc. Unless all this is correctly accounted for (which it isn’t), the translation of a surface flux of W m-2 into a global average surface temperature change is not straightforward.
Robert: This is all covered in the paper. Go read it. Manabe wrote very clearly — he was known for that.
You might also read his earlier papers, on incorporating radiative transfer into climate models. Basically, it comes down to solving the Schwarzschild equations, also known as the two-stream equations. Pierrehumbert covers it extensively in his textbook.
RobertInAZ, it follows from the physics. Increasing CO2 leads to surface warming. Surface warming leads to more water vapor in the atmosphere (we see for example that there is always more water vapor on average above warmer oceans). Water vapor is a GHG and it amplifies the CO2 effect. This gives the sensitivity.
Manabe himself tells you to go read Manabe and Strickler (1964), and (the famous paper) Manabe and Wetherald (1967).
They are well worth reading — exceptionally clear, and very good introductions to the methods of climate modelling. It’s difficult to find the same in papers these days, since they all build on this knowledge, though I’m sure it’s covered in modelling textbooks I haven’t bought and read.
It ‘follows from the physics’, and the clouds mock the ignorance of the followers.
==========
Unless all this is correctly accounted for (which it isn’t), the translation of a surface flux of W m-2 into a global average surface temperature change is not straightforward.
It isn’t correctly accounted for? And where are all your papers setting the world straight on that?
kim, the sign of the cloud feedback is not known because it is somewhere in the vicinity of zero.
RobertinAz raises a very legitimate point – what with all that heat allegedly hiding in the deep ocean, melting ice etc.
Except that wasn’t Robert’s point. His question was essentially, how do you calculate CO2’s radiative forcing.
Did they beat you up and steal your lunch money and take your little plastic sheriff’s badge, when you were in 3rd grade? I am not surprised that mispronouncing your name still bothers you, apple. Those things leave scars on little dudes.
There is more to it than just mispronouncing your name, but you are probably not from Detroit. You should be happy to be called apple. Appell sounds very effette. Is that your stage name?
Jim D | May 24, 2014 at 10:02 pm |
“RobertInAZ, it follows from the physics. Increasing CO2 leads to surface warming. Surface warming leads to more water vapor in the atmosphere (we see for example that there is always more water vapor on average above warmer oceans). Water vapor is a GHG and it amplifies the CO2 effect. This gives the sensitivity.”
That is exactly the model used by the the alarmists. Positive water vapor feedback. Make an estimate and out pops climate sensitivity. Very well demonstrated by the papers David A. cites and they are internally consistent.
What I have not seen is a satisfactory explanation of what cuts the positive feedback off and causes temperatures to stabilize and then decline. Consider the prior interglacial. Since sea levels were six meters higher, it was arguably warmer than at present. So the positive water vapor feedback should have been present. Where is that impact?
What I see in the long term temperatures reconstructions is a strong damping effect at our current temperature and a little higher. Nobody has provided an explanation as to why the feedbacks are positive this time where they were not in prior, warmer interglacials.
What I see is the alarmists argue the Milankovitch cycle is not sufficiently strong to explain the climb out from a glaciation, but it is sufficient to damp the supposed positive feedback from water vapor to increased temperature. The really weird thing to me is the alarmist claim that CO2 is the key positive feedback after the Milankovitch warming starts, not water vapor.
I find the entire (internally consistent) chain of reasoning circular, inconsistent with the historical evidence of recurring glaciation, inconsistent with common sense (CO2-not water vapor as the control knob) and inconsistent with current observations.
David Appell | May 24, 2014 at 10:13 pm |
“Except that wasn’t Robert’s point. His question was essentially, how do you calculate CO2′s radiative forcing.”
Aaarrgghhh. Another reading problem. CO2’s radiative forcing is non-controversial. That leads to a climate sensitivity of a little over 1 degree. It is the estimates of other physical parameters required to get scary climate sensitivities that I questio – principally water vapor feedback.
Robert: This isn’t the time or place to go into a long description of the ice ages — I would refer you to Pierrehumbert Chapter 7, though all the carbon cycle feedbacks admittedly aren’t understood…but as the world warms, ice melts and the ice-albedo feedback, which is powerful, declines. The planet reflects less sunlight.
It is the estimates of other physical parameters required to get scary climate sensitivities that I questio – principally water vapor feedback.
They aren’t estimates — they are calculations. Why is that so hard to understand?
Less ice means less sunlight reflected. More greenery means a different albedo. Water vapor saturation follows the Clausius-Claperyon equation. Air flow follows the Bernoulli equation. The effect of GHGs comes ultimately from quantum mechanics and the Planck law of blackbody radiation.
These things aren’t mysterious — they’re covered in all the textbooks. Go read one, and stop pretending like no one has ever thought of your issues.
David Appell | May 24, 2014 at 10:40 pm |
“They aren’t estimates — they are calculations. Why is that so hard to understand?”
Right – they are calculations described by Manabe as “Because of the various simplifications of the model described above, it is not advisable to take too seriously the quantitative aspect of the results obtained in this study.”
In other words, the simplifications are so large as to render the models qualitative rather than quantitative. A reality demonstrated by their constant record of failed predictions (or projections).
Robert, you don’t get it. Climate is well understood, because it follows from the physics. That’s why the models are so spot on.
===========
“David Appell | May 24, 2014 at 10:36 pm |
Robert: This isn’t the time or place to go into a long description of the ice ages — I would refer you to Pierrehumbert Chapter 7, though all the carbon cycle feedbacks admittedly aren’t understood…but as the world warms, ice melts and the ice-albedo feedback, which is powerful, declines. The planet reflects less sunlight.”
Right – like I said – no CO2 “control knob” required.
Robert: Yes, they are calculations. And all calculations have assumptions and uncertainties.
If you have a BS in physics, you should know that.
Of course, Manabe’s model is from 1967. The principle holds, but the science has progressed at least a little bit since then.
Nope, Robert — CO2 is a very good way to control your climate, if that is your aim.
Someday if we try to terraform Mars, we will think seriously about melting its CO2 ice caps in order to thicken its atmosphere and warm the planet.
See Lacis et al, Science (2010).
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/la09300d.html
“Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature”
David Appell | May 24, 2014 at 10:50 pm |
“Robert: Yes, they are calculations. And all calculations have assumptions and uncertainties.” Yes!! Finally!! Bless you David Appell!! These are not generally agreed on physical constants like Boltzmann’s constant.
“Of course, Manabe’s model is from 1967. The principle holds, but the science has progressed at least a little bit since then.”
But the error bars on estimated climate sensitivity have not closed since 1975. If the models had done a better job of prediction, I’m sure they would have closed a bit.
Heh, Callendar had a sweet little model, and a sweet little understanding of the benefits man could wreak with CO2.
===========
These are not generally agreed on physical constants like Boltzmann’s constant.
There isn’t a single scientist in the world who thinks climate sensitivity is an agreed-upon constant.
You are fighting demons in your closet, not in the real world.
If the models had done a better job of prediction, I’m sure they would have closed a bit.
The models include many more physical processes than did Manabe, each of which brings in its own uncertainty.
The uncertainty in climate sensitivity is still around 50%. It may well not be reduced much further. We will have to make decisions in the face of uncertainty — but then, we do that all the time in other areas of life.
David Appell
“See Lacis et al, Science (2010).
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/la09300d.html
“Atmospheric CO2: Principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature””
Just a nit, but the authors use a climate simulation that assumes CO2 is a control knob to validate that CO2 is a control knob.
A few years ago I spent a lot of time working through RealClimate and SKS, reading papers trying to get a sense of where the truth lay. I found Real Climate and SKS to be very circular.
Omigod, don’t tell me there are different ways to calculate it! The sums, please find me the ‘sums’.
==========
Just a nit, but the authors use a climate simulation that assumes CO2 is a control knob to validate that CO2 is a control knob.
False yet again. The authors calculate the effect of CO2 — they do not assume its effect — and they find it is a good control knob.
‘Although we may expect a chaotic AOS model to be structurally unstable, it is difficult to explicitly make this determination. The attractor cannot be fully visualized or measured because the phase space has such a high dimension (i.e., high order). Probability distribution functions (PDFs) (Fig. 1) give at least a rough view of an AOS attractor. There are many aspects to the equation set for a model, most notably in the choices of discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupling scope, and these are usually not systematically explored in AOS practices. To do so requires formulating multiple models for a given problem. Even systematic scans in the parameter values of a complicated AOS model are rarely published, although parameter variations are commonly made while tuning a model to improve its plausibility. †
Nevertheless, I advocate the hypothesis that plausible, chaotic AOS models have important levels of irreducible imprecision due to structural instability resulting from choices among a set of modeling options that cannot be clearly excluded. The level of irreducible imprecision will depend on the context, and this level is likely to be greater the more chaotic and multiply coupled the targeted flow regime is…
AOS models are therefore to be judged by their degree of plausibility, not whether they are correct or best. This perspective extends to the component discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupling breadth: There are better or worse choices (some seemingly satisfactory for their purpose or others needing repair) but not correct or best ones. The bases for judging are a priori formulation, representing the relevant natural processes and choosing the discrete algorithms, and a posteriori solution behavior.’ James McWilliams
It’s calculated in chaotic models that have unlimited divergent solutions within the bounds of feasible inputs and couplings.
Pick a solution – any one that has pleasant a posteriori solution manners will do.
Is apple admitting that climate sensitivity is an estimate? More precisely, any number of estimates depending on who is doing the alleged calculations. By the way, I have a BS, in BS. Like you, apple.
RobertInAZ, the Ice Ages don’t help you because CO2 levels were 190 ppm when it was 6-8 C colder, which implies very high sensitivity. We are lucky it is not that sensitive now, which is because the glaciated area is much smaller, so there is less positive feedback from ice albedo. Had it worked the right way, we would surely have heard from the skeptics, but it doesn’t help their argument, so they prefer to ignore it, and hope other people don’t notice.
Yikes, Appell tells me climate sensitivity is calculated and you tell me it differs through time. Do we need a new calculation every instant?
First, tell me how long one of those instants lasts. We might get somewhere then, but when, who knows.
============
David Appel
“False yet again. The authors calculate the effect of CO2 — they do not assume its effect — and they find it is a good control knob.” My last post – let me try again.
They calculate the impact of CO2 using “[And all] calculations which have assumptions and uncertainties.” Your words. The relevant assumptions are in the direction of CO2 having a strong influence on the hydrologic cycle. Assumptions that continue to be annoyingly difficult to empirically verify.
I think this discussion encapsulates the science disagreement. Alarmists are annoyed at skeptics for not accepting the models. Skeptics are annoyed at alarmists for not acknowledging the issues with the models.
Good night.
The relevant assumptions are in the direction of CO2 having a strong influence on the hydrologic cycle.
False. There are no such assumptions. They calculate the effects on the hydrological cycle.
You are either trying to pull off a joke, or the worst physics major I have ever encountered.
