by Judith Curry
How has the terrain of the climate blogosphere changed over the past 5 years?
Well, the Xmas and other winter holidays season is upon us. Not much going on in terms of news related to climate and etc. So over the holiday season, the fare will be a bit lite.
A few recent tweets triggered the idea for a discussion thread on the climate blogosphere and how it has changed over the past 5 years (e.g. post Climategate).
Here are some of my own reflections on the climate blogosphere
‘Warm blogs’
Remember when RealClimate ‘ruled’? And blogs like DeSmog, DeepClimate, Stoat, Deltoid, Rabbett Run ‘mattered’? As per Alexa, traffic on those blogs have seriously diminished.
RealClimate is in substantial transition: Ten Years of RealClimate: Where now? They are looking for new bloggers, as Mann, Gavin and others are moving away from blogging. Well good luck to them, I hope they are able to entrain some new scientists to engage in blogging. Their challenge is to avoid scientific bias.
I have a story to relate in this regard. During summer of 2011, I attended the annual Google SciFoo. Michael Mann was there. A female climate scientist (more of a social scientist) approached me and related a conversation that she had with Michael Mann, who was discussing the need at RealClimate for a female blogger. She told me I would be great, and did I want her to put my name forward to Michael Mann. I laughed and told her I figured that I was the reason Mann thought RC needed a female blogger, to help counter the impact that Climate Etc. was having.
The big gorilla blog on the warm side has become Skeptical Science. I am not a fan. This article by Bishop Hill sums it here, where BH relates a story of hypocrisy about Dana Nuccitelli who wrote a scathing review of the Hockey Stick Illusion on amazon.com, then subsequently remarked that he hadn’t read the book.
The most interesting new blog on the warm side is And Then There’s Physics. The subtitle of the blog is Trying – and sometimes failing – to keep things civil. Some of the posts are technical, but others discuss deniers, 97%, climate ball etc. Same perspective as SkS, but much better. The comments are relatively civil but very heavily moderated. Some interesting people go over there to comment, and ATTP is active on twitter (where he is rather uncivil).
Skeptics blogs
The skeptics blogs continue to thrive post ClimateGate, and there have been a number of new technical blogs, e.g. Clive Best and Troy Masters among others.
Scientists blogs
More climate scientists now have blogs, discussing mostly their own research. Doug McNeall has compiled a list of blogs from working scientists [link]. From this list I follow Ed Hawkins, Tamsin Edwards and Isaac Held. Note, McNeall describes Climate Etc. in this way:
Useful but sometimes frustratingly information-free aggregator.
Huh? Well, interesting that Climate Etc. even made the cut – Roy Spencer did not.
Group blogs
The two most interesting new group blogs are Climate Dialogue and Climate Change National Forum.
I am a huge fan of Climate Dialogue, and have featured a number of their posts at Climate Etc. This is absolutely the best of the climate science blogosphere, I only wish the posts were more frequent. As per my discussions with one of the CD principals, the challenge is finding scientists that support the consensus who will actually engage in dialogue with scientists that are challenging the consensus.
Climate Change National Forum is new, and it has more than 20 member scientists (including myself). John Nielsen-Gammon is the originator of the concept. The web site is slick, albeit a bit difficult to navigate. I’m still not sure what to make of the CCNF. As far as I can tell, I am the only member that challenges the consensus. The quality of many of the contributions is not very high in my opinion. But I think the concept is a good idea, and I will continue my low-level involvement.
Climate psychology
Climate psychology is a new topic for the climate blogosphere. On the warm side there is climate denial.org and climatepsychology.org (both of these blogs leave me either scratching my head or rolling my eyes. On the rational skeptic side, we have have Joe Duarte, who has been mentioned in several CE blog posts. Dan Kahan’s Cultural Cognition is superb.
Trolling
On twitter, there has recently been much discussion of 2012 post Climate Trolls – An Illustrated Bestiary. The beasts include Galileo Gambiter, Auditor, Sanctity of Science concern troll, Not the IPCCer, the Faux Skeptic, the Uncertainyy Monster monster, the Avenger, the Gish Galloper, Hockey Goon, Conspiracy Theorist, Right Wing Ideologue, Breakthrough Boys. The favorite blogs of these trolls are Climate Etc., WUWT, Climate Audit, Roger Pielke Jr., ScienceBlogs.com, BishopHill, Bjorn Lomborg. You would be surprised at the scientists on twitter who thought this analysis was spot on; ATTP was the one who originally posted on twitter.
Real trolling is described in this Wired article Why the trolls always win.
The so-called climate trolls are people trying to have a discussion about complex controversial topics.
Sure there are obnoxious people in the climate blogosphere, but ‘obnoxious’ is in the eye of the beholder. Dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as a troll is a recipe for worse than groupthink.
JC conclusions
The climate blogosphere is evolving in interesting ways, and I think the diversity of the climate blogosphere is very helpful and healthy both for promoting scientific as well as policy debate on the complex topic of climate change.
I look forward to your comments, as well as your suggestions for additional blogs that are worth reading.
My very best wishes to you for the holidays!
I’m not sure Number 3 agreeable to everyone:
Atheists Rewrite Ten Commandments
MythBusters’ Adam Savage Judged New Commands
Atheists Rewrite Ten Commandments, MythBusters? Adam Savage Judged New Commands
1.Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
2.Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
3.The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
4.Every person has the right to control over their body.
5.God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
6.Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
7.Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
8.We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
9.There is no one right way to live.
10.Leave the world a better place than you found it.
Merry Christmas, Wags.
5. is way off, though.
Without God, there is no “good”. “Good” is just the meaningless daydream of an animal without God.
Andrew
Nonsense. I’ve known atheists and believers. The atheists were gooder. But some who said they were believers may have been phonies.
“5.God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.”
Those who refuse to seek God have no clue on what Jesus meant by: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” or how he “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,”
Rule 9 is in contradiction with having these commandments at all and also with Rule 3.
I don’t think so. There are many right ways to live.
I’d rewrite #7 in the negative. Do not do unto others what you don’t want done to yourself. It plays out much better in the long run than the positive version.
#10. For some, merely leaving is contribution enough.
I’m “constructed” to question and answer. If we question the complexity of the universe we run into what’s called “the fine tuning problem” which I asked you to google. Did you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
How did Spinoza’s orderly universe come to exist? By accident? Do we have any experience of complexity arising from nothing?
If we take as a given the universe is a closed system and we presume the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is true then the universe was in its most ordered state (lowest entropy) at its very beginning. Therefore all the information the universe contains today, including things like the library of congress, existed 14 billion years ago. Order can only decrease in a closed system. Otherwise information must have been imported into the universe during its existence and it isn’t closed. Either way one is, in my opinion, justified in asking where all that information came from in the first place. Just appearing like a rabbit out of a hat seems childishly naive.
How amusing. Atheists competing with established religions by forming a list of 10 moral absolutes. Unfortunately they have no absolute authority as a source. So it’s just a list of suggestions without any basis for belief.
No absolute authority? Interesting concept or way of going about dealing with morality. So the authority is he who can impose his will? The authority isn’t the best idea but the biggest gun? If you refer to God as authority, what gives him the authority? Apparently his ability to threaten you. And this is what you want as a foundation for moral behavior? Interesting.
Philosophy 101. The difference between absolute and relative moral codes. Maybe try taking an introductory course.
But back to the question. Monotheists believe that one transcendent God is the source of their absolute moral code. What is the source of the atheist moral code above – an ad hoc committee?
Actually David the source for your moral beliefs comes from the authors that wrote the Bible and you believe that God is the true source.
Joseph
Yes, belief is based on the facts of eyewitnesses who wrote: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched–this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
Joseph… no, not in this particular case. The Ten Commandents were written upon stone tablets by God and delivered to Moses.
I don’t necessarily believe that but I do know the narrative.
David…the notion of absolute moral code that is ‘God’ based is nothing more than a postulate. Ethics 101.
I am astonished that one as intelligent as yourself would even entertain the
‘idea’ of an absolute moral authority. There are many deities on the planet who have revealed themselves to their followers as the one true deity. They can’t all be right, can they? In the end, what you ‘believe’ is a matter of ‘faith.’ It seems a weak peg, indeed, on which to hang an ‘absolute’ anything. The problem of morality isn’t relieved, rationally, by an appeal to authority…it buys you absolutely nothing…though you are more than welcome to appeal to anything you choose to. You might as well appeal to the authority of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Thor or Baal or…and consensus helps no more here than it does in matters of climate.
Again, it is astonishing to hear someone as intelligent as yourself say something as fatuous as this: “How amusing. Atheists competing with established religions by forming a list of 10 moral absolutes. Unfortunately they have no absolute authority as a source.” I, like you, was born an atheist. The difference is I never found any compelling reason to seek or find a deity, which notion, even as a child, struck me as odd. However, I haven’t lived my life raping and pillaging and stealing and being cruel to children and animals. I have found it necessary to make what seemed to exist in me as a rudimentary form of ‘fairness’ into an explicit moral code and I’ve had help from every quarter in Western Civilization. The ‘authority’ for what I believe to be moral is based on what I find a rational necessity for a sentient being to live a life as well as possible for the long haul. Richard Feynman said he didn’t know everything there was to know about physics, the universe and/or nature. And he was ok with that. He accepted his state of ignorance as a condition of being human. I don’t have every answer to every moral dilemma that can be posed and there are some issues where my moral thinking gets vague and cloudy. I can live with that. I think anyone who tries to tell you they have the answer to everything, moral or otherwise, like FOMBS or the Pope himself, is selling something and I’d be wary of buying it. But, it turns out that morality isn’t really that difficult. There is a large swath of human interaction that can be governed by simply accepting that no one (or ones combined in a group) has the right to commit force and fraud on another. Of course that means that at least 50% of what the US government does would not be allowed and the fascists among us who are morally righteous about telling their neighbors and their neighbors neighbors how to live won’t like that. It tends to make for a messier, more chaotic, dynamic social organization. It brings out more self-reliance and self-responsibility. I’d prefer a civic centric society to a government centric society. But I like that. How about you?
The history of mankind shows the need for absolute moral values.
Daniel I made no mention of what I do or don’t personally believe. None of us were born atheists. That’s a stupid thing to say. We were born without knowing. Agnostic. I remain that way but I have leanings. The way I lean is to a created universe. Google “the fine tuning problem” for one of the primary reasons why I lean that way. What I think of your rant defending atheism can be summed up as “the lady doth protest too much methinks” and it deserves no further comment..
David,
You have a confused idea of what ‘a theism’ means. Without god. Nothing more. You were born, like everyone, without a belief in any supreme deity. It’s an acquired taste that appeals to some and not to others. Like Spinoza, I (and many others) am not constructed to believe. Perhaps you are. It’s an interesting perspective…where does religion come from? Where is its place in the nature/nurture problem? My ‘rant’ wasn’t a defense of ‘atheism’ which needs no defense, but of the notion of an ‘absolute’ moral authority being required. The choices are broader than absolutism or relativism.
Daniel I’m using the common definition of atheism…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
“Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.”
You had a set of rejected beliefs when you were born?
Fascinating.
So Daniel, given you have some set of moral codes that limits your actions and that you would adhere to them even in the absence of risk of corporeal punishment, what is the source or basis for those morals and why should others agree with you? This was the source of my amusement – a set of ten moral codes formed by committee. What is formed by committee can be unformed by committee. The thing about absolute morals is they are immutable. They are also fundamental to the United States: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..
Inalienable because they are absolute, Daniel. Governments (including committees) don’t formulate or grant these rights but rather exist only to enforce them. So where do these rights originate? Well, in the United States we presume they come from our Creator. Maybe you’re not an American or don’t believe in the same ideals as the founders. Is that it?
‘The literature of religious experience abounds in references to the pains and terrors overwhelming those who have come, too suddenly, face to face with some manifestation of the mysterium tremendum. In theological language, this fear is due to the in-compatibility between man’s egotism and the divine purity, between man’s self-aggravated separateness and the infinity of God.’ http://www.huxley.net/doors-of-perception/aldoushuxley-thedoorsofperception.pdf
As Blake put it – we have seen heaven in a grain of sand. God is a numinous experience of the infinite and the eternal. There is one reality for a man of light. It informs the life more abundant far better than a set of rules.
‘There is light within a man of light, and he lights the whole world. If he does not shine, there is darkness.’
Don’t have an invisible friend? No one’s perfect.
@ Rob Ellison
Seconded.
The biggest thing in religion is to be humble in the face of the mysterious unknowable, unimaginable force which rules our lives. As the hymn puts it:-
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes,
David in TX.
You go from silly to sillier when you quote this: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..”
That statement is one of the most profound statements ever uttered in any civilization, but what does it mean? The way you interpret it is to tear it out of it’s context and feed it with your own biases. It’s not an unpopular interpretation by any means, but I am not bound by it any more than I am bound by the silly ass definition of ‘A Theism’ given in wikipedia.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident”, ie, we assert (after all, it is a Declaration) an axiom upon which this government will rest and from which it derives it’s justification for being (as the preceding paragraph set up the need for). What is the truth that we are going to use as an axiom? “… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..”
Axioms are not statements that can be proven…they are statements that are asserted and are the foundation of what follows.
‘…by their Creator…’ It makes no pretense at who or what that Creator was or is.
It was an absolutely brilliant statement…In 34 words the best of Western Civilization was encapsulated and became the foundation for the greatest nation on earth…that men are created with equal status before the law and each one has an individual ‘right’ to his own life, to a pursuit of his own happiness and to Liberty. We encoded this, enshrined it, established this as the basis for all our institutions (But as Franklin said, “..we have given you a Constitutional Republic, if you can hold on to it). We are not fodder for the Obamas and Grubers of the world to be moved about on a chess board of their making as they see fit.
How tragic to see a country that was founded on such brilliant insight (both in what it said and in how it said it) devolve into a Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or Mayor Bloomberg and the type of people they are emblematic of.
These are people, and many like them, who trash that notion everyday. There are people who are revolted by that statement. How will you convince them otherwise? The fascists, authoritarians, do-gooders, busy bodies, nanny staters from Mayor Bloomberg to Gruber would all act in violation of that principle. How do you persuade them to stop?
Jefferson had this to say as well: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
And to quote myself, “No government will long endure limitations to its powers if the people are not willing to assert their rights.”
In the end, the morality (and all moralities compete (Islam and the West as just one example)) that wins is the one the most people are willing to support (intensely more complicated than that but this is a blog) and that may mean with their blood. It’s brutal but I prefer that brutality to the noxious, genteel brutality of experts.
To quote myself again, “Liberty is the antidote to the tyranny of experts.”
(I had to come back up here in the thread to find a ‘Reply’ button. Should we take up a collection so Judith can hire a programmer to fix this code that continually screws up threading? Or to get rid of WordPress altogether?)
The ten commandent are what God is telling some free slaves to do.
And first thing to do, was to believe in only one god.
As for Ten commandents I will give to all the silly Atheists.
First an explanation:
There are apparently many gods and you have chosen the least likely idea that gods don’t exist.
So your “first commandment” is:
You have a choice, abandon the mad idea or stick to your guns.
One could say the universe or reality is giving you these choices as a commandment.
Personally I don’t spend much time believing in a god. But there seems to be a lot of evidence that gods do exist. And even stronger evidence that people will always believe in “some kind of god”.
One could argue a god of chaos might be least “dogma”. But I tend to be dismissive of chaos gods in general. Or it seems weak.
I would say that believing or worshiping a god is a learning method or method of gaining insight or inspiration. And it’s not something I do- at least not in some set of formal or ritual fashion. And I tend to give very broad definition of idols, I think the Jewish idea of not worshiping idols is very good idea. And extend the idea of idols to mental model of a god and give weight to idea of unknowable nature god.
In summary, god exists, but this existence doesn’t necessary suggest that I am suppose to do A or B. Whereas the “moral principals” of various religions [which could be directly from some god] are more relevant- as are like a tested theory.
So I am not atheist, I could be a some kind of believer in some faith but I am not, though I think organized religion is very important, and I like the sacred and the holy.
In summary if you think you don’t believe in a god.
So what?
I think lots of so called believer don’t believe in a god. If one believe in a god, one would generally devote entire life to it. And I am not sure most Monks spending enough attention to their calling. Whereas people who regard themselves as strong believer are mostly talking about their involvement religious social life- they go to church, they do church activities or various kinds.
Which lead to a suggestion. Stop hating religious people.
So:
1] abandon the mad idea or stick to your guns
2] Stop hating religious people.
The hating might have something to do with envy.
3} Be happy.
This is rather difficult and requires skill and knowledge to do.
If you are lost on the subject, I would suggest that Dennis Prager
has some useful insights on the topic:
http://www.prageruniversity.com/Life-Studies/Why-Be-Happy.html#.VJxWdfsHA
And I’ll keep it at 3.
I believe the greatest merit of 10 commandments, is less is better than more. Or the 10 commandments was not adding more rules, but was getting rid hundreds of stupid laws.
There’s the natural world and also the supernatural world; and then, there’s the paranormal world, not to be confused with the phony world (fictional world) of numerologists pretending to authority with their mathematical global warming long term weather models known as GCMs, all of which are pretty much the product of revelation grounded in anti-Americanism.
gbaikie | December 25, 2014 at 1:30 pm | Reply
Over the years I’ve read a good many philosophers who were atheists on the subject of atheism. At least 50% of them are talking through their arse.
As a first example you say, “There are apparently many gods and you have chosen the least likely idea that gods don’t exist.” Now, I know you didn’t create that as an original thought and it has been popularized by theists and journalists and such but anyone with a scintilla of epistemological sense would never utter such a foolish statement.
One can no more utter ‘there is no God’ than one can utter that there are no black swans. As they say, ‘The absence of proof is not the proof of absence.’ One cannot make statements on the metaphysics of the universe without evidence but one is free to believe any thing one chooses to believe (and suffer the consequences of that belief).
A rational atheist would be one who would say about the existence of a God(s), ‘I don’t know.’ About his own personal relationship with a God(s), “I don’t have one.’ That covers the metaphysical and the epistemological and psychological aspects. Anything else said by an atheist on the subject is blathering or fiction.
I don’t know about God, but when it comes to Existence, Occam’s Razor gets very dull.
–A rational atheist would be one who would say about the existence of a God(s), ‘I don’t know.’ About his own personal relationship with a God(s), “I don’t have one.’ That covers the metaphysical and the epistemological and psychological aspects. Anything else said by an atheist on the subject is blathering or fiction.–
A rational atheist might say this, but so may anyone who believes in God.
Or such a rational atheist has failed to do my first commandment:
1] abandon the mad idea or stick to your guns.
And this necessary to be an actual rational atheist.
I have considered the mad idea [as many have] and I have seen no evident to support it. I see no value to idea which supports such an unlikely premise that deities do not exist.
For example, I think the Big Bang is plausible. And I think the existence of deities is plausible. I think there is more evidence that god exist as the idea that Big Bang occurred.
I think that for instance:
“3.The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world. ”
Is not true, rather the scientific method is a way to understanding some things about the world.
[And I will note the use of “natural world” implies there is something other than a natural world.]
And I would contend that scientific method is based on a premise that there is a god. The scientific method is way to discover the truth of some aspects of existence.
Which quite different than “a way of understanding”.
One can not discover truth if truth does not exist. One can’t even begin look for it.
Now what has atheist given us?
[Other than degradation?]
Though Maybe atheist can provide something of value, but I would say it require some work or requires “stick to your guns” and making something.
So I say to thee, the rational atheist go forth and struggle. {But my opinion it has obviously been proven wrong so far, and seems unlikely to be successful- but it’s certainly possible I am wrong.].
Now a selling point regarding believing in deities- you might get the right
to hate other believers in other deities- depending which wacko faith you choose. So you don’t need to stop hating religious people and can be unhappy. As some beliefs in various deities require you to be miserable.
A great Holiday season to our gracious hostess and all the Denizens, both naughty and nice.
“Well good luck to them, I hope they are able to entrain some new scientists to engage in blogging. Their challenge is to avoid scientific bias.”
Gee… I wonder if anyone would come around and throw that one back at Judy? I have three guesses in mind.
Hmm. Seems completely non-controversial to me. Who were you thinking of?
Josh is hoping you had him in mind so that he doesn’t end the year thinking he has become irrelevant.
“you probably think this song is about you…”
ATTP, formerly WottsUpWithThat, is one of the blogs/bloggers which Anthony Watts referred to as his “Blog Spawn”.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/about-wuwt/my-blog-spawn/
They came in to existence clearly motivated primarily as ad hominen attacks on Anthony Watts and others with the temerity to disagree with IPCC global-warming alarmism.
ATTP can’t get more than one-sided discussions on his own blog due to his heavy handed moderation. Janus faced, he then goes over to places like Bishop Hill and tries to appear reasonable. Probably partly just trying to drum up traffic, and partly because being always able to have the last word on his own blog is intellectually deeply unsatisfying once dissent is seriously curtailed.
MH,
I haven’t spent time at his site, but it doesn’t take long when entering into a discussion with ATTP to realize he is less than honest. As far as I am concerned, reasonablness is useless when honesty is missing.
I have occasionally commented on ATTP – which is the only warmist site which (imho) is worth reading – and have been robustly challenged but never (so far) moderated.
I’m afraid that I have a lot of time for ATTP. Unlike other warmist sites (esp SkS), you can get intelligible and reasoned warmist argument there. Even if you don’t agree, there are at least positions sufficiently reasoned to be capable of being disagreed with.
😊 people say some funny things. ATTP does moderate people frequently. He pretends to be reasonable but is totally committed to one side only of the debate, allowing numerous put downs of people then had the audacity to complain of a lack of civility on his blogs which were full of published info lots. That’s OK it is his blog, just totally risible
I have a little time for his blog, keep your friends close, keep the prats closer is an old adage, and you can see who comments here and there and see their motives more clearly.
I would say that his single handed attack on WUWT in his anonymous previous blog displayed his true character for all to see and it has not changed.
Denizens Joshua, Eli, Stoat and Fan appear at times an interesting agglomeration of a number of individual blogs,plus other savoury characters like Dana.
I made two comments on ATTP. The second was a short laundry list of evidence which is contrary to catastrophic global warming as the owner/moderator made a claim that only warmists have evidence on their side. No hostility by me. Items as simple as asymmetric warming (winters, at night, over land, higher latitudes) which extend growing seasons and limit killer frosts, faster plant growth and lower water usage with increased CO2. I also mentioned long term natural warming/cooling cycles which appear driven by changes in the sun.
It was deleted and replaced with a statement “standard skeptic talking points which have no place here”.
Conclusion: andthentheresphysics.com is a useless group-think.which fears contrary evidence or counter-arguments.
David in Texas, I think the “standard” skeptical talking points are forbidden since they have all been soundly refuted with vigorous arm waving. .
I have been moderated out so often by this moderator and in addition this moderator supported a commentator who called my husband a troll merely because he disagreed with the warmist viewpoint. Neither of us feels that this blog is anything other than a propaganda site for CAGW views. I agree totally with the comments of angech and David in TX below.