Runaway ice feedbacks to insolation changes seem to be the go here – with CO2 changes a long way behind and responding to temp rather than the other way around.
Interestingly CO2 was at 400ppm at the last transition.
http://www.academia.edu/2949675/Stomatal_proxy_record_of_CO2_concentrations_from_the_last_termination_suggests_an_important_role_for_CO2_at_climate_change_transitions
kim, yes, there are long-term ice-albedo feedbacks, like if Greenland melted or the Ice Age recovery. Surprised you didn’t know that. You need to read around a bit.
Yikes, Appell tells me climate sensitivity is calculated and you tell me it differs through time. Do we need a new calculation every instant?
In principle, yes. Climate sensitivity depends on the current climate, i.e on its temperature and CO2, etc. It will not necessarily be the same now as it will be in 100 or 200 or 1000 years, or the same as it was in the at the PETM (or after it).
RobertInAZ, you don’t need GCMs. Arrhenius did it essentially one-dimensionally with just physical reasoning a century ago, and his methods agree somewhat with what we have seen more recently in models and observations. Simple models, complex models, paleoclimate and recent climate all converge on similar results for sensitivity.
Hooray, sensitivity varies with albedo. Now tuck that idea under your brain and run with it. You might catch some skeptics, but they have a long head start on you.
==========
Manabe’s 1967 calculation was also one-dimensional (vertical).
kim has just discovered the Ice Ages. Oh well, progress, I guess.
Oh, poo. Don’t try to tell me the globe glaciates even with a high CO2. You’re gonna have to show me that one.
==============
kim, well, sorry to say it doesn’t, but in a related story, you tend to get high sea levels instead.
Simple models, complex models, paleoclimate and recent climate all converge on similar results for sensitivity.
indeed.It is random ie irreducible (whereas no one can write an algorithm shorter then the natural program generating it) eg Ghil 2008
As the relatively new science of climate dynamics evolved
through the 1980s and 1990s, it became quite clear – from
observational data, both instrumental and paleoclimatic, as
well as model studies – that Earth’s climate never was and is
unlikely to ever be in equilibrium. The three successive IPCC
reports (1991 [2], 1996, and 2001 [3]) concentrated therefore,
in addition to estimates of equilibrium sensitivity, on estimates
of climate change over the 21st century, based on several
scenarios of CO2 increase over this time interval, and using up
to 18 general circulation models (GCMs) in the fourth IPCC
Assessment Report (AR4) [4].
The GCM results of temperature increase over the coming
100 years have stubbornly resisted any narrowing of the range
of estimates, with results for Ts in 2100 as low as 1.4 K or as
high as 5.8 K, according to the Third Assessment Report. The
hope in the research leading up to the AR4 was that a set of
suitably defined “better GCMs” would exhibit a narrower range
of year-2100 estimates, but this does not seem to have been the
case.
AR5 continued the trend.
Don’t try to tell me the globe glaciates even with a high CO2.
It did. The Ordovician–Silurian ice age of 450 M yrs ago occurred when CO2 was about 3000 ppmv.
But the Sun was about 4% less intense, so the physics still works out.
Details here:
.http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2014/02/dr-patrick-moore-just-misled-congress.html
“The Ordovician–Silurian ice age of 450 M yrs ago occurred when CO2 was about 3000 ppmv.
But the Sun was about 4% less intense, so the physics still works out.”
At that time the continents were in quite different positions, with a land mass larger that Antarctica at the South Pole.
http://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/93/55/25/20140403/ob_9204ca_450-375-ma.jpg
In addition, life had not conquered the land, there was sand and bare rock on all the land surface, no plant life except at the margins of the rivers and estruies.
Still, the physics works out.
Gee, I wish we could prevent glaciation with CO2. That would simplify things for our grandchildren unto many grands.
=============
You have to give Uppsalainitiativet credit though for posting Bengtsson’s response. Imagine that at Real Climate or Skeptical Science.
I think the internet would break.
> You have to give Uppsalainitiativet credit though for posting Bengtsson’s response.
Yes, and how many credits for cleansing Bart R’s critical comments?
J & DA, observe the proportionality, if you can see that far.
======
willard,
You should go back to trying to seem cryptic. You are much more entertaining that way.
I don’t think you want to compare Dr. Curry’s light moderation of Bart R with the treatment of Bengtsson by…well pretty much anybody.
Uppsalainitiativet allowed Bengtsson to post apparently main, negative posts about him on that blog. And again, it was decent of them to allow him to reply.
Dr. Curry to my knowledge has never written a comment, let alone a main post, dismissive of Bart. Nevertheless she allows Bart to post long, confused, meandering off topic comments, on a daily basis. As he has failed to get any positive response over the last couple years, from anyone, he has become increasingly insulting. So I can see some moderation.
Shoot, Dr. Curry even deletes the occasional comment by me. And I have never once complained, nor am I complaining now. It is her blog.
See, your moral equivalence proves to be rather vapid on actual examination. That’s why it’s so much better when you just write cryptograms for your own amusement.
should be “allowed contributors”
> See, your moral equivalence proves to be rather vapid on actual examination.
There was no moral equivalence, GaryM. Read harder instead of arguing like you would in front of an underpaid, enslaved, and sleep deprived jury, bored to death by your repetitive tirades.
I asked a simple question. This question does not imply that you compare Bart R’s cleansing with the overly silly Bengtsson case in scope, magnitude, web entity, importance, relevance, or anything else than “credit for posting a response”. You know, the freaking thing you were talking about.
I feel for the judges who are forced to suffer you.
***
Oh, and there was also the mention of “cleansing”, for you know, the Auditor likes the term:
http://climateaudit.org/2014/05/14/the-cleansing-of-lennart-bengtsson/
Sometimes, what looks clear can be cryptic too.
It was a question. Not a question or right, btw, so your “your blog, your rules” has little merit.
Scratch the last part:
It was a question. Not a question or right, btw, so your “your blog, your rules” has little merit.It would have been simpler to say that it was not even a question of right but of virtue and that GaryM’s harangue was irrelevant, but eh, I decided to poe GaryM instead.
willard,
It wasn’t a comparison, it was a question?
It would have been just “a question” if the question was all there was to your comment. But you asked it in comparison to my comment regarding Uppsalainitiativet.
You were comparing the posting by one blog, with the moderation of Bart on this blog. You apparently didn’t know that was what you were doing, but that was it.
And your “question” wasn’t a complaint either? So you don’t view Dr. Curry’s moderation of Bart negatively? Uh huh.
Oh, and those “underpaid, enslaved, and sleep deprived” jurors of whom you are so dismissive, as a rule are better at critical analysis that you could ever be. At least they try.
Like I said, stick to intentionally obscure writing. When you try to write cogently. your failure is embarrassingly apparent.
Just willy being silly. Nearly all of barty’s comments are critical and nasty. If they were being deleted arbitrarily and merely for being critical, the little whiner would have almost nothing to show for his years of 24/7 trolling here. I get plenty of comments deleted. And I am one of the nicest, uncritical people here. I almost never whine about it. Try to lighten up, willy. You alarmist characters are so humorless. That’s a sure sign of insecurity.
We should do something like lucia has on guessing the monthly UAH anomaly. When will barty be back? Is it possible that he can find other activities to fill the huge void in his life? Will he follow my advice and try trolling Walmart? There are always Occupy Wallstreeters and other loons to keep him company.
> It wasn’t a comparison, it was a question?
How judges don’t start to scream when they see you might always be a Great Mystery, GaryM. You talked about moral equivalence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_equivalence
The only relevance with the publication of Lennart’s rant on Uppsala’s is a vague reference of double standard, perhaps the only cardinal sin of argumentation.
The problem is that I’m not accusing you of that. I’m asking you to extend your analysis beyond your favorite whipping boys (e.g. RC). So try what happens here, viz. Bart R’s critical comment. No, GaryM, “your blog, your rules” does not answer that question. It may be the reddest herring lawyers can use, as if it could.
Search for “question” yourself, silly nitpicker.
***
I’m glad you consider that Uppsala’s deserves credit. I agree. Lennart’s claptraps deserve to be heard, if only to make sure we understand where he comes from. But of course, instead of offering a constructive criticism out of your sport comment, you use this as a rhetorical trick to bash RC.
Talk about “yes, moral equivalence.”
Heh, ‘claptraps’. Gittin’ a little skeert you might have the wrong end of the stick, willard?
=========
willard,
The more you write, the more confused you get.
“The only relevance with the publication of Lennart’s rant on Uppsala’s is a vague reference of double standard, perhaps the only cardinal sin of argumentation.
The problem is that I’m not accusing you of that. I’m asking you to extend your analysis beyond your favorite whipping boys (e.g. RC). ”
More silly word games. I never said you accused me of anything. (Lord I hate these semantic diversions.)
I accused you of moral equivalence. Explicitly. Not sure how you missed it. “See, your moral equivalence proves to be rather vapid on actual examination.”
I’ll give it one more shot, just in case you are genuinely befuddled, rather than just wasting time on a Friday night.
You compared the two, suggesting a double standard, “vague” or otherwise.
There can only be a double standard if they are morally equivalent.
Hence you were engaging in moral equivalence. Simple.
You weren’t “accusing” me of a double standard (which was a good start since I made no mention of Bengtsson), but you were just asking me to extend my analysis, with respect to my “whipping boys like RC?”
OK, fine. Here’s the extension. It would be nice if Real Climate would be at least a tenth as accommodating of commenters with whom they disagree as Dr. Curry is here. But I won’t hold my breath, and I really don’t care – it’s their blog.
There. Is that better?
should be “made no mention of Climate Etc.”, not Bengtsson.
You gave credit to Uppsala’s to snigger at RC and SkS, GaryM. This is cheap, and silly. Your extension targets RC specifically, this time by giving credit to CE:
> It would be nice if Real Climate would be at least a tenth as accommodating of commenters with whom they disagree as Dr. Curry is here.
This is “Yes, but RC moderation” all over again. It is cheap, and silly.
***
Both comparison between Uppsala’s or JC and RC or SkS rests on moral equivalence. I see a problem with that: RC or SkS represents the establishment, and JC represents the anti-establishment. The roles are not symmetrical.
While the types of entities involved between Uppsala’s c. Lennart are not the same as in JC c. RC or SkS, what is most important to note is that the only relationship where there’s an open channel is between Uppsala’s and Lennert. All the other channels are closed, including between Judy and Bart R.
It would be nice if people would be at least a tenth as open to criticism as they claim to be accommodating. And no, I’m not only targeting Judy here. This applies to everyone, including you, GaryM, and me.
***
This is how we extend from people to principles, and can start to make sense of expressions like “moral equivalence” and “double standard”.
Good night,
willy, willy
If I were you I’d show them by taking my ball and going home, as your pal barty did. You could get out of here so fast it would make their heads spin. You don’t have to put up with this crap. We will miss you, willy.
willard.
“While the types of entities involved between Uppsala’s c. Lennart are not the same as in JC c. RC or SkS, what is most important to note is that the only relationship where there’s an open channel is between Uppsala’s and Lennert. All the other channels are closed, including between Judy and Bart R.”
As I have said, you shouldn’t try to express your opinions clearly. They don’t stand scrutiny very well.
I have no idea what Uppsalainitiativet’s policy or history on commenting is. I do know what the practices are at Climate Etc., Real Climate and Skeptical Science. RC is a black hole, SS is not much better. Dr. Curry allows even the most obstinate, uninformed, nasty commenters to go on at length.
Bart R has been one of the most prolific commenters here. He has also over time given up the civility he once displayed for an angry, insulting style that I will wager is the reason any of his comments were moderated.
I notice he said moderated, not censored. As an expert in language I am sure you noticed the difference, right? What consensus or contra-Curry comments by Bart R were deleted? What dazzling consensus arguments is she unwilling to allow to be presented here?
I wasn’t complaining about RC or SS moderation, I was pointing out that there appeared to be at least one consensus site that allowed Bengtsson to publish a response to their criticism of them. It made no sense to commend them for doing so if that was the norm among consensus blogs. As of course it is not.
But since you insist on continuing to suggest a comparison is necessary, and that Climate Etc falls by comparison, let’s do a tally:
Real Climate – the borehole of the internet for skeptical comments (as is their right)
Skeptical Science – Not much different from RC from what I have seen.
Climate Etc. – the most open climate blog of which I am aware, with the lest moderation as far as I can tell.
Uppsalainitiativet – damned if I know. I only read of this one incident with Bengtsson, for which I praised them. But kudos for posting the Bengtsson rebuttal.
What got your panties in a bunch is that I made a comparison among warmist web sites, that put your favorites in a bad light. Then you made a silly retort, that you have been trying to defend at length ever since.
Uppsalainitiativet posted a rebuttal (by a scientist who is apparently a strong believer in AGW, but skeptical that it is C) to three critical posts of their against him. RC would not do that. SS would not do that. Climate Etc. would do that.
I do not think RC or SS would have any obligation to do so. Nor would Uppsalainitiativet or Dr. Curry. But one did, and I believe the evidence is the other would. (Dr. Curry’s guest posts by Andy Lacis, discussed elsewhere on this thread, being cases in point.)
There is moral equivalence between one site posting a rebuttal and the unlikelihood of another doing so.
There is no moral equivalence between one site posting a rebuttal, and another moderating (not even necessarily deleting or editing) the insulting comments of the occasional obnoxious commenter.
As I originally said, Dr. Curry occasionally deletes a comment of mine. And I am darned if I know why sometimes. But I have never asked, or complained. For the same reason I don’t gripe about RC or SS.
Gary, you are going to have to stop using RC as your whipping boy. It upsets willy. He is already hurting from the treatment that barty has received from that Judith. Over the years, thousands of barty’s comments have been moderated into oblivion He barely gets a word in edgewise on the blog that he has made his home. It’s a testament to barty’s good natured patience that he has put up with it for as long as he has. Please go easy on the cryptic one. We don’t to lose him, too.
That GaryM uses Uppsala’s as a whipping boy is just par for the course, Don Don. As long as Denizens acknowledge that this is what GaryM does, I could not care less. That Judy tolerates you and your kin only makes GaryM’s commendation of Uppsala’s more splendid.
***
There is no moral equivalence between a contrarian site throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the establishment, and the establishment that tries to restrict these points of contention to a minimum.
There is no moral equivalence between the relationship between a contrarian figure that leads a PR campaign against the establishment and a member of a small community of Swedish science activists. I assume any scientist that goes ranting on the Internet is one. No, not Swedish, just a science activist.
There would be a moral equivalence between moderating critical comments on a website and refusing to publish a formal rebuttal, but only if the channels of communication between the party involved is minimally open, which is only the case between Lennart and Uppsala’s.
***
The main criterion for any moral equivalence to apply lies in the type of communication channel involved. Here’s something to start you with that idea, Don Don:
http://glossarium.bitrum.unileon.es/Home/teoria-de-canales/channel-theory
Considering that GaryM can’t even bookkeep his own political mantras, perhaps this counterfactual would help. Imagine the possibility to have Dana publish a post here. Does that make sense to you? Why would it? Dana has his own outlets to publish his rants, we know how Dana and Judy relate to one another, and Dana has nothing to gain by coming here and let Judy run his show with the circus going on right hereunder. I’m not saying that this ain’t possible (I’ve seen more absurd ClimateBall ™ moves played in my career), but I would not use that implausibility against Dana.
Now, compare, Lennart’s and Andy’s situation, and report. That’s the silly part in GaryM’s use of “Yes, but RC moderation.” For good measure, compare also with Bart R’s.
Eventually, we can also see what kind of comments Judy promotes, I mean “finds interesting.”
***
Lawyers are paid to create havoc in the world. If you want peace, hire notaries. They’re the ones who get money out of conciliating parties by book keeping properly.
Willard,
There is no good reason to get bogged down in useless arguments over this moral equivalence bullcrap. If the climate consensus crowd want to save the world, they have to be better than the so-called deniers.
RC has done more harm to the cause than good. When I first became interested in the alleged looming climate disaster, I was directed to RC. What an experience. I soon hated those clowns. I spent a lot of time with my life on the line fighting for truth, justice and the American way. But those soft egghead clowns would not let me speak. I hadn’t made up my mind. I wasn’t hostile. I had an inquiring mind.
It was then and it is now very clear, that the RC/Team crowd are dogmatic nasty propagandists. Not to be trusted. But hey, they may yet be proven to be correct. The possibility of dangerous consequences from ACO2 is plausible. I still want to now if we really have something to worry about.
You are a smart guy and you could influence me, if you played it straight. Stop trying to defend the indefensible. Stop the denigration. Try honest, patient communication. I will say it again: emulate Pekka.
Gee, I musta touched a nerve. I don’t think willard’s used so many words in any given month here as he has in defending his silly comment the last two days.
> There is no good reason to get bogged down in useless arguments over this moral equivalence bullcrap. If the climate consensus crowd want to save the world, they have to be better than the so-called deniers.
Thank you for making my point, Don Don. I’m not the one who argues that RC and CE should be held to equivalent standards. GaryM is.
I agree that the establishment’s outlets should be better than the contrarians’. They already are; mileage varies, of course. The contrarians’ outlets are of such a low standard that this does not mean much. There’s always room for improvement.
Your personal anectdata on RC is duly acknowledged. I have no idea how you can credibly claim anything about RC’s success, nor do I care to know. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just rehearsing “Yes, but RC moderation”.
But hey, if you agree with me that GaryM’s claim is bullcrap because the roles are asymmetric, you can repeat it all you want on this thread. I can even applaud if you do. Deal?
willard,
Now it’s just getting embarrassing for you.
“I’m not the one who argues that RC and CE should be held to equivalent standards. GaryM is.”
I compared RC and SS to Uppsalainitiativet.
I didn’t compare RC and CE, you did, in the second comment on this sub-thread. “Yes, and how many credits for cleansing Bart R’s critical comments?”
I then made fun of you for doing so, as follows: “I don’t think you want to compare Dr. Curry’s light moderation of Bart R with the treatment of Bengtsson by…well pretty much anybody.”
Later in the thread I gave examples of why you should not make such a comparison as you did. But this is starting to go ’round in circles. So I will let it go at that.
> I didn’t compare RC and CE.
Here you go:
When lawyers will have to convince juries by way of the words they write, GaryM might need to change his pleading style.
Who can doubt that the movement I dub the Borg collective cult of AGW groupthink space cadets (BCCAGWGSS) are vicious little troglodytes utterly convinced of their group mediated moral rectitude and intellectual astuteness – and who regard resistance by the morally repugnant and intellectually inadequate – as well as incomprehension of their superlative intellectual and moral standing from the great unwashed– as futile.
Lennart Bengtsson is the example de jour. Who can doubt that he has been lectured, berated and bullied by hordes of vicious little troglodytes. It is not as if it is unprecedented. Most of them then feel justified that he has recanted and rejoined the fold. Some feel he has made his bed and should be stripped of every honour and distinction before being cast into the outer darkness – where there shall be gnashing of teeth etc.
They alternate between butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths qui moi and vindictive decalarations that he deserved everything he got. Instructive but hardly news.
Judith –
Here’s a fascinating comment from you from a couple of days ago:
Indeed. Move on to better and more interesting things, eh?
Compare and contrast:
I have to say, Judith, it appears more and more that you have flat out given up trying to have any consistency in your standards. I suppose that it coincides with your admitted trajectory into the land o’ “skepticism.”
Well, rest assured. The longer you follow your trajectory, the more you will find unskeptical adoration from at least 1/2 of the climate battlefield. Certainly, the less you will have to feel any effects from tribalism from the other side, as you will be well-protected by your tribe.
Certainly, the less you will have to feel any effects from tribalism from the other side, as you will be well-protected by your tribe.
Which is the point Roy Spencer has reached — having completely divorced himself from mainstream science, left fuming on his blog about why no one respect him.
Which climate scientists engaged in that behavior?
Frederick Seitz, for one, to his everlasting shame.
You can go read the history for yourself.
Joshua,
Aren’t you going to take yes for an answer?
http://judithcurry.com/2014/05/23/how-simple-is-simple/#comment-568154
Judith Curry wrote:
“Can climate scientists please stop the intimidation, bullying, shunning and character assassination of other scientists who they find ‘not helpful’ to their cause?”
This is laughable. You certainly are not unaware of the history of abuse heaped on Schneider, Santer, Mann, and others for their scientific findings.
So why are you pretending otherwise?
Mann has gotten mockery, mostly.
It seems Gaia has wiped away Santer’s fingerprints.
Mann has gotten mockery, mostly.
Mann had to all the police after receiving an envelope containing white powder.
Some mockery.
“This is laughable. You certainly are not unaware of the history of abuse heaped on Schneider, Santer, Mann, and others for their scientific findings.”
Which climate scientists engaged in that behavior? Is this constant misinterpretation of the written word intentional?
It seems Gaia has wiped away Santer’s fingerprints.
“Identifying human influences on atmospheric temperature,” Benjamin D. Santer et al, PNAS 2012
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/11/28/1210514109.full.pdf
Mann is a setup for mockery. I mean, it’s sad for people trying to make a science of climate science – I don’t think it’s possible except in very small pieces – but the rest of us like his self-esteem and the contrast with reality.
It gives climate science a black eye if you have a stake in climate science as a field, but hey.
David – link, please. Be sure it is a better link than when you insisted that “the hockey stick doens’t go past about 1970-1980, due to the divergence problem.” http://judithcurry.com/2014/03/05/lewis-and-crok-climate-less-sensitive-to-co2-than-models-suggest/#comment-476077
George: The hockey stick doens’t go past about 1970-1980, due to the divergence problem.
Link:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v392/n6678/abs/392779a0.html
This is one of the ironies that I particularly like. The Crook’t Hockey Stick, bogus as the shaft was, would have a frightfully disfigured blade were it brought current through this pause.