Cry me a river you bunch of whiners.
Anthony Watts banned me from his blog. Evil ‘skeptics’. Boo-hoo for me!
Yes Michael – it’s such a surprise that a vituperative pest with zilch substance is not welcome.
But Indi,
“one-sided discussions”…”dissent is seriously curtailed”….”useless group-think.which fears contrary evidence or counter-arguments.”…..”his blog is [not] anything other than a propaganda site ”
Boo-hoo!!
But Michael, they’re being “censored.” It’s “censorship.”
I got banned from WUWT too. It was because I was abusive to other commenters, in particular Willis Eschenbach who occupies a very special place in Watts’ heart, not because of any particular climate views.
It took a long time too. At least a year. ATTP took down my second comment which was topical, civil, and factually correct. I suspect the latter is the main reason. They just don’t want contrary evidence being brought up. ATTP is a group-think echo chamber populated by snarly, snotty warmunists.
I wasn’t asking anyone Joshua for any sympathy. I was simply stating a fact that ATTP is a group-think echo chamber that censors viewpoints that don’t fit the warmunist manifesto. The only reason I bothered mentioning it is because Curry mentioned it in a positive light and I have no idea how she could have arrived at that opinion.
David –
There are comment there quite frequently made by people who disagree with Anders, on a variety of issues.
==> “I was simply stating a fact that ATTP is a group-think echo chamber that censors viewpoints that don’t fit the warmunist manifesto.”
No one there hasn’t seen opinions such as yours thousands of times. They isn’t because they “fear” them, they think that they are ridiculous.
So your reasoning behind why you were moderated is simplistic and grandiose (an interesting combination), and self-serving. It it also lacks accountability. There’s more to it.
Further, the notion that it is “censorship” is laughable and victim-card playing. You haven’t been censored. You have been disinvited to comment at someone’s blog. Stop taking yourself so seriously.
David,
I made one comment at WUWT – and that was my last.
Oh noes! Censorship!!
What was the one comment?
Michael Mann, would you believe it!, was the topic over at WUWT, specifically the lecture Watts attended.
I noted that rather than being critical of Watts’ silence at the lecture (as some were) it reflected very well on him, but that it was at odds with his on-line behaviour.
‘Michael | December 26, 2014 at 6:03 am |
But Indi,
“one-sided discussions”…”dissent is seriously curtailed”….”useless group-think.which fears contrary evidence or counter-arguments.”…..”his blog is [not] anything other than a propaganda site ”
Boo-hoo!!
A serial pest with zilch substance? I think my case is made.
My middle name – btw – is Indigo. Cool blue hey.
I don’t believe you, Michael. Do you have any evidence to offer that you were banned at WUWT over a single comment?
ScienceofDoom is interesting. The author has admitted he was taught incorrect radiative physics. This is the MIT version: http://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node134.html
The S-B equation does not predict an energy flux; it’s the radiant Emittance (aka Exitance), potential energy flux to a sink at absolute zero. People taught this fake fizzicks imagine the energy spews out as photons which bounce around accumulating energy, hence the ‘back radiation’ myth.
The next module of the MIT course transposes Emittance for Emissivity. Basically, US Atmospheric Science has failed in this key area because of poor University teaching. If it was correct, we’d be a cloud of tenuous gas!
You can easily prove this physics is wrong because to get 157.5 W/m^2 surface IR thermalised in the local atmosphere, the latter would have to be near a mean of 0 deg. C, colder than at any time since the Ordovician Ice Age 444 million years ago! I assume 16 deg. C surface and an atmospheric emissivity of 0.75 for the 238.5 W/m^2 Emittance.
Blogs like SoD have no answer to this, particularly when I point to Figure 2.5 of Houghton’s 1977 ‘Physics of Atmospheres’, where he shows that convection maintaining lapse rate automatically makes surface to atmosphere temperature drop zero, hence there can be no Enhanced GHE!
‘Back-Radiation’ is just a calculation tool – good for huge macro calculations in excel , for example.
You also have to be careful to distinguish between radiative heat transfer at the molecular level and the macro thermodynamics of heat flow. At the nano-level, an individual cool molecule has been seen to transfer heat to a warmer one, while the overall macro heat flow was from warm to cool.
“I laughed and told her I figured that I was the reason Mann thought RC needed a female blogger, to help counter the impact that Climate Etc. was having.”
How long before that gets challenged? Three guesses. Nothin like the good ol blogosphere to keep one amused.
Richard Tol’s well-worth reading in full article can be found at http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/12/10/hot-stuff-cold-logic/
In this article, Tol also notes:
There is an even more direct link between climate policy and development. Cheap and abundant energy fueled the industrial revolution. Sudden increases in the price of oil caused many of the economic recessions since World War II. Lack of (reliable) electricity retards growth in poor countries, not just today through its effect on production, but also in the future, as electric light allows kids to do their homework after sunset.
And the full text of Tol’s concluding para is also well-worth a read:
I’ve certainly had my differences with Tol in the past, but on this I cannot disagree!
P.S. Season’s greetings to Judith and all her denizens, and in my tradition “Shalom” … Here’s hoping (she says somewhat optimistically!) for far fewer UNEP/WMO/EU infested diversions from reality in 2015!
“There challenge (real climate) is to avoid scientific bias.”
Yes, one would think so. But from their point of view I.m afraid the challenge is to hide their scientific bias. Which of course is not possible…which I think explains their decline in popularity. One sided, propagandistic presentations are by their nature, beyond tedious. For hard core drones only.
Happy Xmas to all !
This is a heart-melting comment in a lengthy discussion on how various parties do ad-hominem, trolling, moderation beyond reason, sock-puppeting, etc.
Merry Christmas to you all. It was a nice bright and cold Christmas day, -12°C and a snow white Picea abies forest. All warming of 166 years clearly resulting nothing too bad. Lets hope some moderate future for us in 2015 and let me make a prediction:
The Artic will have lots of ice in September 2025.
Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Happy New Year and continuing cool ‘pause’.
Your wish is granted. “Cold to Make a Comeback Across US in Final Days of 2014”
“The cold shot closing out 2014 and ringing in 2015 is shaping up to yield the lowest temperatures in weeks for many communities.” Interesting meridional jet stream. Deep loop.
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2014/12/24/cold-to-make-comeback-across-us-in-final-days-2014/
Merry Christmas to all! “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” — Phil 4.4
December has been relatively warm. So much so that it’s possible Gistemp and HadCrut4, along with NOAA, will all set a new records.
“Dismissing anyone who disagrees with you as a troll is a recipe for worse than groupthink.”
Well, maybe a symptom that one is firmly in the grips of groupthink. At any rate, I don’t see anyone here as a troll. My most engaging conversations have been with those that many here feel are trolls. I don’t see it that way any longer. I can’t claim to be perfect myself. I certainly have had my share of jabs at a few folks, but there are so many sides to how folks see the climate discussion that I don’t think any can claim they have it all correct. At any rate, I wish a peaceful and happy holiday season to all, especially to those who’s opinions I disagree with. It is the challenge from those folks who make discussions interesting… And move toward common ground as lang as you don’t descend into ad hom or take comments too seriously. In the end we just disagree about ideas, but as humans we have much more in common wrt our environment and what we do to protect it. We’re all on the same boat together.
Happy Festivus, John. I’ve made a donation to The Human Fund in your name.
On to the feats of strength and the airing of the grievances!
Thanks Joshua, I knew I could count on you! Peace to you my friend.
Oh, and Kumbaya.
John Carpenter -“…I wish a peaceful and happy holiday season to all, especially to those who’s opinions I disagree with.”
Well said. We learn from those that differ from ourselves.
And over at PolarBearScience, I’ve been championing for better biology on behalf of the number one global warming icon and its prey (walrus and Arctic seals), for two and a half years now.
This year, I’ve had twice as many views as last year and some notable indicators that I’m making a difference. There promises to be interesting times ahead.
Check out my latest post, which relates directly to some of the climate change content that Judith covers: the recent “Arctic Report Card 2014” released by NOAA that uses dubious polar bear data to make its shaky case that recent Arctic warming has already caused harm.
http://polarbearscience.com/2014/12/19/challenging-noaas-arctic-report-card-2014-on-polar-bears/
Merry Christmas Judith and the same to your readers; all the best for the new year.
Dr. Susan Crockford, zoologist
Susan, keep up your good work!
Dr Crockford,
In my opinion your site is one of the best around. I regularly direct well meaning people I know who are convinced polar bears are on the verge of becoming extinct to your site.
An interesting and very informative post, which will help with my compilation of global warming myths. Your site will be put on my rotation. I saw the reference to the truncated study in order to get the desired results. For some reason that doesn’t surprise me. The more I dig into the climate debate, the less I am surprised.
Susan,
I’ve been following your blog and find it a breath of fresh air.
Dr Curry,
I’d like to thank you and all the commenters here for providing me with measures of enlightenment, amusement and irritation this last year. I wish all of you the healthiest and happiest of holidays and success in the coming year.
The Climate Troll Bestiary posting was quite amusing, especially the comparison photos. Though of course, as a sensible and truly skeptical Lukewarmer, I didn’t recognize myself in that zoo.
The slant, poor syntax, spelling, wrong word usage (pray instead of prey) and poor punctuation in the posting bothered me somewhat, but not as much as some, based on this comment left by Steve Adams:
“I love the smell of bitter angry warmists in the morning! It is so gratifying as a skeptic to see the warmist cult become the punchline we always knew you were. Reduced to petulant tantrums on your obscure blogs and comment sections of news articles in a world where relevant politicians worldwide are running away from the global warming scam as fast as they can – while it collapses like the proverbial straw house blown down by the skeptic wolf (trying to keep with your theme here!!!). You can bitterly blame skeptics for the rest of your miserable lives but it was your complete lack of ethics that eventually brought you down. Never questioning each other, your data manipulation, your ridiculous catastrophic projections, your laughable computer models that were never right about any projections, your “hiding the decline”, your refusal to comply with FOIA requests, your refusal to engage in any debate (the science is settled…LOL)…no, you never questioned any ethical or logical lapse as long as it somehow supported and enriched the cult. People will be laughing about you for generations but those of us who lived through it and fought you every step of the way know how close you were to destroying our future. Congratulations, I don’t think anybody will ever trust “scientists” again. Let’s hope a real crisis doesn’t come along because the parable of the little boy who cried wolf gives us a glimpse of your guaranteed failure.”
Enjoy your lives to the fullest, our time here is fleeting.
I agree that this is the best climate blog out there. I’ve been coming for less than a year, but I have learned a lot.
I would classify myself as a lukewarmer: as a physicist, it is clear that CO2 will cause warming, but the magnitude of any feedback is subject to a great deal of uncertainty. In particular, positive feedback is notoriously difficult to predict with models, so my attitude is one of great caution with respect to the predictions of GCMs.
Here are a few of the things I have learned here:
A lot of paleoclimate is embarrassingly bad science. Michael Mann is either incompetent or mendacious, or both. The fact that there are supposedly-serious scientists who defend his work in public is a huge black eye on the entire field.
The consensus people have one very good point: there are a lot of wackos (skydragon people) who are, in fact, anti-science.
There is not a lot of room in the middle of this debate: reasoned discussion about the science is drowned out by polemics. On both sides. IMO, the warmist camp is more culpable here, since they are supposedly on the side of science. Calling Dr. Curry a “denier” because she wants more evidence before adopting a a catastrophist viewpoint is very un-scientific behavior.
I could go on, but that’s enough for now. There are a few voices I listen to and respect in this forum, so it’s been worthwhile.
A nice post to end a rather interesting year with both the climate and the climate blogosphere. Judith is to be commended for running what I feel is the best overall climate blog. Though I am clearly in the “warmest” camp, there are few active blogs where we warmists can have a civil discussion without completely being shouted down by “skeptics”, even to the point of constant ad homs. Judith does a great job of filtering out the ad homs, though I suspect it must be a rather tedious and time-consuming task.
I think the recent episode of Tasmine posting on WUWT and the nastiness displayed there shows how very valuable CE is. I would hope that we’d see more guest posts here by her and others, where I know she’d see a completely different class of denizens.
The evolution of the climate blogosphere should really pick up steam in 2015. The climate itself will be partially the driver of this, IMO. The “hiatus” gave “skeptics” a bit of encouragement that the issue of AGW was DOA. Sadly, those who were encouraged by the “hiatus” automatically are excluded from the category of true skeptics, as honest skeptics are actually neutral to the issue and are neither encouraged nor discouraged as they have no dog in the fight– they simply want to know what is most likely true. I strongly anticipate warming in the troposphere to return with a vengeance over the next few years, and this, more than anything, will cause the rapid repositioning and evolution of the climate blogosphere.
gates.
Happy. Holidays to you, and a +1 on the climate etc. comments.
As to the lecture on what makes a true skeptic, borderline laughable. One would not expect a true skeptic… which you seem to fancy yourself to be… to “strongly anticipate warming to return with a “vengeance.” doesn’t sound like a man who’s “actually neutral on the issue.” as you put it. As almost always, your own language gives you away.
Pokerguy,
Being a skeptic does not mean you don’t have an opinion about what is more likely than not to be true. What it does mean is you are not attached to that position as an end it itself. For many faux-skeptics, their position becomes a flag to rally behind– a territory to defend. The “hiatus” was a welcome and much beloved event for AGW skeptics. It ending would be a loss for their cause, but no doubt they’ll find other rallying points, no matter how full of vacuous pseudoscience they might be.
pokerguy knows a true skeptic is one who thinks like pokerguy.
Shape up, Gates !
HA HA
Gates: Read this article at Real Science.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
Rgates
A few of us did defend tamsin and Richard betts on that thread.
I am expecting to meet up with Richard at the met office early in the new year.
A happy Christmas to you.
Tonyb
I expect in the future average annual temperatures to go up and go down. I wonder where I fit.
R Gates, I think you hit upon one of the more important recent changes: ” Though I am clearly in the “warmest” camp, there are few active blogs where we warmists can have a civil discussion without completely being shouted down by “skeptics”, even to the point of constant ad homs.”
It is my experience that the ad homs mostly come from the minority sect visiting a blog. Alarmists are the minority in a growing number of blogs that allow more open discussions. That is the biggest change that I have noticed in the past couple of years.
One of those more open blogs that gets my vote is the AccuWeather climate change blog, http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/climatechange. Although being run by a warmist it is open to varying opinions.
I still rather like ATTP. I have been able to post there a number of times without trouble. There are people there who are nasty to me, but that’s part of posting on the web; ATTP tends to try to be fair-minded, try to respond seriously, and try to prevent gratuitous nastiness and stupidity. He sometimes acknowledges good points.
Judith Curry
happy holidays
my little climate blog story
happened to hear a right wing talk show host say “there hasn’t been any global warming in 17 years”
at the time I thought this could not possibly be true
began to search
found Sks, to which I had a very negative reaction
then stumbled onto CE… positive reaction
If Sks is the “big gorilla”
then the “warm side” is in sad shape
their posts draw comments numbering in single digits
is it disinterest or censorship?
“Week in Review” had hundreds of comments after the threading crashed
…during a major holiday
this has got to be an indicator
also..the “psychology of denialism” meme is despicable and a signal to me that the warm side is loosing confidence in their position
although looks like we can look forward to more of that silliness
“communitarian”
“individualist”
tripe
thanks Judith
CE is one of my favorite things in 2014
without you I would not know of Tonyb, kim, and beth the serf
I would also not know IPCC, HADCRU, SST, AMO, ARGO, BEST
making me quite an annoyance to all my friends
:)
“If Sks is the “big gorilla”
then the “warm side” is in sad shape
their posts draw comments numbering in single digits
is it disinterest or censorship?”
If a blog does moderate other views too often, it’s left with supporters only. So it can turn into an exercise in preaching to the choir. Then what is there left to discuss? I think censorship or whatever it should be called (heavy moderation) does lead to disinterest. And when one side has won the debate at a particular blog, as indicated by the large number of negative responses to comments from the other side, you get a disinterest as well. So maybe it’s a balance that makes a blog interesting. My Christmas wish was for more warmists to join in the discussion at Climate Etc.
+1
Nobody of note is going to join in here. This place is uncivilized. It’s a biker bar for nerds. What isn’t nasty is ridiculous.
Judith’s ‘e-salon’ is now the ‘e-saloon’
The blog equivalent of drunken arguments down at the pub.
Michael
Getting some extra shots before last call?
Richard
We see of course the unrestrained glee at the results of the persistent ordure cast about by these people. Their only purpose is to ridicule and trivialise. To divert attention from any serious or in depth discussion. The intent is very much to sabotage the blog – which they have pursued with some success.
It is in service of an agenda – a mean and spiteful one – of progressives owning the future one blog sneer at a time. The underlying practice seems to be to submerge anything they vaguely feel is politically incorrect under a stream of constant petty interjections – usually short, sneering comments on neo-cons, old white men and – a favourite of mine – psychologically aberrant posters of grandiliquent drivel.
The real sin is to get noticed – the Koolaid point – and they come out of the woodwork in their droves to rant and disparage. It is about Judy daring to raise her head above the parapet.
‘Later I learned that the first threat had nothing to do with what I actually made or said in my books, blog posts, articles, and conference presentations. The real problem — as my first harasser described — was that others were beginning to pay attention to me. He wrote as if mere exposure to my work was harming his world.
But here’s the key: it turned out he wasn’t outraged about my work. His rage was because, in his mind, my work didn’t deserve the attention. Spoiler alert: “deserve” and “attention” are at the heart.
A year later, I wrote a light-hearted article about “haters” (the quotes matter) and something I called The Koolaid Point. It wasn’t about harassment, abuse, or threats against people but about the kind of brand “trolls” you find in, say, Apple discussion forums. My wildly non-scientific theory was this: the most vocal trolling and “hate” for a brand kicks in HARD once a critical mass of brand fans/users are thought to have “drunk the Koolaid”. In other words, the hate wasn’t so much about the product/brand but that other people were falling for it.’
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/
Recognise it for what it is at least.
Nobody of note is going to join in here.
Not your fault. Nor mine. Right, brother?
This place is uncivilized.
And insulting. And critical.
It’s a biker bar for nerds.
Bookworms with attitude are like
Hell’s Angels with calculators.
What isn’t nasty is ridiculous.
Or both. Right? :)
Rhetorical and false arguments eventually become hollow … just listen to the air escaping the balloon. Invoking the 97% is an excellent example. If the question is differently / properly worded the answer is vastly hugely different … for example “do you believe the greenhouse effect of GHGs is largely scientifically based and supported; and do you believe that empirical trends in global warming are >95% due to the effect of greenhouse gases? Not simply “do you believe that global warming is occurring?” GHGs represent a fraction of the forcing / cause of observed mean temperature response, many climate scientists believe the fraction is on the order of half and that other factors are important and have not been in the focus of discussion because the IPCC committed (15 years ago ?) to greenhouse gases/CO2. It is not too late / now is the time for this propaganda to be corrected. You still here the 97% propaganda being invoked but mainly by politicians and media including the New York Times. Often they realize the faux nature of their mistake but do it anyway … to keep the chatter and saying “something” rather than enter into the real debate about the science.
To what extent is the online discussion ephemeral “chatter” and to what extent does it influence the science? Has it replaced the traditional journals and conferences to any extent? changed them? supplemented them? We surely agree the traditional ways needed updating.
The problem on the online discussion side is that there is so much of it and not even Google can hope to keep track of all the ideas expressed … and where will it all be in ten years?
The online discussion is a good thing for the concerned, knowledgeable citizen. For others less able to sort out the speculation and misinformation and politics, which is to say the general public, all I can say is ‘good luck’.
It’s superbly entertaining, at least.
Can anyone give me the current definition of what is a ‘denier’?
Is someone who believes that:-
“human actives, especially increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, have caused an increase in Earths steady state temperature and this has caused between 50 and 100% of the warming that has been observed since 1880”
a denier?
As stated in that precise manner, that person would be a warmist true believer. Without qualifications such as “more likely than not”, a position of certainty is not technically science but religion.
If 100% of the 0.8 degree rise in temperature between 1880 and 2014 (HADCRU4) is caused by the 292 to 400 ppm rise in CO2, then transient climate sensitivity is 2.05. Should only half be due to CO2, then TCR is 1 degree.
My own preferred calculation is for TCR=ECS=1.8 degrees.
However, according to ATTP, I am a denialist.
Gates
+1
Been searching for the right words and you saved me the effort. The Catholic Church recognizes, in the teaching of St Aquinas, that its belief in the existence and nature of God is an act of faith; although not proven in the scientific sense, it is not illogical.
Some of the conclusions of AR5 ( for instance that cloud feedback is likely positive) are also not proven in the scientific sense, but the IPCC does not admit that those conclusions are based on faith.
John Smith: Perhaps you only think you know Kim and bts. I share your admiration for them and for TonyB.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all at CE.
Richard
Thx JS and rls fer kind werds ter simple serfs
and a Happy Xmas both, et al.*
bts..
* but not Al
I wouldn’t call “cloud feedback is likely positive” a conclusion. A tentative statement of what the current science says with a less than 100% certainty.
TCR and ECS are not the same thing and CO2’s affect on temperature is not the only thing that should be entered into the calculation to determine TCR or ECS.
Happy just another day on the calender to all.
“A tentative statement of what the current science says with a less than 100% certainty.”
_____
If you want science, then flee from anyone who gives you 100% certainty. They would be snake oil salesmen or religious types wanting access to your wallet.
100% certainty? That pretty much includes 95% of warmists.
Doc, in Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology has claimed that any climate data collected prior to 1910 has been compiled by incompetent people and usually in inconsistent methods.
(‘oogle homogenisation BoM rutherglen)
Many famous names, including Svante Arrhenius, are now considered incompetent drunks according to the BoM.
You might need to re-design that pigeon-hole (according to the latest “settled science” specifications) before naming, and stuffing said pigeon in the hole.
its easier to ask you what you believe.
1. Does burning fossil fuels add more C02 to the atmosphere
Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere doesn’t necessarily mean affecting atmospheric CO2. Burning ‘fossil’ fuels adds more H2O to the atmosphere, but it doesn’t affect global atmopspheric H2O.
Edim,
.. and you don’t know, what makes CO2 and H2O different in this respect.
Really?
Pekka,
you probably mean that H2O is condensable and CO2 not, and that’s not my point. But now that you mention it, i think atmospheric CO2 is quasi-condensable. Since the atmosphere is in direct contact with the oceans and it contains much less CO2 than the oceans, any excess pCO2 in the atmosphere will equilibrate with the oceans quickly and very little excess CO2 will remain in the atmosphere.
The balance is formed relatively rapidly, i.e. within years or a couple of decades) only between the topmost ocean (the mixed layer) and the atmosphere (biosphere and top soil contribute as well, the deeper ocean only gradually over decades and centuries). In reaching the new balance the ocean mixed layer takes only a small fraction of the increase in atmospheric CO2. This is the outcome of chemical equilibrium of all important reactions that involve CO2, bicarbonates and carbonates.