=========
David – you must be joking. Your link is to a paywalled article. Clearly you have never read it. I found a free version, which shows you to be incorrect.
George: I assure you, I have read MBH98 more than once.
See their Figure 5b, page 783. Notice where the heavy black line ends.
Heh, ever read, or understood, the ‘Censored’ directory?
============
kim,
” The Crook’t Hockey Stick, bogus as the shaft was, would have a frightfully disfigured blade were it brought current through this pause.”
You misunderestimate the awesome power of Mannian statistics.
You misunderestimate the awesome power of Mannian statistics.
Completely different statistics have found that same result:
“Novel Analysis Confirms Climate “Hockey Stick” Graph,” Scientific American, November 2009, pp 21-22.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=still-hotter-than-ever
Heh, has David read or understood the comments to his own article?
==================
David dear, you have read a wrong article. The hockey stick article is MBH99. If that’s incorrect, please report it to Wikipedia.
Grrrrh … the hockey stick GRAPH article is MBH99, sorry.
Mann et al’s hockey stick was first published in 1998:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v392/n6678/abs/392779a0.html
And the police report detailing this alleged incident – and confirming the contents of this alleged envelope – is available exactly where?! Please do tell, Mr. Appell!
Sociologist Joseph R. Gusfield, in a book that I have misplaced but I think is called Contested Meanings, goes into the usual route to power.
1. Identify a new “public problem.” It may have been normal life before, or a personal moral failing. Now it’s a public problem.
2. Take ownership of the problem.
3. Stress that the debate is already over. Everything has been decided.
He has a series of books all around the same sociological organizing phenomenon.
So it’s not as if this is new terriroty.
The coming Ice Age, oil running out, acid rain, Pershing deployment in Europe, SDI, Satanic child abuse, vCJD and Global warming/Climate Change
The dangers of tobacco, and air pollution; and lead paint and leaded gasoline; and the indiscriminate use of pesticides, the early warnings about CO2 warming, the destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain (largely controlled in the US via cap-and-trade), the predicted (1978) irreversible melting of the WAIS, global warming/climate change,
David, where is the evidence that CO2 can be equated to pollution? Are there not negative feedbacks present in the earth’s climate system that have and will keep temperature within relatively narrow bounds? Why won’t those work today?
The extremity of viewpoint, the intolerance to others, the nastiness of behavior, the rudeness and disrespect, the certainty with which they view uncertain data, and all the other traits exhibited by climate scientists of one persuasion to another, is exhibited quite generally, with amplification, right here on this Blog by commentators. (e.g. Generalissimo, Springer, Fan, …)
Et tu, Beaut?
=====
Donald Rapp has been asked to toe the line by fellow skeptics.
Then again we are just pizza delivery people so it doesn’t matter – eh Donald? And my identity is open secret – although part of the game of the nom de geurre is to neither confirm or deny.
Mostly I find it amusing when I am bored and want to try for some actual humour and wit on a site that is sadly diminished – or when someone makes an especially compelling case for the intervention of a climate warrior – and part time pizza delivery person – on a blue horse called Shibboleth. Didn’t get that? I’ll try harder to take him less seriously than he takes himself.
Basically – we faced a choice of accepting holus bolus a quite simplistic theory that seems motivated by being smarter than blogs he didn’t read – as offering additional tit bits like evaporation, actual global energetics as measured by satellite and a nuanced interpretation of ocean heat content got us declared persona non grata pizza delivery people.
Give it up Donald – you are flogging a cold pizza.
Donald Rapp
Sounds like you’ve had a bellyfull as of late. That is understandable.
Donald Rapp,
Indeets!
I agree!
+100
Peter
I take it we have got past your intemperate and heavily moderated – libelous – and ethically questionable commentary?
Perhaps you missed the part about pizza delivery – getting beaten by wives – or at least not getting any? Such an example for us all.
From the article:
…
A common corrupt path to scientific success is to discover and overpromote a new danger; perhaps something that causes cancer, hurts children, or poisons the environment. The scientists who discover and overpromote the new danger become heroes and get more grants and more money.
Take, for example, the government program to fight radon pollution. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that comes from the decay of trace amounts of radioactive isotopes in the soil. In some areas people have “high” levels of radon. It is alleged that the radon seeping into houses causes lung cancer. The scientific evidence for the radon program is based on dubious theory not backed by good statistical evidence. But radon is a gift that keeps on giving, providing jobs and grants.
Acid rain (scary sounding) is caused by sulfur emissions from burning coal in electrical generating plants. In a 1984 editorial the New York Times said: “…the warning signs — dead lakes, damaged crops, forests of stunted trees – presage a massive natural disaster.” Acid rain turned out to be a tempest in a teacup. The government program to ameliorate acid rain cost the economy billions and only has a target of reducing sulfur emissions by half. If acid rain is so dangerous, why does the government only cut it by half?
Some other science-based scare stories include: asbestos, DDT, lead, plutonium, nuclear power, the ozone hole, species extinction, vaccines causing autism, power lines causing cancer, fracking, second hand smoke, ocean acidification, global cooling and the biggest scare, global warming. Typically, there is a core of real science behind each scare and then the danger is blown up out of all proportion to the real danger.
…
http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/05/the_corruption_of_science.html
Wow. This is exactly why people like you are called “deniers.” I couldn’t have proven it better myself.
Appell catches on, well, a little. The common thread among ‘deniers’ is incredulity at future catastrophe. That was the error made by the alarmists in the first place. But, I guess they just couldn’t help themselves. Hubris, nemesis, the eternal dance step.
===========
The catastrophe de jour is the necessary justification for the neo-UNtopia. This is not something we could ever dream up by ourselves. We get it from the lips of horses arses themselves.
Appell – AM didn’t say there was no science at all behind these “terrors.” They said the effects were exaggerated and in some cases the evidence weak.
Well, it must be a quiet week in the climate blogosophere – interesting to have William Connolley, Victor Venema, Pointman and David Appell show up here.
Apparently unlike other sites, my linking to or quoting from a post does not imply my personal endorsement of the entire post or everything that person has ever said. I highlight what I think are interesting arguments or statements that are worth discussing.
Sensitive plants. Someone touched a magic spot.
=========
interesting to have William Connolley, Victor Venema, Pointman and David Appell show up here.
You sound like you’d prefer applause, not a readership who can think for themselves.
My preference is for people who make interesting comments – topical, well-argued, logical, with evidence
Interesting how David interpret’s Judy’s interest. Three cheers for his dumb show.
======
Always a pleasure to visit and sit for a spell, Miss Judy. Sorry if I trailed in some dirt on my boots.
Pointman
How does her comment sound like Judith would prefer applause, apple? She doesn’t censor or complain about your gratuitous insults. Why don’t you apologize for coming into Judith’s parlor and pissing on her floor.
That’s stuff is not dirt, or Shinola that you trailed in here on your boots, Pointman.
My preference is for people who make interesting comments – topical, well-argued, logical, with evidence
Which we are doing more than your usual band. You’re welcome.
Heh, Appell protesting his authority, Connolley protesting his innocence, Joshua protesting, futilely, his sophistry, willard protesting, nay squealing.
=======================
Yup, a quite weak in the blogosphere.
=============
Where is your evidence for the death threats against climate scientistas, apple?
Maybe you just manage to outdo yourself in terms of hypocrisy and cant?
It is an entertaining spectacle.
Hi Don. Ta for the compliment but It was a circumspect reference to Willy Boy. Just trying to keep the tone up. Youse guys get to suffer that high pitched whine now …
Pointman
> It [“dirt”] was a circumspect reference to Willy Boy.
So was “Shinola”, Pointy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinola
Heh, the Four Line-Toers of the Thermocalypse. Little do they know the line they toe is attached to their toes, and towing them.
=============
Judith Curry,
Thank you for your posts, and the range of perspectives you cover. Much appreciated.
Australia is experiencing extremely unpleasant Left orchestrated vitriol against anyone who dares to disagree with their ideological beliefs. They are going to extreme lengths to prevent debate that does not suit their agendas. The language of hate they use, and their efforts to prevent anything being said they don’t approve of is surprising. There are some example son a recent post by Don Aitkin (an occasional commenter on Climate Etc.) on this recent post. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16331
David Appell’s comments suggest he is one of those extremest Lefties who is overcome by hate and wants to prevent serious discussion about issues such as climate change and the appropriate policies needed to address it, or not.
David Appell’s comments suggest he is one of those extremest Lefties
Leftist? Protecting the commons is a *libertarian* idea, a conservative idea — no one gets to pollute it, without paying the cost of the damage they cause.
Do you really think you should not pay the cost of the damages of your pollution?
If not, are you OK with your neighbor dumping his trash in your yard? Because it would save him a good bit of money….
–Leftist? Protecting the commons is a *libertarian* idea, a conservative idea — no one gets to pollute it, without paying the cost of the damage they cause.
Do you really think you should not pay the cost of the damages of your pollution? —
Is this the pollution which must be created by living sentient being?
Is the pollution of breathing?
By what realm of twistedness requires libertarians to imagine that by increasing taxes that this could solve anything.
How could this be considered sane, particularly when majority politicians are unable to have fiscal responsible and continue to place mountain of debt upon the nation?
Even in world where politicians were not excessively greedy and corrupt,
why would one want to encourage them to be so?
Breathing is carbon neutral.
If you don’t know that, you don’t know much of anything.
They haven’t so much sold their souls to big oil and industrial corruption, worse – they’ve given their souls away for free
David Appell | May 25, 2014 at 3:11 am |
Breathing is carbon neutral.
If you don’t know that, you don’t know much of anything.
_________________
So please, what isn’t carbon neutral? Last time I checked it’s pretty hard to destroy a carbon atom.
> I highlight what I think are interesting arguments or statements that are worth discussing.
Some might say you’re jumping the shark, Judy.
Tomato, tomacco.
Yah, tobacco interests, another awkward inapt analogy for the information deprived. So what’s your excuse, willard?
========
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Tomacco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Products_produced_from_The_Simpsons#Tomacco
Yay Fonzie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpraJYnbVtE
Next we jump right over the “Auditor” as a road bump on the way to somewhere interesting and relevant.
Heh, too much family, eh, willard? Home is where they have to take you when you show up.
==========
You might also like:
http://thepolicylass.org/2011/01/16/denial-chum-curry-style/
More than three years ago, imagine that.
Hoohah, policy wonk hat-tipping willard. There’s a crowd to appreciate you, willard.
=========
By some do you mean someone outside the Shrilldom?
“Judith is jumping the shark” is a meme that has surfaced frequently over the past 3 years.
And yet Judith is still here, still invited to speak, still invited to testify before Congress. This despite being vilified in every venue in Shrilldom. She has paid for voicing her concerns.
But she’s still here. Sadly, so are you, willard.
Here’s one sentence:
> She has paid for voicing her concerns.
Here’s the next one:
> But she’s still here, still invited to speak, still invited to testify before Congress.
A steep price that was.
In my opinion the largest unknown in climate science is the extent to which the CO2 molecule can absorb (and emit) IR radiation at tropospheric temperatures. Because carbon is an isotopic element i.e. having a varying number of neutrons, and neutrons have heavy mass, then energy absorbing vibrations can vary. Typically such vibrations would change as step functions which is why I have often referred to climate as having an on/off properties..This can explain the 1940 temperature singularity.
It follows that if we can predict the sequence of future vibration modes, we can predict future climate. Some may object that gases also absorb energy by kinetic motion, but in that regard CO2 is little different from N2,the latter being much more populous in the atmosphere.
Sigh.
Because carbon is an isotopic element i.e. having a varying number of neutrons, and neutrons have heavy mass, then energy absorbing vibrations can vary.
Except carbon isotopic ratios for CO2 aren’t changing nearly fast enough for this to be a significant factor. See
“Stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry in global climate change research,”
Prosenjit Ghosh and Willi A. Brand, International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 228 (2003) 1–33.
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf
Also, I’d like to see the absorption spectrum of CO2 with its various isotopes of carbon.
David: No one knew how fast the neutron population was changing in 1940. It is likely that the neutron population varied to some extent depending on where the parent fuel came from, before 1940, most of the world’s fuel probably came from West Texas. Because of the activities of Uboats in the Atlantic, it is likely that other sources of fuel were tapped i.e. middle east in 1940.
Skippy: thank you for your sigh.
There aren’t proxies of the isotopes of atmospheric CO2?
And I’d still like to see the difference in CO2’s absorption spectrum, based on its different isotopes. Where is that data?
As I have sighed before Alexander – the C14/C12 ratio is about 1.3E-12. Far from sufficient to make much difference. The CO2 absorption is undifferentiated – it all absorbs in the same narrow bands. This is the result of the vibrational modes of the molecules – which is a function of valence shell bonding and not atomic mass of the central carbon atom. Changes in energy states as quantum vibrational transitions are the basis of the statistical thermodynamic expectation that the heat of the parcel will increase with the number of CO2 molecules. Statistical thermodynamics do not have quantum states.
Your ‘singularity’ is the result of macroscopic changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation and not changes in quantum vibrational states of individual molecules.
I have been polite – and I have said this again just yesterday – but the truth is that your that your theory is astonishing, utterly unphysical nonsense that you have made up by linking an idea that applies to the very small to the behavior of the very big system to which in no way ever could it realistically apply.
“anyone who wishes to participate in the public debate on climate change should do so knowing how the politics are played today — dirty, nasty, destructive.” I agree with this statement. – JC
Well, you’d know Judith, being at the forefront of such behaviour for almost a decade.
Remember the Gray affair?
Judith was leading the charge in “the intimidation, bullying, shunning and character assassination of other scientists who they find ‘not helpful’ to their cause”
What’s changed since then? Nothing, Judith just use her blog to the same effect; all the broadbrush smears that she refuses to back up with details, or retract.
True to form, there’s plenty of that in this latest rhetorical excess.
Look at this for an amazing example of a expert exponent of the art of innuendo and smear;
“I have heard that a number of leading scientists are pretty disgusted….” -JC
“heard” – rumour.
“a number” – one??
Well played! – another smear against every scientist in the field based on a rumour.
“What concerns me greatly is other scientists behaving in a dirty, nasty and destructive way, in other words, playing dirty politics with their science.” – JC
Concern is good.
But maybe for now we might have to start with getting some to tone down their self-indulgent self-righteousness about ” behaving in a dirty, nasty and destructive way” while simultaneously ” behaving in a dirty, nasty and destructive way…playing dirty politics with their science”.
Here’s an interesting thought – we run a poll amongst climate scientists and ask them whom amongst their profession they think is most guilty of;
“intimidation, bullying, shunning and character assassination of other scientists who they find ‘not helpful’ to their cause? ”
My impression is that Judith Curry would come out somewhere near the top, possibly even No.1.
> Remember the Gray affair?
No, Michael.
Citation needed.
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2006/02/speaking-of-hurricanes-off-season-fireworks/
It was a misquote, but I definitely learned something from that episode, and I have discussed it extensively elsewhere in the blogosphere
Thanks, Michael:
Interesting.
That is, topical, well-argued, logical, with evidence.
“brain fossilization” was a misquote? That’s a very colorful phrase that a journalist would naturally note and remember….
Did the journalist agree it was a misquote?
willard got a big clue. Will he break the field to the goal? News @ 11.
=============
Assuming the accuracy of that article (the link to the supposed interview does not work), it is no surprise. Dr. Curry used to speak the language of her tribe. As she has become more intellectually independent, she has also increasingly left behind the condescending, insulting language that is the lingua franca of progressivism.
Evidence of plasticity fuels the fossils, trapped in a late 20th Century narrative tar pit.
===========
Yes, GaryM, Judy’s becoming conservative.
Does it mean she’ll take Lennart’s place at the GWPF?
I hope you don’t mind that thatcherism’s economic ideology may have been liberal.
What’s amusing is progressives lapsing into liberalism.
==============
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/05/u-s-republicans-critical-thinking-on-climate-change/#comment-375291
willard,
“…thatcherism’s economic ideology may have been liberal.”
Oh no, don’t venture into economics. I am not sure I can take the hilarity.
I remember once when Tobis tried to explain to me that Obama’s economic policy was straight out of the Chicago School (and he was not referring to Obama’s attendance there). You guys crack me up.
I’ll take Thatcher’s word over yours, if you don’t mind, GaryM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatcherism
***
Oh, and for your own hilarity:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122610604643110229
“Whatever Milton Friedman believed in 1950.”
I like this way of putting things.
Oh, you little old ‘outside perceiver’, you. Yeah, data stinks, unless it’s adjustable, persnikkety purveyor of unfortunate circumstantial data.
=================
willard,
Seriously, did you actually read what you posted, and not understand it? Or are you suggesting that when you wrote your comment today that Thatcher’s view were “liberal” you were using the term as it was used in the 19th century?
Word games? Really? That’s not just juvenile, it’s boring.
Data is in the drive of the beholder.
> Or are you suggesting that when you wrote your comment today that Thatcher’s view were “liberal” you were using the term as it was used in the 19th century?
Yes, GaryM, I actually read Wiki pages when quoting them. In fact, sometimes I even read them before that:
http://www.staatvanhetklimaat.nl/2014/05/14/bengtsson-resigns-from-the-gwpf/#comment-8097
Notice the timestamp.
Thank you, by the way, for the training on the “but it’s conservative!” trick that Herman tried on me at Marcel’s.
The only serious gig you shown so far is the dash of populism.
‘Liberalism’, what strange territory for the few adventurers. Goreblimey, it’s the Heart of Darkness.
===========
willard,
Now you’re trying to be obscurantist rather than cryptic. You should leave that to Mosher. He’s better at it.
Bah, I can’t get no respect. What’s great about moshe is that he strives for clarity.
========
Here’s what it was, GaryM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwnwbG9YLE
Loosen up, man.
curryja | May 24, 2014 at 9:38 pm |
“It was a misquote…”
Very possible – maybe Judith said “petrified brains”.
Possible all copletely false – except for the patten of behaviour which suggests an alarming consistency of “behaving in a dirty, nasty and destructive way”.
More recently, remember Muller – Judith again attacking fellow scientist via media.
Then the repititious borad brush smears – the IPCC “cabal” , “thought police”, and more lately, and even more ridiculously, “McCarthyism”.
Then the use of the media to atack Mann – we’ll ‘media’ (yes, scare quotes) – the repetitive linking to, and quoting of, the lowest gutter-dwellling, bottom-feeding trash tabloid ‘journalism’ (AKA Mark Stetn) to attack a fellow scientist.
A pattern of behaviour.
Over a lengthy period.
This leopard won’t be changing its’ spots.
But CONCERN. But INTEGRITY.
more OT: it is worse than useless to throw around the term “liberal” in reference to Thatcher without distinguishing between “egalitarian” liberalism ala Rawls, Dworkin et al. (with whom she did not identify) and the far more free-market “classical” liberalism of Hayek and Friedman (in different ways).
Certainly Thatcher claimed to be deeply influenced and connected with Hayek and Friedman as “liberals” — but not with late 20th century “re-distributionist” liberalism:
http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/lady_thatchers_relationship_with_friedrich_hayek_and_milton_friedman
> It is worse than useless to throw around the term “liberal” […]
That American neo-cons decided to denigrate their opponents using the epithet that serves as a foundation to their own economic ideology is the lesser of my concerns.
It was a reference to the last discussion I had with GaryM, Skiphil:
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/03/week-in-review-10/#comment-433578
Sometimes I think Denizens restart new threads in tabula rasa.
Hope this helps [1].
[1] See? that’s a reference between you and me, Skiphil.
“That American neo-cons decided to denigrate their opponents using the epithet…”
Yeah…uh…no. Progressives started calling themselves liberals long before there was any thing such as a neo-con. Progressivism got a bad name because of the honesty of its original adherents, and their fondness for eugenics, prohibition, and fascism in general.
“Liberal” was used by progressives as a nom de plume from roughly the 40s, until the policies of Lyndon Johnson, George McGovern, and Jimmy Carter et al started to give the word “liberal” a bad name. It started to poll test badly, and progressive/liberal candidates like Bill Clinton had to start denying they were liberal.
I remember a floor speech, I think it was in the House, where a Republican called a Democrat a liberal. The target of this horrific insult then took to the floor and denounced the Republican for engaging in the “politics of personal destruction.”
Now progressives are trying to avoid a label at all, hence their faux claim to be against “ideology.” Rather than favor their usual menu of central planning policies, they couch everything in terms of “fairness” and “for the children.” It is merely a coincidence that the policies of fairness and for the children just happen to require enactment of the same progressive agenda they have been pushing since the 20s and 30s. Centralized planning of healthcare, energy policy, basically the entire economy.
The “third way” of the non-liberals Tony Blair and Bill Clinton was already tried. It was the economic system in Germany, Italy and Japan in the 1930s and 40s.
Progressives (the activists, not the default progressives commenting here) have to obscure the terms of the debate. If they were honest with the stupid voters, they would never gain the power they so desperately desire.
GaryM revises history again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States
Lawyers are paid to exploit equivocations like that all the time, and to distance themselves from their own fabrication of straw men. Not unlike the Auditor does when he trademarked “The Team” to refer to the Kyoto Flames:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/thekyotoflames
The excuse (“but they used them first!”) is even the same.
Neverendingamusement is watching progressives lapse into liberalism.
====================
Actually, the opposite happened.
How can they look into my eyes
And still they don’t believe me ?
How can they hear me say those words
Still they don’t believe me ?
Yeah, no offense, but if you feel bullied by Dr. Curry, it is way too late to even worry about big boy pants. You want one of my granddaughter’s pacifiers?
Seriously, don’t leave the house. You’ll never survive.
“I have heard”???? You – a scientist – offering hearsay? A standard of evidence below even the notoriously unreliable eyewitness? Undermines any credibility you claim
“Are climate scientists being forced to toe the line?”