The situation is not comparable at all with the condensation that has no upper limit for the amount of water oceans can take.
Pekka is speculating, and presenting it as fact, about the time it takes for changes in mixed ocean layer to propagate into lower ocean layers.
Just an FYI to take everything Pekka posts with a grain of salt. His facts are often no more than guesses made to bolster his beliefs.
Mosher:
and here I thought you set the bar way, way (way!) too high. Edim does not disappoint:
Exact. This is denier defining itself with pure logic.
David in TX:
Pekka is correct. Good estimates for diffusion exist and the order that Pekka gives is correct. This type of mass transfer has been usefully modeled and estimated by engineers and chemists for decades.
Well, the percentage of CO2 emissions that went into the atmosphere used to be over 60% and it is down to a 4.2/5.6 split (42% into the atmosphere).
Emissions do increase the CO2 in the atmosphere but with a decreasing effectiveness. There are Revelle this and drivel that arguments that this trend will stop – but the trend has been steadily increasing (less to the atmosphere more to the environment) so apparently the planet isn’t listening to the science.
Steven Mosher,
I believe you were educated in the USA, and therefore I will not point out that in civilised countries sentences usually begin with an uppercase letter, and that the usual abbreviation for “it is” is “it’s”.
I am unable to understand what your comment “its easier to ask you what you believe.” is intended to mean.
You make a statement – or a question, as follows –
1. Does burning fossil fuels add more C02 to the atmosphere
I am unsure what you mean. Normally a question would be terminated with a question mark, but you have cunningly employed the Warmist technique of obfuscation by omission. Is this intentional, or merely due to mental laxity?
However, I assume that you are trying to pose a question that would normally invite a positive response, in an attempt to appear wise. The foolishness of this approach, if indeed you are attempting such, can be demonstrated by asking any normal person the question “Does breathing add CO2 to the atmosphere?” The answer is in the affirmative, and also devoid of utility, in any reasonable sense.
Does boiling water add water vapour to the atmosphere? Does ionising radiation from the Sun add ozone (amongst other things) to the atmosphere? Are you completely stupid, or just pretending to be dim-witted?
If you are intellectually impaired, and merely doing the best you can, I apologise. Might I suggest a blog administered by one of your peers might be a little less critical of your attempts.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
JohnFPittman
Incomplete..
You are correct to say that ocean layers exchange mass/energy by diffusion and the rate is characterized well enough for some purposes.
What you fail to mention is that ocean layers also exchange mass/energy by convection. And that process dominates over diffusion. And it’s not well characterized.
It is for that reason that there’s all the handwaving about “the pause” in global warming possibly being due to faster than expected heat transfer from surface to mid-ocean layer between 700 and 2000 meters. We have virtually no data on the half of the global ocean that’s below 2000 meters.
Nice try but no cigar.
No cigar David in Texas. The deep layers are laminar. Convection is a property of turbulence wrt to ocean layers, and most other phenomena associated with low Reynolds numbers. As Pekka tried to point out that is the mixed layer(s). Deep ocean currents and transport were studied first IIRC because of the nutrients. Nutrient transport in deep ocean currents gave the original estimates. Nutrients have more variability than heat since psychrophilic organisms can consume and change nutrient transport.
Evidently you’ve never heard of the oceanic conveyor belt, JohnFPittmann. Your lack of depth (pun intended) in this subject area is painfully obvious. Please get a clue before further comment.
David in Texas, I note that you too are presenting incomplete information to Pekka’s point. Some of the conveyors can be modeled as laminar, some as turbulent. Both ways of modeling, share a problem of accuracy or complexity, or both; not to mention the large scale data requirements to separate and synthesize. Pekka’s, as a general statement of the ocean, has about as much information as yours. As does mine.
Conveyors are not the ocean layers. They are part of the system. And yes, several studies of different chemicals or isotopes indicate that the conveyor systems can transport to deep ocean in about a decade. But that was not Pekka’s point of chemical equilibrium, which is what I was pointing out. Pekka used decades to centuries, which is more accurate that the complete laminar slab modeling that was originally used. It tended to give estimates in the 1K year range or greater. Likewise using decades to centuries for areas that are laminar or not part of the conveyor for equilibrium does not appear to be inappropriate. Do you have a source that indicates otherwise?
His point was not just change, but equilibrium.
JohnFPittmann
I’ve reduced you to prevaricating.
The oceanic conveyor belt is driven by uneven heating and Coriolis forces. It moves massive quantities of matter/energy from the mixed layer to the mid and bottom layers.
Not only are you uninformed you’re a sore loser who can’t concede a point. You bore me.
David in Texas, I understand your points better after re-reading. It is not a matter of prevaricating. You stated “What you fail to mention is that ocean layers also exchange mass/energy by convection. And that process dominates over diffusion. And it’s not well characterized.” I agree with this as a fact. The transfer rate I referred to did involve modeling, and the order of the estimates. It does include using laminar for deep oceans.You stated that Pekka was speculating. His statements were a condensation of AR4. Pekka and I have discussed this and other conclusions from AR4 in our comments.
If your point is that the 44% to 46% sink will not disappear as AR4 and others have modeled. I would not disagree. I would disagree that Pekka was speculating or that he got the order of the estimates wrong. Though the estimates themselves may be poor, or even useless.
Pekka stated about equilibrium “the deeper ocean only gradually over decades and centuries.” This is what is claimed in AR4. I agreed with this as what has been presented; and it is how it has been modeled.
I am still interested in a source, since in my opinion, that the sinks have shown themselves larger than originally estimated, and the ocean and or its bio-cycles should have a large part in this, if true. But without a source, it is speculation.
I do want to thank you for your comments, it lead me to find better information, and helped resolve something I did not like, and did not know why. That is that the simple multislab layers typically used in the models, need to be taken “with a grain of salt.” They may be a good approximation; they may not. They do not capture the dynamics well, and that should be remembered.
If Pekka was parroting AR4 then I have no problem characterizing AR4 as speculation in this instance.
The fact still remains that Pekka gave a time frame for mass/energy exchange between ocean layers and that is notorious in how poorly it is known.
You completely ignored my point that the hiatus has been blamed on, among other things, unexpectedly fast transfer of heat from mixed layer to deeper ocean layers. Those who formulated that reason (which I mockingly call “the ocean ate my global warming”) are the same crowd who composed AR4 in the first place. If transfer rates were well characterized then why was the hiatus not anticipated? Actions speak louder than words and AR4 authors so quick and willing to throw mass/energy advection rate between ocean layers under the bus clearly don’t trust their own previous beliefs.
Can someone give me the current definition of what is a “warmist?”
Is someone who believes that:-
“human activities, especially increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, have caused an increase in Earth’s steady state temperature and this has caused between 50 and 100% of the warming that has been observed since 1880”
A “warmist?”
Depends on what blog you are on. In that you are above 50%, yes you are warmer than AR4, since they assigned most of the most, and that was about 50% max. But that depends on how one assigns CI’s and other assumptions. If you said 50% since about 1950, you would be right there with AR4.
Joshua
It might also include a person who denies that the medieval warm period was warm; perhaps as warm or warmer than our current warm period.
Keep warm
Richard
I my view a warmist is anyone who believes that anthropogenic CO2 is such a threat to future civilization that fossil fuel consumption must be drastically curtailed despite the immediate adverse consequences of energy starvation to present civilization.
Well, he might be or he might not be.
My definitions
Denier: denies man-made global global warming is a problem to avoid.
Skeptic: not sure it is, and not sure it isn’t.
SkS is read by next to no one these days. It used to be the ‘go to’ site for believers who didn’t know how to create their own arguments. Now it just looks like the Christian apologetics website called Answers in Genesis.
In five years we’ve seen significant growth in readership in the skeptical blogosphere and a more significant decline on the alarmist side. This is what happens when all you have to carry you forward is blatant propaganda, demonstrably false arguments and the ridiculous insistence that the global mean temperature anomaly is primarily a function of man made emissions of carbon dioxide.
SkS has a nice trend calculator on it though.
Pity these days most of the trends it calculates show SkS are up the creek without a paddle.
Happy Christmas everyone!
Thank you, Dr. Curry, for creating and maintaining this blog.
Considering how much money is getting reallocated based on the AGW theme, there is stunningly little debate or discussion. CE is one of the few places where such debate is possible. It is truly a service to the community and as such, entirely uncompensated.
Very best wishes to you and yours for the holidays!
Judith, may you continue to be unaware of how truly special you are in the world of science. Best to avoid complacency. My very best to you and your family for a joyous holiday and great new year.
Nicely put Bob, I agree completely.
+1
Yes, Judith. Me, too. And best to Peter Webster, as well.
…Lady in Red
Skeptic blogs are frequented by people who have lots of time on their hands and have nothing better to do than rant and rave about things they don’t like, which seems to be mostly anything they aren’t used to. Many are older males who have conservative or reactionary views, and favor the status quo or regressing. I suspect retirees are disproportionately represented.
I doubt skeptic blogs do little if anything for the advancement of science, and may even be a drag on science. While some skeptics have technical training and work experience (mostly engineering, I think), they seem to more interested in showing off what they know than doing anything constructive.
“hey seem to more interested in showing off what they know than doing anything constructive.”
yup.
Bizarre comment to my mind. _Every_ skeptic blog? Do you seriously claim that climateaudit, for instance, is not the premier place on the internet for expert discussion of paleo studies? People who don’t frequent there tend to be woefully ignorant of both new news and old history of the subject; there is just nowhere else that covers the subject in such detail.
Or do you mean _some_ skeptic blogs? Do you seriously claim that there are no warmist blogs to which the _exact same comments_ apply, maybe changing the word conservative to liberal and nothing else in either paragraph? That they don’t apply completely in full to desmogblog, for instance?
I don’t see any way to read your words that connects to reality.
miker613, I rarely visit climateaudit anymore, so I don’t know what contributions the blog is making to paleo science. The times I did visit, I got the impression climateaudit was mostly about finding fault with Michael Mann. I would be pleasantly surprised if this blog has become a place where paleo scientists discuss the science.
” I suspect retirees are disproportionately represented.”
I suspect that’s because retirees are able to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth without jeopardising their employment prospects.
cat, call me skeptical about that one. Some retirees are good at rationalizing why they weren’t more successful in their careers.
“do little if anything for the advancement of science, and may even be a drag on science.” Did you happen to notice PAGES2K’s recent half-a-dozen major corrections of mistakes, mistakes pointed out by climateaudit, mistakes whose correction makes their hockey stick vanish?
I’m sorry, miker613, I placed my reply to you upthread by mistake.
Max OK , “While some skeptics have technical training and work experience (mostly engineering, I think), they seem to more interested in showing off what they know than doing anything constructive.”
What do you consider “constructive”? Is telling people the world as we know it is not likely to end because of CO2 constructive or destructive?
Is telling the world that building out solar electric infrastructure is not a great idea when the current state of the art is over priced and likely to improve in efficiency and cost over the next decade, constructive or destructive?
How about recommending that nuclear power be given a second chance since Jane Fonda is not a real scientist after all?
What about mentioning than corn ethanol might not have been the greatest thing to mandate?
Isn’t there a place for folks that just point out the less than brilliant ideas that seem to be adopted by the herd or are you just looking for yes men?
Max
as a conservative reactionary male
I am surprised by your ageist and sexist comments
you should know that those are reserved for us members of the Heteropatriarchy as it is one of our main weapons in maintaining
the status quo
and in dragging down science, as we have so successfully done since the Enlightenment
If I went to an age restricted community ( 55 +) and said “these people look like retirees” would that be be an “ageist comment”?