Forced?
Of course not; don’t be silly.
Unless they want to be published in the mainstream scientific media, continue receiving research grants, be considered for tenure, be invited to attend/speak at international conferences (all expenses paid, naturally), etc, etc.
Unless they want to be published in the mainstream scientific media,
If they do, then they shouldn’t submit obviously bad papers. like Bengtsson did to ERL.
And if they do, they shouldn’t whine to the press when they are rejected — they should correct them and resubmit, like every other scientist out there.
Bengtsson demonstrates that climate models are unfit for policy. Tell me, David, how does he correct that error?
==============
Bengtsson and Schwartz had a recent paper in Tellus where they observationally derived a lower limit of 2 C per doubling for the sensitivity in agreement with AR4. This would be sufficient for policy alone. You don’t need models.
I would also note that Bengtsson attributes all the warming since 1970 to GHGs, so he may not be the ally the skeptics think he is. OK, he criticizes models, but in these other areas he is mainstream.
My Gosh, how cold we’d be without AnthroGHGs. Cold, and not even pausing, but chilling.
==========
Silence is consent. Until those”leading scientists” start speaking out – as you have done – they are complicit in the action. There will always be mindless sycophants like Apple. The true moral scientists will not bow down to the dunning herd.
I have a model that can accurately predict all the wars in the 21st century. I can prove my model’s accuracy. It correctly hindcasted the 1st World War, the 2nd World War, and the Vietnamese War.
I have a similar model that successfully picks the winners of horse races
Judy Curry asked:
“Can climate scientists please stop the intimidation, bullying, shunning and character assassination of other scientists who they find ‘not helpful’ to their cause?”
Judy,
Excessive arguing is unhealthy. I suggest giving more priority to harmony & civility.
You have control locally at least.
If I were in your position I would permanently ban rude, negative Climate Etc. commentators who bully, harass, etc. I would do this immediately and I would not look back.
With a cleaner environment you can attract brighter contributors capable of contributing positively.
Regards
“Excessive arguing is unhealthy. I suggest giving more priority to harmony & civility.”
You mean let’s go for total congenial dishonesty?
The “advocates” (gag, choke on the obfuscation of the term) are here because they are being outed. Thread jacking, smoke and mirrors,
ad hominems, strawmen, authority appeals (we are SCIENCE, YOU ARE NOTHING) is the response. Then comes the inverted meme management; “you’re one too” (h/t, Joshua) in five year old speak.
The Der Spiegel story cuts right to the bone of the phony advocate culture and spells it right out (in wimpy fashion of course, that’s the protocol in leftist circles and media), a line towing climate orthodox publication if ever there was one, which makes the pain only that much greater to “advocates”. Who of course are left-wing operatives, selling a dying 45 year old save-the-Earth collectivist meme to empower themselves and more importantly in their minds assault (wealth redistribute, control, silence) their enemies (free citizens).
Paul you sound like a conformist character. The fact is when the topic is honest and revealing this is the way it’s always going to go. While skeptics have many sides there really is only one monolithic subplot to AGW advocacy; central planning and authority over individuals. It’s right out of an Orwellian distopia. AGW is a brutal, totalitarian human impulse and we should exchange candy and flowers when we discuss it? I’ll give Dr. Curry credit for being a light censor, it’s ugly here because climate politics is about as ugly and deceitful as it gets. Paul, what do think the U.N. and global collectivists are dreaming up for you, your country and your grandchildren in the climate meme? How exactly does that get blog sanitized?
It’s right out of an Orwellian distopia.
Is that the best hyperbole you can muster? I think you can do better, if you really try.
Did the cap-and-trade that diminished acid rain bring a totalitarian hell onto the country?
Or the protocols that saved the ozone layer?
Or do you think you should be allowed to degrade the Commons without consequence, all so you can greedily save a few dollars a month?
A warmer world sustains more total life and more diversity of life. How dare you monopoly money my commons.
=================
“Or the protocols that saved the ozone layer?”
Mythology. http://junkscience.com/2013/08/08/myth-montreal-protocol-saved-the-ozone-layer/
Acid rain? Pure greenshirt garbage;
http://junkscience.com/2014/02/11/remember-acid-rain-what-a-crock/
You’re a waste of time David, legendary in that regard. I’ll let others address the other bogus points.
The ozone layer is doing exactly what it was doing before humans did anything.
The ozone hole has stopped growing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Observations_on_ozone_layer_depletion
Acid rain is decreasing:
http://climatechangenationalforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/LewesAcidRainGraph.jpg
Just fire the discordant political dark agents Judy. Arguing with them is a complete waste of time.
4-3-2-1…
Sensibly Reinterpreting ERSST EOFs is as Easy as 1234…
(It’s the sun & the moon, stupid.)
What protocols that saved the ozone layer, David? The ozone layer is doing exactly what it was doing before humans did anything. And the “It’ll take decades or centuries” is pure garbage.
OTOH, WHAT cap and trade that diminished acid rain? The only thing cap and trade did was to make millions for Al Gore & Co.
As for the subject of Dr Curry’s post – Oh, yeah, do I have some stories about that. But not tonight. We’ll do that tomorrow.
The ozone hole has stopped growing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Observations_on_ozone_layer_depletion
Acid rain is decreasing:
http://climatechangenationalforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/LewesAcidRainGraph.jpg
…. But CO2 emissions are increasing. Interesting
David Appell
Ozone hole stopped growing? That is a little selective
‘The area of the ozone hole reached a maximum of 24.0 million km2 on 16 September according to OMI data from NASA. This is more than in 2012 and 2010, but less than in 2011. Data from KNMI, based on GOME-2, show that the ozone hole area averaged over the ten last days of September was 20.9 million km2. This is more than in 2012 but less than in 2010 and 2011. The ozone mass deficit averaged over the same period was 19.59 megatonnes. This is more than in 2010 and 2012 but less than in 2011. The results are similar for the average ozone hole area and ozone mass deficit for the time period from 7 September to 13 October. If one considers the last twenty ozone holes (1994 until present), fifteen ozone holes have been larger/deeper than in 2013 and only four have been smaller (2002, 2004, 2010, 2012). ‘
http://www.theozonehole.com/2013ozonehole.htm
Of greater interest is to determine whether or not the ozone hole has always been a permanent feature of Antarctica. I asked both the Max Plank institute and Cambridge University if the hole might have existed prior to it being discovered in the 1950’s when measurements became available and they said they didn’t know. Perhaps you do? I see William is here who might have direct knowledge. Perhaps he knows?
tonyb
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/egee102/files/egee102/files/Lesson_03/graph5.JPG
Iolwot
Why have you linked to a single graph that shows the ozone hole size has stalled, as per my comment?
Perhaps you could answer my question that the Max Plank Institute and Cambridge University were unable to answer?
tonyb
I thought you were questioning it.
The size of the ozone hole has varied over the years. There has been no evidence that it was ever actually decreasing – or that anything humans have done or could do would induce it to decrease. While I have not looked at the data for several years, the responses here are entirely unsatisfactory. If the best you can do is Wiki, then you’re not talking science but opinion.
As for acid rain, of course it’s decreasing. The statement was inane and unnecessary and a distraction from the subject at hand from the start.
But then I promised you a story last night. I’ll keep it short and the name will be changed to protect the real scientist. Long ago I worked with a scientist that I respected because he was honest. Not all of them are. So one day I asked his opinion of what was then called Global Warming. This was prior to the onset of the “pause”. and Joe (not his name) said, in essence, that the evidence was much too weak to support the claims that were being made at the time. But the story got better – because he said, to put it bluntly, that he HAD TO support those claims or he would lose his job and his career. He was really hopeful that the science would win, but it didn’t. Instead, the Hockey Stick and the IPCC ran over his hopes – and the science. After that, I made a practice of asking scientists what they thought about the subject. And most of them agreed with Joe – that their careers depended on toeing the line and that they hated the pretense. Note that I had worked with some of these scientists for years. I was not a stranger. Nor was I ignorant of the science or of the data.
So – are climate scientists being forced to toe the line? You betcha. And after the recent incident, any argument about it is either ignorance or malice – or stupidity. I know – that’s not nice. TS, Kiddies. It’s reality .
I wonder if Bengtsson realizes that the “pressure” he’s experienced to date will continue – that his mea culpa will not bring forgiveness because he has become the enemy and can no longer be trusted?
This isn’t the science that I spent most of my life with. In fact, it’s not science at all. And I’m happy that I don’t need the job any more. But I probably will bother some of you again in the future. Especially if I run across the occasional outrageous idiocies that sometimes grab my attention.
Off topic, but interesting.
About the other dismal science.
” Piketty’s data is simply so incomplete and so sensitive that it’s not sufficient to make up the empirical half of his grand theory of the fate of capitalist societies — and therefore certainly not sufficient to justify the policies he recommends (an 80 percent top income tax rate and a global tax on wealth) to avoid that fate.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/378751/piketty-fraud-patrick-brennan
Limited data, dodgy statistics, confirmation bias, and cherry picking.
Sound familiar?
Heh, the Hero of Europe, but what the heck did they do to deserve that?
============
As if the National Review is the last word on anything.
I wouldn’t even rule this a good try. It’s a lousy try.
GaryM
+1
David Appell,
ofc this is OT, but your sneering remark is a prime example of how NOT to conduct any rational discussions about science, data, public policy, social science, etc. Contrary to your brusque dismissal, the National Review piece didn’t pretend to be any “last word” on anything, as you would know if you had actually looked at the piece. In fact, it tentatively references another NR piece which in turn explicitly acknowledges depending upon the analysis of data in the Financial Times….. and the NR author explicitly qualifies the entire discussion with various caveats and lack of finality and need for more research and better data:
http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/378742/are-there-problems-pikettys-data-course-patrick-brennan
Soooo, your sneer that the NR is not the “final word” is just silly, irrelevant, and ignorant, kind of like what you purport to disdain in so many others online. No one was claiming the NR piece was any final word….. Does this sound like any pretense at a “final word” — [emphasis added]
The national review lol, why not just link to mein kampf?
Aaaaand….lolwot goes Godwin for the win!
i was just being an idiot
Of course Krugman had his automatic sneering defense at the ready in the NYT”s. Or at least I assume it was a sneering defense as I didn’t have the stomach to read it. Can someone surprise me…I should say shock me…with the news that I have it all wrong?
No? Didn’t think so.
The Big K kneejerked his foot into his mouth.
========
More one this:
…
The central theme of Prof Piketty’s work is that wealth inequalities are heading back up to levels last seen before the first world war. The investigation undercuts this claim, indicating there is little evidence in Prof Piketty’s original sources to bear out the thesis that an increasing share of total wealth is held by the richest few.
Prof Piketty, 43, provides detailed sourcing for his estimates of wealth inequality in Europe and the US over the past 200 years. In his spreadsheets, however, there are transcription errors from the original sources and incorrect formulas. It also appears that some of the data are cherry-picked or constructed without an original source.