If I walked into a “baby shower” and said “where are the men,” would that be a sexist comment?
Let’s call a spade a spade.
And now racist. ;)
You apparently don’t like skeptic blogs, maxie. Why are you incessantly haunting this one? Is it because the other skeptic blogs aren’t so tolerant of the shenanigans of smarmy little warmist trolls?
Don, I come here to help Judith Curry keep ClimateEtc from becoming another WUWT.
You are just frustrated and lonely, maxie. Have you considered emigrating from OK? There are still a few blue states, where you would be happier cavorting with your fellow travelers.
Not only considered it, but did it.
Merry Christmas, Don.
Arkansas isn’t usually considered an improvement from Oklahoma.
Dear Okie if you see Arkie tell him Tex got a job for him out in Californy
Pikin prunes
California is a great place for you! Ruled and largely populated by nanny-state Mexican-hating demo-libs. Perfect. Texas and the rest of the midwest. south, and southwest thanks you for choosing California, We’ll also thank you if you never return.
Sorry Max but you have the wrong regressives identified. There is a group that has pulled a Rip Van Winkle and seems to have missed all the societal changes since the 1960s but long for the good old days when they really stood for something important and had some relevancy to contemporary problems. But sadly for them they are fighting the last war and the world has past them by while their world views have been relegated to the museum basement .
And it ain’t the group you were talking about.
nottawa, I rarely visit Climate blogs other than ClimateEtc, but I doubt any blog that draws large numbers of participants from the general public will do much for advancing climate science.
I’m sorry, nottawa, but my previous reply was intended for Jonas N.
I have been unfairly accused of ageism for believing global warming deniers are disproportionately older people. The truth is I feel sympathy for the elderly regardless of their views. I can see aging means loss in just about every way. I can understand adjusting to loss must be difficult. I can’t imagine what could be worse than the loss of a spouse one has been with for a lifetime.
Not loss in every way. Knowledge and wisdom increases. You’ll discover that in the unlikely circumstance you survive long enough to become eligible to enroll in AARP.
Max_OK
A really silly comment. If you just turn around and ask what ‘believer-blogs’ are worth reading, or rather if and how they contribute anything to any science advancement? Or what the reasons are that essentially every single one of them heavily depends on heavy handed ‘moderation’ of dissenting views? Or just what their political leaning might be? Or if they have any skill they can demonstrate even in presence of mild opposition and critical scrutiny?
Which ones, if any, were you thinking of?
Jonas, I rarely visit Climate blogs other than ClimateEtc., so I’m not the person to ask about ” believer-blogs.” I doubt, however, any blog that draws large numbers of participants from the general public will do much for advancing climate science, because it seems unlikely professional scientists would frequent these blogs and would waste time in discussions with people who have limited knowledge.
Can anyone show that atmospheric CO2 “can” increase the lapse rate at all? There is no absorption of IR flux, with every location in the atmosphere at a temperature higher than that needed for radiative equilibrium. This higher temperature via latent heat conversion means “no” actual altitude for exit flux. The flux outward to space continues to “accumulate” all the way to 220 km. Increasing atmospheric CO2 can have no effect on temperature at the surface or troposphere, and can only increase exit flux from the stratosphere, cooling it. It is the purpose of the atmosphere, not the surface, to regulate, via adjustable water vapor content, the temperatures, on or about this planet.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :-)
Even more astonishing …
I mean after you have ‘replied’ to various comments about your near clairvoyant assessment of what people and why they participate on skeptic blogs which you don’t follow, in addition to their age, political leanings and motivations.
On the other hand, if those remarks only reflect blindly held beliefs and or were random words forming incoherent sentences with at best hopeful guesses, that would make more sense …
But then you wouldn’t be more than yet another clueless climate concern posing hang around at some blog where these matters are discussed, the same kind there are so many of and who rarely ever have anything at all to contribute. (Usually they only rehash SkSc-style talking points, often without even understanding them or the issue. Or they resort to DeSmog-style personal attacks and mudslinging, as if that somehow would strengthen their own beliefs).
That’s why I was asking if you had any deeper thoughts about the issues you brought up? Particularly since you described your ambition (contribution?) here as that you:
I don’t really know what you may mean by that, but presumably you refer to the comment section there. But how your ‘contribution’ above somehow would accomplish anything ‘constructive’ is beyond me. And judging from your ‘answers’ above to other’s questions and comments, beyond you as well.
WRT the science and it’s advancement, I would say that there has been some progress since, say the IPCC TAR (the hockeystick PR-launch). But save our hostess and a very few more, all those advances, and more importantly the pertinent questions and relevant comparisons, were discussed on skeptical blogs long before they were ‘allowed’ in that particular branch of ‘climate science’ where ‘consensus’ is a virtue and even an ‘argument’.
Personally, I’ve always considered the discussion at the skeptical blogs far more constructive than what goes on among the believers. Even those believers who believe in their stance based on their professional assessment. Real Climate could sometimes answer questions about their own supporting literature quite well. But wrt to answering critical questions, handling objections or just follow-up questions they were far less impressive. And as I said, the often need to ‘disappear’ such in a quite obvious way.
Which only but also quickly made them far less convincing, and after a few such instances (documented at blogs where discussion is encouraged, mind you) it soon became clear that RC was a PR-stunt, whose purpose at best was advocacy for one particular (already decided) hypothesis that didn’t fare all too well in open gene pool of competing ideas (or just when compared to empirical evidence and logic). Theirs is mainly a defense of the ‘consensus’ orthodoxy and subsequent wagon-circling, which as you might realize already there is detrimental to scientific advancement and constructive discourse …
So sorry Max_OK, your initial comment (as well as your follow-ups) showed one thing clearly: That the attempts to trash the skeptical part of the blogosphere mostly are poorly conceived and often just plain silly (and I somehow don’t think that’s what you wanted to convey).
Perhaps the Max_OK assertation, “general public will do much … advancing climate science, because it seems unlikely professional scientists would frequent these blogs and would waste time in discussions with people who have limited knowledge”, means “Climate Science” is only for arrogant academics with no experience in anything, but who claim much knowledge of modeling of “fantasy” on a playstation-64.
Will J, there most certainly is an element of that, ie. that:
‘Only the the approved believers-in/followers-of/adherents-to the so called ‘consensus’-position’ are entitled to participate in the discussion, which anyway only takes place on their home turf’ and that the consensus following from these exclusion tactics somehow prove that their belief was the correct one’
But that is really only for the most shallow-minded. The smarter among them are of course trawling the better skeptic blogs both for comments on their latest hyped publication, the errors and criticisms (sometimes ‘takedowns’ there) and prepare responses and adjust their talking points etc. At times they even claim to have found the problems themselves and ‘independently’ before they were pointed out on blogs (but made this claim first afterwards) etc. Sometimes papers were retracted after (real) skeptic blog-scrutiny, or this prompted corrections/errata/addendums.
No, I’d rather say that the ‘professional’ climate scientists shun the debate, both on (even playing field) blogs or in public venues, is just because they almost always lose the debate, both the technical one or in the public eye …
And the smarter ones amongst them know it. And after all, things (observational data, emirically based science) haven’t gotten better for the alarmist side the last decade, in addition to that almost whatever they try today as ‘explanation’ contradicts what they loudly proclaimed earlier (in the days of the ‘settled science’ when ‘the debate was over’, the one they have shunned ever since that is)
Seasons Greetings to Ms Curry & her ‘denizens’.
Thank you for the blog & the opportunity to comment.
We can never underestimate the importance of the freedom to comment.
In Australia, we have a popular blog called Joannenova, which seems to be missing off your list.
Come on over and “throw a prawn on the barbie” as we say and do in Australia at this festive time of year!
Actually, we do it all year around in Oz, so perfect is our climate!
Mark M aka handjive
While some skeptics have technical training and work experience (mostly engineering, I think), they seem to more interested in showing off what they know than doing anything constructive.
This is opposed to showing off what you don’t know and not doing anything constructive?
Let me speak to Delta Dawn.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion Maxy – it’s just that yours is stupid.
Remember when I asked for your opinion? Yeah – me neither.
No, but you must think my opinions are important because you comment on a lot of them.
I’m supposed to ignore cr@p just because it’s crap? Does he imagine that I find haphazard calumny with all the sophistication of a toddler – repeated for the 1000th time – remotely interesting or challenging? No – it’s just crap. May as well throw it back at the monkeys because their aim is to bury you in it. They do it for lulz.
Maxy is a person of rare intelligence – it’s rare to never that he shows any.
Hugh Jass asks ” I’m supposed to ignore cr@p just because it’s crap?”
_____
Yes, unless you step in it.
It’s you fault, Max. You made him be a brat. He’s too important to not comment. With him, it’s all about I. You are, of course, completely stupid because you’ve completely unhinged his impulse control. How a narcissistic dumbbell troll like you has such enormous power over an exceedingly humble genius is a mystery.
checklist:
1. exhibits grandiosity
2. disdainful/patronizing attitude
3. poor impulse control
4. infatuated with his own brilliance
5. entitled to blog rules that suit him ( why won’t Judy fix it for Max/)
6. regularly haughty
7. regularly arrogant
You’re nailed, Max.
JCH,
LOL.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Aristotle
Entertaining is the opposite of boring it silly Maxy.
‘A year later, I wrote a light-hearted article about “haters” (the quotes matter) and something I called The Koolaid Point. It wasn’t about harassment, abuse, or threats against people but about the kind of brand “trolls” you find in, say, Apple discussion forums. My wildly non-scientific theory was this: the most vocal trolling and “hate” for a brand kicks in HARD once a critical mass of brand fans/users are thought to have “drunk the Koolaid”. In other words, the hate wasn’t so much about the product/brand but that other people were falling for it…
I’m not sure I like comparing trolls to animals (because insulting to animals), but as an animal trainer, I’m painfully aware of the power of operant conditioning. Yes, sure, “don’t feed the trolls” has been the standard advice, a bullshit talking point propagated by trolls to blame their targets. “You brought this on. You don’t want this? Don’t engage.” Except that’s not actually true. It’s the opposite of true, once you’ve been personally targeted.
As any parent of a two-year old can tell you, ignoring the child usually leads to escalation. Cry harder, scream louder, and in the most desperate scenarios, become destructive. Anything to get the attention they crave. Simply moving on is not an option for the haters once you’ve been labeled a Koolaid server and/or a rich source of lulz. Ignore them, and the trolls cry harder, scream louder, and become destructive.
If you’ve already hit the Koolaid Piont, you usually have just three choices:
1. leave (They Win)
2. ignore them (they escalate, make your life more miserable, DDoS, ruin your career, etc. i.e. They Win)
3. fight back (If you’ve already hit the Koolaid Point, see option #2. They Win).’
Yes I did read the post. This bit reminded me in a nice way of my toddler son insisting I buy him lollies. ‘If you don’t stop that’ – I said – ‘I will spank you’. He gave me an outraged look – how dare you even suggest something so barbaric – and attacked with flying little fists and feet. I was so proud. At least I didn’t dress him in Christmas gear as he does my grandson. No good will come of it.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/sebastian-3.jpg
Now – Koolaid point. About the best they can usually do here is to throw little piles of crap around. The object is to bury any sensible discussion under acres of ordure. Surely this is the way the game is played here? It has been going on for long enough.
Although I note that JCH has escalated to character assassination on the basis that I am too arrogant to listen to him babble on about stuff he pulls out of his arse or – using the freakishly sophisticated statistical routines built in at wood for dimwits – graphs.