…
For example, once the FT cleaned up and simplified the data, the European numbers do not show any tendency towards rising wealth inequality after 1970. An independent specialist in measuring inequality shared the FT’s concerns.
…
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/e1f343ca-e281-11e3-89fd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz32ihSl8VL
Meanwhile, the general public’s concern about climate change/climate chaos/climate weirdness plummets to new lows, as does the reputation of ‘climate science’.
Viewed from outside you seem like a particularly ill-disciplined bunch of precocious, but not very bright kids arguing over nothing very much in particular, but expecting Bank of Mom and Pop to fund your little games.
I think the appropriate phrase is ‘spoilt brats’. Grow up.
+1
Ref: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/19/Gallup-Only-3-Call-Environment-Most-Important-Problem
We’re the kids in America …
Equating the most important problem facing the country with a lack of concern about anything else is quite frankly deceptive.
I know Lennart Bengtsson as one of the reviewers of a paper of mine that was published in Tellus B a year ago. This was a paper was part of the Bert Bolin Symposium held in Stockholm in May 2012. In this paper I describe in detail why it is that atmospheric CO2 is the principal LW control knob that governs the global surface temperature of Earth. For those interested, this paper is available via the GISS webpage at http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/la06400p.html
In writing this paper, I wanted to formulate the discussion of the global warming problem in terms of the basic physics involved, rather than presenting it as just another climate modeling exercise.
The other reviewer of this paper was Ray Pierrehumbert. Lennart Bengtsson is a classical meteorologist with decades of experience in that field; he also has a good understanding of atmospheric physics. Ray Pierrehumbert is known as an outspoken climate scientist; his recent book Principles of Planetary Climate describes well his credentials as a knowledgeable expert in climate science. Both reviewers had numerous criticisms on various aspects of my original manuscript. These criticisms led to a much improved paper, and I stated so in the acknowledgments. The kind of review that I wouldn’t like to see is one that says “Great paper! Publish as is!” To me, a review like that would be a clear indication that the reviewer most likely never read the paper, or simply did not care enough about the topic to express an opinion.
At 25 pages, the paper is a bit long, but it is composed of six distinct sections that are largely self-contained. RP thought the paper was at best a review paper with little new material; he thought that my comparison of the terrestrial greenhouse effect and those of Mars and Venus was weak; he objected to my describing the greenhouse effect as being driven by solar radiation; he liked the section demonstrating the fast-feedback response of water vapor feedback; but he thought that the section on radiative transfer was unnecessary and should have been deleted; and, RP was unhappy with the way I characterized of the run-away greenhouse aspect of ever increasing CO2 in the terrestrial atmosphere.
LB, on the other hand, rather liked the radiative transfer section and thought it provided a useful description of how radiative transfer was calculated; he wanted more discussion of how the greenhouse effect could be evaluated by direct observation; he also wanted more discussion on the nature of feedback effects, and thought that cloud feedback effects were handled poorly, in particular the cloud solar albedo component. LB also raised the issue of transient climate sensitivity vs equilibrium sensitivity. (The paper addresses the equilibrium sensitivity, and not the transient response, except in demonstrating the fast-feedback response of water vapor).
Both reviewers suggested multiple improvements to get the historical facts about the greenhouse effect described and referenced more accurately. Neither reviewer questioned the validity of the main theme of the paper, i.e., that atmospheric CO2 is the principal LW control knob of the terrestrial climate system.
Addressing all of these concerns and criticisms resulted in the quality paper as it now stands. Accordingly, I have absolutely no criticism to direct toward Lennart Bengtsson. What the current GWPF-Bengtsson brewhaha is all about, I really don’t know. And, I am not sufficiently motivated to investigate further. I have seen it pop up on Foxnews, and can surmise that Foxnews would not hesitate to spin and inflate any minor incident into another “climategate” conspiracy.
There are more than a few topics in the climate system where uncertainty abounds. But there are also some aspects of the global climate system that are quite well established and documented, such as the human-caused increase in atmospheric CO2, and the radiative effect of this CO2 increase to intensify the strength of the terrestrial greenhouse effect, thus causing global warming and the accelerated melting of polar ice that will eventually make all coastal areas uninhabitable. This is the consequential and serious climate problem that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
In Lennart Bengtsson’s remarks on his view on climate research, there is one telling sentence that summarizes Lennart’s perspective on climate change. Lennart states that “Climate is nothing but the sum of all weather events during some representative period of time.” Superficially, the statement is quite correct. But fundamentally, that statement is flat wrong. This is because climate is a boundary value problem in physics, while weather is an initial value problem. The physical nature of these two problems is quite different, so also is the numerical approach that has to be taken in order to model climate change, and to forecast the changing weather.
In my Tellus B paper, I described the ongoing global warming as a cause-and-effect problem in physics. Understandably, Lennart Bengtsson might be inclined to view the global warming problem from his meteorology perspective in terms of changing weather patterns. But there is a reason why summer weather is warmer than winter weather. And there is a similar physics-based reason why global warming will change the weather patterns as the global temperature rises. There is substantially more uncertainty in how the local and regional weather patterns will change than in how the global temperature will change. So, when it comes to discussing regional climate change, as opposed to global climate change, there is far more room for differences in opinion.
As for Lennart’s joining GWPF, then resigning – I have not formed an opinion. Perhaps Lennart Bengtsson was hoping to instill some rationality to an organization that could benefit from an improved understanding of climate. Perhaps Lennart’s colleagues then persuaded him that that objective would be a hopeless endeavor.
If I really thought that I could instill some common sense regarding the nature of global climate change to such organizations like the Cato, Heartland, and George C. Marshall Institutes (among others), I too would be more than willing to go talk to them. But their goal and agenda (on behalf of the short-sighted interests of the fossil fuel industries) is to spread disinformation about global warming, rather than to seek a clearer understanding of global climate change. Thus, I don’t think that they would really want to hear from me. So far, they have succeeded in deceiving, duping, and brainwashing a significant fraction of the American public into believing that global warming is some sort of hoax perpetrated by the climate scientists.
This unfortunate nonsense needs to be counteracted by continuing to repeat ever more clearly the basic facts and physics of global climate change. As the climate effects of global warming become ever more apparent (increases in larger weather extremes – droughts, floods, forest fires), the public awareness will shift in favor of the science and away from the climate deniers.
Climate etc. denizens should keep in mind that the consequences of global warming are not a question of “if”, but of “when”, and that the climate modeling uncertainties are not one-sided, but cut both ways. Thus, the nasty stuff in ecological disruption and the rise in sea level that is predicted to happen by the end of the century could be arriving a lot sooner than expected, accompanied perhaps by totally unanticipated maladies.
Dr. Lacis: Your comment is a breath of fresh air here, but I worry that this is not the audience for it. Your points are very well made, but this crowd doesn’t exactly care what the science says.
I have read your 2010 Science paper several times, and refer to it often. I’m looking forward to reading your new paper.
Thanks for commenting here. You are needed.
Andy Lacis has often commented here, and has done several guest posts. I personally appreciate his occasional participation very much, and the denizens (most of them anyways) genuinely appreciate his participation.
David Appell said;
‘Dr. Lacis: Your comment is a breath of fresh air here, but I worry that this is not the audience for it. Your points are very well made, but this crowd doesn’t exactly care what the science says.’
That is not true. Whilst there is much solid science there are also many uncertain aspects of science backed up by data that is not very solid. For example SST’s back to 1850 or so are largely interpolated from virtually non existent data for a large part of it. It becomes more useable around 1960. Similarly the land temperature has many flaws in the methodology and becomes more reliable-or at least more consistent-when automatic recording is carried out .
Dr Lacis has provided a very interesting insight and it would be nice to get more such input here, but I dare say many scientists are put off commenting by the continual and increasingly irritating food fights and outright snark that often go on here.
tonyb
Hang on Appell, you’ve been slating Dr Bengtsson up to now.
Two-faced, much?
‘Climate sensitivity is then defined mathematically as the derivative of an appropriate functional or other function of the systems state with respect to the bifurcation parameter…
The global climate system is composed of a number
of subsystems – atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere – each of which has distinct characteristic times, from days and weeks to centuries and millennia. Each subsystem, moreover, has its own internal variability, all other things being constant, over a fairly broad range of time scales. These ranges overlap between one subsystem and another. The interactions between the subsystems thus give rise to climate variability on all time scales.’
Michael Ghil
Should we ever redefine science as drive by alternately blogospheric shoot outs and sycophancy – you’ll be the man Appell. In the meantime we’ll go with the scientific method in which theories explain data and have predictive power.
The theory of climate as an emergent property of a chaotic system explains abrupt shifts, inputs and outs that are disproportionate and multiple equilibria. A jostling amongst the sub-systems before settling into an emergent pattern. Tremendous energies cascading through powerful mechanisms. As Ghil suggests – it requires a redefinition of the nature of sensitivity.
It suggests the climate may continue in the current cool state space for 20 to 40 years from 2002 – if we may take that as a prediction that has been made often since the turn of the millennium – as a result of changes in cloud and/or ocean atmosphere heat transfer. The satellite data says that the former prevails in the energy budget.
Nor can we expect climate to shift again to a warm state next. A yet cooler mode seems more likely than not as we pass the threshold of bond event zero, a 1000 year solar peak and a 1000 year peak in El Nino frequency.
Neither – from 1000 year and Holocene spanning ENSO proxies – have we seen in the instrumental records anywhere near the limits of natural variability in floods and drought.
As for the credibility of predictions to the end of the century – zilch even if models were capable of more than probabilities in systematically designed families of solutions. Even if climate were co-operative. Unfortunately for one especially inept brand of climate science – it’s a beast.
‘The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth’s climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change… Over the last several hundred thousand years, climate change has come mainly in discrete jumps that appear to be related to changes in the mode of thermohaline circulation. Wally Broecker
The paradigm of global warming is past it’s use by date – to be replaced by something with a lot more explanatory power.
‘Technically, an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause. Chaotic processes in the climate system may allow the cause of such an abrupt climate change to be undetectably small.’ NAS
‘… the future evolution of the global mean temperature may hold surprises on both the warm and cold ends of the spectrum due entirely to internal variability that lie well outside the envelope of a steadily increasing global mean temperature.’
Swanson and Tsonis
This – btw – is Appell’s version of a lack of science. It is in fact the paradigm most likely to succeed.
Cue attacks on A Lacis in 5 4 3 ..
lowlot, quite evidently neither you nor Appell actually read what Andy Lacis wrote, otherwise you’d know that there’s no reason to attack him over anything he wrote within the context of this thread
Unless you’re just out to make mischief…
Lacis
I thought 99% of your comments were objective and balanced. A thoughtful piece. Until you said the public was being brainwashed. You just couldn’t let that juvenile absurdity lie there.
I have tried to analyze data and facts for several years now , and the underlying weakness in CAGW is the lack of proof that our climate is in unprecedented territory. From 2000 year record of temperatures to
lack of accelerating sea level rise in last 20 years to 3100 days since last major hurricane on US mainland to below average tornado activity to historic high Antarctic sea ice to no increased trend in global droughts for last 30 years. What do you have ? The Arctic. And there are nascent signs of recovery in Sea Ice volume.