They are outraged that you even try to fight back – that’s not in their bullying rule book. Read the piece on trolls always win. They do it for lulz. Take note of the short content less comments at great frequency purporting to be funny – but not – and always at someones expense. The practice of bullies. They are just not very good at the linguistic thing and post smarmy little gibes with the sophistication of a toddler but with none of the integrity and good will.
If they want to continue however – I have dedicated myself to having fun with it in a quite deliberate way that would seem to be compellingly obvious. How is i not obvious that my intent is to be a bigger arse than Maxy or these other guys? Ambitious I know – but I am up to the task.
I wish JCH, Michael, and Hugh Jass a Merry Christmas.
‘If you’ve already hit the Koolaid Piont, you usually have just three choices:
1. leave (They Win)
2. ignore them (they escalate, make your life more miserable, DDoS, ruin your career, etc. i.e. They Win)
3. fight back (If you’ve already hit the Koolaid Point, see option #2. They Win).’
We hit the Koolaid point long ago at CE. I have a comment that got munched by the spam bot for no discernible reason. The subject was the usual band of CE trolls. You can tell them by the proliferation of short comment they imagine is funny – always at the expense of someone else – but in reality has all the sophistication of a toddler. That’s how the game is played around here isn’t it?
JCH attempts a longer take down I note. Beats hell out of his usual pull it out of his ass babble or – using the the hyper sophisticated inbuilt statistics of wood for dimwits – graphs. This is the stage of escalation in response to someone daring to make fun of them. How dare he be a huge ass right back at them and – seeing as they are not very good at this linguistic or intellectual thingy – be better at it. This is not the game plan for would be bullies fighting the good fight to silence the apostate. He must be unhinged. But – after all – it is just a game I play for fun. That much must be blindingly obvious. I play it for lutz. Why are they so offended?
Rob,
JCH had you nailed.
It’s nice you have so much spare time for your long-winded drivel.
This is a very rare moment. I agree with Michael. JCH nailed it.
Oh for God’s sake David – are you too thick to recognise their only purpose is to ridicule and trivialise? To divert attention from any serious or in depth discussion. The intent is very much to sabotage the blog – which they have pursued with some success.
Take note of the type and origins of these comments. They may have you in their sights if you ever say anything interesting. Although – I have just reviewed all your comments in this post and nothing interesting so far.
I quoted Maxy –
While some skeptics have technical training and work experience (mostly engineering, I think), they seem to more interested in showing off what they know than doing anything constructive.
with – this is opposed to showing off what you don’t know and not doing anything constructive?
And of course it escalated from there – as is there practice. Read the link – http://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/ – and then decide whether you condone persistent attempts at cyber bullying. Otherwise you’ll excuse me if I don’t give a rat’s arse.
” The intent is very much to sabotage the blog – which they have pursued with some success. ” – Rob Ellison AKA Huge Arse
Huge,
If this were true, you would be the great enabler.
Sadly, the primary saboteurs are the climate ‘skeptics’ .Just read the comments of cwon, Lang, Springer, Daniel, omanuel, kim et.al You can count on the fingers of one hand which ‘skeptics’ have anythig sensible to say. And the ‘warmists’ have dwindled to almost zero in the face of unrelenting hostility and bad faith from the usual suspects.
CE is a strange blog – almost a zombie; dead but alive. Judith posts interest articles ocassionally, but the comments are a graveyard.And it’s not really a climate science blog, more a meta-climate science blog; talking about talking about climate science.
JCH, priceless.
Michael | December 25, 2014 at 11:05 pm |
You can count on the fingers of one hand which ‘skeptics’ have anythig sensible to say. And the ‘warmists’ have dwindled to almost zero in the face of unrelenting hostility and bad faith from the usual suspects.
The problem is more that the warmers have a number of postulates they demand must be accepted on blind faith:
1. Warming is bad. No, just no. Until we get clearly beyond the MWP warming these allegations of harm are just allegations.
2. CO2 can be doubled. Don’t see any way in hell this will happen. This assumes that the environment will saturate – won’t happen until 1200+ PPM (when photosynthesis levels off), since you can’t get past 600 PPM without saturation, you can’t get to 1200. As it is, an ever increasing fraction of CO2 will get absorbed by the environment.
3. CO2 is bad/pollution. This is just indefensible. This is intellectually dishonest. 280 PPM is almost at the starvation level (200 PPM) and the low CO2 was harming the planet. The plant growth from CO2 is clearly beneficial.
4. CO2 causes warming. This actually can be defended to some extent. The theory has a physical basis and it makes the 20th century easier to model. The water vapor feedback theory is very problematic however and without it drastic temperature changes can’t occur.
5. CO2 drove climate in the past. People point to the PETM – sediment studies refutes CO2 as a PETM climate driver (it cooled while the CO2 was rising).
An enabler? You don’t really need my help to carp and disparage Michael – and if you had a capacity to discuss any relevant topic in depth we have yet to see it. My response to this little game of yours is to play the game for lutz – as it says in the link I keep alluding to.
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/trolls-will-always-win/
And if klutz like John Carpenter want to collude in your game – so be it.
I have quoted SoD elsewhere – yes I agree.
‘The moderator reserves the right to just capriciously delete comments which use as their premise that standard textbook physics is plain wrong.’
By all means delete all the crap capriciously – and much else besides. May we be left with much less of the not very smart and not very serious, witty, droll, urbane or erudite smartarse interjections. .
I am eagerly looking forward to a “trolls always win” victory lap from both Michael and Max.
JCH:
With modern electronic timing only only of “M”s should be taking a “trolls always win” victory lap.
In the black hole theory of trivial action and reaction – the trajectory seems rather to be spiraling in until they disappear up their own arses. Oh wait – the experiment has already been performed.
PA
@ http://judithcurry.com/2014/12/24/climate-blogosphere-discussion-thread/#comment-658026
+1
Thank you. Well said. Climate science isn’t much of a science. It’s a narrative. A new age earth-god religion with roots firmly planted in Stanford University by Paul R. Erlich and the discredited 1960’s tome “The Population Bomb”. Climate science is the new raison d’etre for the Berkenstock-clad anti-humanist wilted flower children.
David –
==> “Climate science is the new raison d’etre for the Berkenstock-clad anti-humanist wilted flower children.”
If you’re looking for the reason why you were moderated at ATTP – start there.
And write that down.
Regarding CO2 concentration, PA said:
“since you can’t get past 600 PPM without saturation, you can’t get to 1200. As it is, an ever increasing fraction of CO2 will get absorbed by the environment.”
_____
Quickly you rise to the top of the daily Pseudoscience Nonsense award. There is absolutely no valid science to support the contention that “you can’t get past 600 ppm” CO2 without saturation. The research is still being done as to whether the soils and biosphere will release or absorb more CO2 as levels rise, and the oceans are also another unknown. So far the oceans have been a great sink for CO2 during the Human Carbon Volcano– but no guarantees this will continue.
R. Gates,
Of course we can’t go past 6ooppm.
There’s no doubt about that.
Go ‘skeptics’!!
R. Gates | December 26, 2014 at 10:17 am |
Quickly you rise to the top of the daily Pseudoscience Nonsense award. There is absolutely no valid science to support the contention that “you can’t get past 600 ppm” CO2 without saturation.
Says a master in pseudoscience.
https://www.hydrofarm.com/resources/articles/co2.jpg
The CO2 experiment is run in greenhouses every day. The lower water requirements and more growth will increase absorption by land plants until about 1200 PPM (half of the emissions absorption is by land plants)
http://mel.xmu.edu.cn/upload_paper/20115991356-7XFBPx.pdf
It isn’t clear how high the limit is for ocean plants. There may not be a practical upper limit. More CO2 increases ocean plant growth under light limiting condition and increases the amount of nitrogen fixing.
Pretending that plants in the ocean and on land won’t sequester increasing amounts of CO2 as the level of atmospheric CO2 rises is just pretending.
CO2 makes the earth more bountiful so rapidly that drastic increases in atmospheric CO2 from the pitifully small pool of fossil fuel available (only 2% of the carbon already in the ocean) seem to be impossible. A 2% increase in growth would flat line atmospheric increases from current CO2 emissions.
This makes the high CO2 scenarios a warmist pipe dream.
PA,
I guess there were not any plants around 250-100 million years ago to prevent CO2 from going from between 2000 to 4000 ppm:
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-6-1.jpg
Oops, there were. Major Pseudoscience fail on your part.
Uh oh PA, and your assumption that all plants are just going to love the warmer temperatures as CO2 increases based on your model greenhouse studies seems more pseudoscience than fact based:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/23/global-warming-cut-wheat-yields-research-shows
Would seem there is a lot of data to suggest that you might want to increase your uncertainty about 600 ppm being some kind of cap on CO2 concentrations. Real science would indicate that CO2 could easily go well over 1000 or 2000 ppm in the real (non pseudoscience) world and the resulting warmth not be 100% beneficial to all plant life.
Interesting thought, Joshua. I was moderated at ATTP not because of anything I wrote there but because my reputation preceded me.
I didn’t know I was that famous. I’d never heard of ATTP before and I’m quite sure it will soon lapse back into the ignominy of WUWT “blog spawn” (orginally WOTTSUPWITHTHAT) it so richly deserves.
Interesting thought you have there, Joshua: I was censored at ATTP not because of anything I wrote there but because my reputation preceded me.
I didn’t know I was that famous. I’d never heard of ATTP before and I’m quite sure it will soon lapse back into the ignominy of WUWT “blog spawn” (orginally WOTTSUPWITHTHAT) it so richly deserves.
R. Gates | December 26, 2014 at 11:18 am |
Uh oh PA, and your assumption that all plants are just going to love the warmer temperatures as CO2 increases based on your model greenhouse studies seems more pseudoscience than fact based:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/dec/23/global-warming-cut-wheat-yields-research-shows
I already addressed elsewhere this b*llshit study that used 30 models of plant growth, assumed no CO2 change, and assumed cultivars don’t make a difference.
http://aciar.gov.au/files/mn-158/img/Figure_03.5.png
The model study includes a simulation of the 1980-2010 harm done. Western Australia was harmed 6%. Actual yields in Western Australia for the 1980-2010 period doubled.
The warmistas really need to quit trying to claim increases in scarce nutrients like CO2 don’t increase plant growth. It makes them look dishonest and foolish and undermines what little point they might have.
The historic CO2 levels, featuring CO2 increases 3-30 times what is possible with the current fossil fuel reserves are interesting – but occurred with less than optimum conditions for plant growth. A slow steady increase in CO2 under optimum plant growth conditions has resulted in a blooming planet in the past as it is doing now.
“The historic CO2 levels, featuring CO2 increases 3-30 times what is possible with the current fossil fuel reserves are interesting – but occurred with less than optimum conditions for plant growth” – PA
PA,
Is that you trying to avoid acknowledging your absolute certainty about a 600pm limit is obviously wrong?
Not a great display of scepticism, which is why many of us refer to ‘skeptics’.
PA’s point is that there is not enough economically recoverable fossil fuel to go beyond 600ppm CO2 given current rate of emissions and sinks.
Michael | December 26, 2014 at 4:43 pm |
“The historic CO2 levels, featuring CO2 increases 3-30 times what is possible with the current fossil fuel reserves are interesting – but occurred with less than optimum conditions for plant growth” – PA
PA,
Is that you trying to avoid acknowledging your absolute certainty about a 600pm limit is obviously wrong?