There will have to be much more observational data showing deteriorating conditions before your level of certainty is justified. If you want to have a greater influence on the public’s perception, cut out the brainwashed absurdity. It does not add. It detracts. Skeptics are not the enemy. You are your own worst enemy.
I wrote a short while the following comment on another site. It’s not exactly on the topic on this main thread, but it may relevant to this subthread where the weight various comments have in the discussion has been discussed.
The discussion is not productive, when the participants are:
1) Someone who is interested in science and convinced that the risks are really severe, but not knowledgeable of practical problems of mitigation,
2) A person worried about the economy, and believing that the cost of mitigation is excessive, while not fully convinced that climate scientists give the correctly balanced picture of the situation.
The participant (2) does not really know science, while he is convinced about his general starting point. He may try to criticize specific scientific points based on what he has learned from other skeptics. He knows that his knowledge of science is lacking. Thus being shown wrong on one point doesn’t matter, he can easily try the next one. All that is just rhetorics, his trust in the basic conclusions is not based on the science arguments.
To solve really the problems we need something better. The intuitive conviction of many that putting great costs to mitigation has not been justified must be accepted as fact. It’s also largely a justified view, because the connection between the science and the policies has not been made properly. To make that connection properly an equal weight must be given on technology knowledge and economics, without that it’s not possible to even start considering what’s right on balance.
nottawa rafter said;
I have tried to analyze data and facts for several years now , and the underlying weakness in CAGW is the lack of proof that our climate is in unprecedented territory. From 2000 year record of temperatures to lack of accelerating sea level rise ….’
That was precisely my point above. The ‘data’ in many fields is very thin and yet is being used to support a hypothesis that is riven with uncertainties.. As yet we have not passed into unprecedented territory. However, as you will have noted, many here dislike historic observations even when tied into scientific papers.
tonyb
Bah, A Lacis with his worsening weather, uninhabitable coast lines, and inchoate fear.
Pekka catches a clue. The politics are absurd, the science uncertain.
===========
Hi Andy, thanks much for your comments. I particularly like this statement
“Perhaps Lennart Bengtsson was hoping to instill some rationality to an organization that could benefit from an improved understanding of climate.”
If such engagement was more common, we possibly wouldn’t see the kind of polarization and grid lock that we currently have
I love Pekka’s Dismal Doubled Equation. Following his formula we might project climate science as frightfully malinvested as the banks are. Oh, wait, we are there.
==========
Judy, they can’t help themselves. The ‘polarization and grid lock’ are built in to the debate, as Pekka Pirila and Steve Fitzpatrick have so astutely noted this morning. Suppression, overt and occult, of dissent are built in to the alarmist perspective.
===============
I disagree, I feel like my efforts with U.S. Congress have helped bring them to a more defensible place regarding climate science.
Heh, yes, Bengtsson might have afforded the GWPF an improved understanding of the flaws in climate science. Then again, GWPF may have given Bengtsson an improved understanding of the flaws in climate science. They are already astute enough about the flaws to scare the bojangles out of the alarmist consensus.
========
Pekka Pirila says:
<blockquote<The discussion is not productive, when the participants are:
1) Someone who is interested in science and convinced that the risks are really severe, but not knowledgeable of practical problems of mitigation,
2) A person worried about the economy, and believing that the cost of mitigation is excessive, while not fully convinced that climate scientists give the correctly balanced picture of the situation.
The participant (2) does not really know science, while he is convinced about his general starting point. He may try to criticize specific scientific points based on what he has learned from other skeptics. He knows that his knowledge of science is lacking. Thus being shown wrong on one point doesn’t matter, he can easily try the next one. All that is just rhetorics, his trust in the basic conclusions is not based on the science arguments.
Pekka displays his own biases by making the slurs and assertions about the motivations of those who are not persuaded by the climate scientists claims of dire consequences if we don’t implement the policies they advocate (like carbon pricing, renewable energy and UN mandated legally binding agreements).
While the last paragraph in the quote may be true of some, it is unwarranted to make such a generalised assertion. In my case I’ve asked Pekka repeatedly for answers to what I suggest are some key policy relevant questions. Pekka invariably dodges the questions or makes some excuse such as “there is no point responding to Peter Lang” [presumably because on several occasions I’ve shown he does not know what he’s talking about on a number of issues, including: carbon pricing, fossil fuel taxes as a substitute for carbon pricing, renewable energy, costs of renewable energy, effectiveness of wind and solar energy at reducing CO2 emissions, CO2 abatement cost with wind and solar energy, the proportion of wind energy generated in Denmark that is ultimately consumed in Denmark, and others].
To give Pekka another opportunity I’ll post in a separate comment below that “policy relevant climate questions” Pekka (and others) repeatedly dodge.
I expect he will avoid it or find another excuse to not give proper answers to the questions, or do what he should do if he was honest and acknowledge that we do not have the information needed to answer the questions.
Policy relevant climate questions
These are some of the questions we need answers to.
1. What is the value of Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) and Transient Climate Response (TCR)? [This question is asking for the ‘value’; to clarify:
“One rather fundamental point need[s] to be clearly understood at the outset of the discussion: there is no “correct” pdf for the equilibrium sensitivity. Such a pdf is not a property of the climate system at all. Rather, the climate sensitivity is a value (ignoring quibbles over the details and precision of the definition) and a pdf is merely a device for summarising our uncertainty over this value.”, James Annan, ClimateDialogue: http://www.climatedialogue.org/%5D
2. Is ECS and TCR relevant given that climate changes suddenly [1], [2], [3], not as portrayed by IPCC’s smooth projections?
3. What effect will increasing atmospheric CO2-e concentration have on the climate – will it make the next sudden change happen sooner or later?
• Will it make the next sudden cooling happen sooner or later?
• Or will it cause a sudden warming event?
• What are the probability density functions for each?
4. Will it make the next sudden climate change less or more severe? (e.g. delay the onset of the next cooling and/or reduce its severity OR make the next sudden warming happen sooner and make it more severe)? What is the probability density function?
5. What would be the consequences of warming? What would be the consequences of cooling? What are the probability density functions?
6. What is the probability that the advocated mitigation policies would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits (climate damages avoided), given real world issues with implementing and maintaining such policies (e.g. carbon pricing)?
• To answer this question we need to understand the short- and medium-term economic impacts of the proposed policies for each nation state, and consider how each will respond so as to maximise its advantage (game theory) through the situations that could occur over the next century or so.
7. What is the probability that alternative polices are more likely to succeed (such as removing the political and regulatory impediments that are preventing the world from having low cost nuclear energy and allowing lightly regulated markets to deliver the benefits at least cost)?
References
[1] James Annan, ClimateDialogue, ‘Climate Sensitivity and Transient Climate Response’, http://www.climatedialogue.org/
[2] Wallace S. Broecker, 1995, ‘Chaotic Climate’, http://www.slc.ca.gov/division_pages/DEPM/Reports/BHP_Port/ERRATA_CSLC/Vol%20II/EDC%20Attachments%20Vol%20II-02.pdf
[3] Jose A. Rial, et al, 2004, ’Nonlinearities, Feedbacks and Critical Thresholds within the Earth’s Climate System’, http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/global/pdf/pep/Rial2004.NonlinearitiesCC.pdf
A Lacis,
It is clear that you want to convince people about the potential for catastrophic consequences. Fair enough. But you aren’t making much progress, so I would suggest three things if you want to actually engage those who are skeptical of the future consequences of warming:
1) Don’t ever say things like “So far, they have succeeded in deceiving, duping, and brainwashing a significant fraction of the American public into believing that global warming is some sort of hoax perpetrated by the climate scientists.”
Please. I have worked 40 years in science and engineering, and I can assure you that those organizations have in no way influenced my thinking on GHG driven warming. Such a statement insults the intelligence of anyone who has looked at the available data and come to a reasoned conclusion that the consequences will not be anywhere near as severe as you (and many others) consistently claim. If you want to convince people who are skeptical that you are right, do it with data and analysis, not with insults.
2) Do not downplay the glaring divergence between the IPCC climate model ensemble and reality. The ensemble is comically, even absurdly wrong, and would appear even worse if the IPCC’s own best estimates for aerosol forcing were used instead of each modeling groups chosen (large) aerosol kludge. The models are WAY off, yet there is never even a feeble acknowledgement by most climate scientists of that fact. If you want to you gain credibility with skeptics, there is not better place to start than by stating that the models are not currently capable of making the kinds of quantitative predictions of warming needed for the development of rational public energy policy.
3) Don’t make statements like: “As the climate effects of global warming become ever more apparent (increases in larger weather extremes – droughts, floods, forest fires), the public awareness will shift in favor of the science and away from the climate deniers.”
There is a wealth of published work (including the IPCC AR5) showing that droughts, floods, tornadoes, and other extreme weather have not changed in any statistically significant way. How do you expect people to believe what you say about the future when you make statements which are so obviously incorrect about the present? I mean really, do you think people are incapable of reading AR5?
The real disagreement is not if rising GHG’s will warm the Earth (they must). The disagreement is about how much and over how long, and even more, about the likely consequences. If you are willing to address the real disagreement, then you may make some progress. If you insist on blaming fossil fuel interests (and think tanks, and the Koch brothers, and all the other corrupt, dishonest and evil types so frequently pointed at) for YOUR failure to convince people, then you are likely to not ever succeed. There has been some technical progress in climate science over the last decade (eg. much better ocean heat data, and gradually improving aerosol data), but the shrill talking points used by you and many others to argue for immediate changes in public policy have hardly changed at all. The talking points are not working. I suggest it is time you considered changing your approach.
Heh, Judy, you’re the traffic cop brought to a grid-locked intersection, but your whistles and gestures can hardly be heard over the blaring horns, or seen by the eyes locked on their GPS’s. I’ve little doubt that you’ll eventually clear the intersection. Maybe divert a river through it.
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Well, I found andy’s comment to be tedious, self-promoting and ultimately insulting and therefore counterproductive to his goal of convincing the unconvinced. He appreciates LB’s wise,helpful reviewing and rather liking of andy’s wonderful paper, but claims that LBs understanding of the nature of climate is fundamentally wrong. Perhaps that’s why LB rather liked andy’s paper.
Look andy, you people have been trying to make the dissenters go away by marginalizing and demonizing them as nutcases and serial disinformers, for a long time. And that has included shunning and defamatory attacks by prominent colleagues of yours on fellow climate scientists, who have strayed from the reservation. It ain’t working. If you pulled your head out and looked around, you would find that the vast majority of folks remain unconvinced that the climate stuff you are threatening us with is a major problem. That is an indisputable cold hard fact. You are failing. Clean up your act. You are supposed to be professional scientists. Act like it.
I think the fundamental scientific disagreement between AL and LB would be a good topic for discussion, i will try to get a post together on this within the next day or so