Not a great display of scepticism, which is why many of us refer to ‘skeptics’.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/temp_emiss_increase.jpg
http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C52/carbon_emissions_2004
“Three fourths of global carbon emissions come from the burning of fossil fuels, namely coal, oil, and natural gas. The rest come largely from deforestation.”
Two points:
1. 1/4 of emissions are from burning forest. When they run of rainforest that will stop.
2. The emissions and atmospheric CO2 were in lockstep until about 1940. Then the atmospheric CO2 stabilized for a couple of years at 310-312. Since then the percentage of emissions contributing to the atmospheric CO2 level has steadily declined.
In 2014 less than 42% of emissions went into the atmosphere.
The IPCC RCP4.5 scenario shows what is actually going to happen.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/iRCP45_CO2.png
PA, maybe you can also post the RCP4.5 emissions? Or should I help with that? Easy for people to Google for themselves, if curious.
“The IPCC RCP4.5 scenario shows what is actually going to happen.” – PA
No.
Go back and read the RCP Database Charateristics and Guidance note.
All I heard was – “Blah, blah, blah – you’re an arsehole”. My work is done.
You’ve not quite got it right though Michael. If you are going to be a smartarse – you need to be smart. Being a gratuitously mean and spiteful little space cadet – and you are just an arse.
Here’s a clue – play it for lutz. That way you can be righteously outraged if some twit objects.
Indi,
Your act is looking a bit thread-bare, you keep recycling your insults.
Maybe you need a[nother] new s0ck-puppet to stimulate the creative juices?
Michael – apparently you’re not smart enough to have a bluebird personality disorder.
I’m sure we can find you an adequate substitute in the redbird area. So sorry.
The eyes of the beholder have spoken.
Much to my shame, I’m not even a huge arse, just an arse.
Yes I thought that repeating smartarse to you – used just yesterday – was a little too obvious. It is just too apt to use only once. It’s not like I had a nightmare – dreamt I was Michael and had nothing of any interest to say at all. I just talk like a fool – how else would he understand me.
I had to Google BLUEBIRD. .
‘BLUEBIRD is the cryptonym for a CIA mind control program that ran from 1951 to 1953. Other mind control programs include ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA, and MKSEARCH. The purpose of the book BLUEBIRD is to prove that the military and the CIA have been creating “Manchurian Candidates” for operational use since the second world war. This fact is described repeatedly by G.H. Estabrooks and in CIA documents on BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.’
So I’m the Manchurian candidate – and Michael is just smart enough to be a vegetable? I pretty sure JCH needs help. Not just once a week therapy – but round the clock with a team of psychologists in Vienna.
Nothing less will do if this is his idea of escalating trollery.
Schools used to divide up classes into the bluebirds and the redbirds.
LOL…he’s a redbird, obviously.
JCH thanks for the christmas laugh
So American schools are making Manchurian candidates. Explains a lot. mad, naked Emperor Moshpit. .
Michael | December 25, 2014 at 6:43 am |
“Much to my shame, I’m not even a huge arse, just an arse.”
And ankle biting dumba$$ is more apt. Don’t sell yourself short.
I find the changes at RealClimate most interesting. My guess is that the principles there recognize a few of things that they may not have seen 5 to 10 years back:
1) The resistance to their favored policies (drastic reductions in fossil fuel use) has little to nothing to do with an ‘information deficit’.
2) Those favored policies are not going to be implemented any time in the near future, and trying to push implementation of those policies in the near future is a waste of their time. (Will both houses of Congress suddenly become friendly to policies of rapid reductions in fossil fuel use? China is going to stop burning a huge amount of coal? India and Brazil will stop rapid economic development and use solar? All very unlikely.)
3) The rate of warming really is below what the model average says, and so there is a bit less urgency for immediate fossil fuel reductions than a decade ago.
4) Maybe (just maybe) they recognize that years of public climate battles (claims of ‘serial disinformer’ and worse) has hurt their public credibility…. too many past statements which when considered today reflect poorly on the judgement of those involved. New people at the blog may help with that problem.
In short, I suspect they see that their time could be better spent.
There is another less self-serving possibiltiy steve.
10 yrs is a very long time in the blogosphere.
I,being skeptical, would suggest that if we were to look at blogs on another science topic from 10 years ago,it’s likely that there would be significant changes over that time.
Do you think Clinate Etc will be running exactly the same in 2020??
Tell us who you are ‘Michael’.
I am hopeful that the RealClimate crew actually is a little chastened by some of their obvious distortions especially in the hockey stick wars and the GCM wars and realize that credibility is not increased by straying over the line into dishonesty.
Dream on.
Interesting.
So Steve reckons that the folks at RealClimate are thinking exactly what fits with his view on everything.
No projection there. Just “skeptical” reasoning.
hilarious.
It’s just coincidence, of course.
Tell us who you are ‘Joshua’.
Who is ‘stevefitzpatrick’ ????
Who cares?
Michael,
I am a chemist and chemical engineer, with additional background in programming, electronic circuit design, and mechanical design. I am 64 years old. When I was young I worked for a large company in R&D (polymers), customer technical support, and production engineering. I then worked for a decade as an independent consulting engineer, mostly mostly outside the States. I am fluent in Portuguese and get by in Spanish. I co-founded and operate a company that makes laboratory instruments used to measure the size distribution of particulate materials between ~70 microns and ~10 nm. My interest in climate silence developed about 7 years ago when I started reading claims in main stream publications of a warming catastrophe; my first reaction was,”Wait a minute, that sounds inconsistent with reality. Could it possibly be right?”
Who are you? Why are you interested in climate science?
Oh. Now that I know who Steve Fitzpatrick is, all of his arguments make more sense to me than they did before.
I mean I thought that the reasoning he displayed in this thread was kind of silly – because he projected his own views into someone else’s thinking. But now that I know who he is…..
hmmmm….
Likely wrong. While I think – probably like Steve – that the “deficit model” doesn’t go very far in explaining the public’s’ views on climate change, there is not much evidence that “realists” such as those at Real Climate have rejected the “deficit model,” as at least partially explanatory. So, Steve is likely projecting his own beliefs onto them.
I think there is little evidence of the folks at Climate Etc. concluding that they are “wast[ing] their time” by pushing for the implementation of specific policies. So, Steve is likely projecting his own beliefs onto them.
There is little evidence that the folks at Real Climate think that there is less urgency for the need to reduce CO2 emissions. In fact, as time has elapsed, they think that the need to make changes is even more urgent than 10 years ago. So, Steve is likely projecting his own beliefs onto them.
They clearly realize that what they’ve been doing has not achieved the results they wanted, but Steve’s logic there is highly doubtful. They don’t think that it is the battles that have hurt their credibility, but that a coordinated disinformation campaign along with a variety of factors has impeded progress. The fact that they are looking for more effective strategies does not mean that they think that the battles they’ve had have “hurt their public credibility,” even if people that they dismiss as being unreachable make that claim.
But now that I know him I realize that his reasoning was actually…..um….
Oh. Wait.
Now I realize that his arguments stand on their own merits. I realize now judging his comments based on who he is would be fallacious.
‘Joshua’,
Who are you? Why are you interested in climate science?
Steve,
Hate to break this to you, but ‘Steve Fitzpatrick’ is just a name on a screen.
It doesn’t make your self-serving fantasies any more real.
‘Michael’,
Who are you? Why are you interested in climate science?
“In short, I suspect they see that their time could be better spent.”
well of course they suspect their time could be better spent doing something else because they are doing something else.
I imagine each has their own reasons.
I’m glad they were there when I first became aware of the issue.
my original home site.
Sure, they have decided to do other things. But does that mean they think they have accomplished their original objectives, or rather that their objectives have changed? I think it interesting which it is.
” But does that mean they think they have accomplished their original objectives, or rather that their objectives have changed? I think it interesting which it is.”
That’s a more interesting question. I’d rather look at that than speculate
about their reasons for stopping.
What were there objectives.. we have some evidence
Yes, there is some information.
From the “About” tab at the site:
“We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.”
The second sentence seems a wee bit of a stretch, considering that all the contributors have made clear they think CO2 emissions must be cut…. based, of course, on dictates of ‘the science’. But have they concluded that ‘a quick response providing context’ is no longer needed?
In the post they say, “The conversations have also changed, and (for the most part) have become more nuanced. And a bunch of early career researchers with enthusiasm, time to spare and things to say, have morphed into institute directors and administrators with lots of new pressures.” OK, so too busy to blog. But maybe a little different perspective as well.
They ask, “Is RealClimate’s mission ‘Climate science from climate scientists’ still needed?”, and go on to list a bunch of other blogging efforts (odd that Science of Doom, Troy Masters, and Judith are not on the list ;-) ), but then say, “However, none of these efforts duplicate RealClimate in terms of reach or content or community…..We therefore feel that RealClimate still has a role, albeit one that is not tied solely to the current list of contributors. Consequently we need to find ways to transition the site into something that is more of an institution rather than just somewhere we blog.”
Not sure what to make of the ‘reach’ and ‘community’ parts. The site traffic is quite low.
About Real Climate, “Consequently we need to find ways to transition the site into something that is more of an institution rather than just somewhere we blog.” there is a recognition that things have changed. The Boston Matrix again:
http://www.oxlearn.com/admin/uploaded/image.php/cmsargomento_Files/20_Boston%20Matrix.png?width=600&image=/admin/uploaded//cmsargomento_Files/20_Boston%20Matrix.png
I’d say they were a star, then a cash cow, then a dog. They use the word transition, they may looking at something like a niche role. When they use the word institution, perhaps that means more of an educational slant and the possibility of star status again. A possible combination of the domain name and history with an existing educational institution? What about WUWT and the Boston Matrix? Currently a cash cow I’d guess depending on how you view its growth rate.
Steve Fitzpatrick
1. True
2. True
3. Maybe – I am skeptical of the accuracy of the (chaotic) models and the temperature measurements.
4. Never underestimate the power of denial.
Btw, I enjoy reading your thoughtful comments.
miker613 said on December 24, 2014 at 4:23 pm
“Did you happen to notice PAGES2K’s recent half-a-dozen major corrections of mistakes, mistakes pointed out by climateaudit, mistakes whose correction makes their hockey stick vanish?”
_____
Nope, I didn’t notice. Did everyone everywhere agree it made the hockey stick vanish?
Max
After seeing your inept contributions in previous posts about energy, I think you are the last person to comment on others not adding anything constructive. The term projection comes to mind.
The reason why engineers seem to be so “negative” is they actually have to deal in the real world and make things work. And they know the cost of the work – which is always a lot more than promoters think. That means they are conservative. Anyone can have pie in the sky dreams, it takes a realist to make it happen,
ChrisM, like you, I like to believe those who disagree with me are inept. We have something in common.
Yes, “engineers have to deal in the real world and make things work,” which may be why many engineers are uneasy about dealing with anything other than tangible “here and now” problems.
Max
The posts I were specifically referring to about your ineptitude were your support of wind generation despite overwhelming evidence in the trade literature to the contrary. You did not understand the discussion or even the terminology, yet you went in boots and all. On this post here, you slag off at people if they disagree with your view, without any supporting evidence. Even supporters find that type of tribalism distasteful.
If the problem isn’t here and now, but only exists in flawed models, why do engineers need to deal with it? There are lots more issues that would improve the quality of life for the majority of world citizens, like access to affordable power, sanitation and potable water. The billions wasted on climate modelling would have given tangible benefits if used for those issues as Mr Tol pointed out. .
I also suspect this post may have gone upthread, if it has done, I apologise.
ChrisM, thank you for your comments. I will address your comments with the following questions:
1. Exactly what about “wind generation” do you think I don’t understand?
2. What’s wrong with me disagreeing with Mr. Tol’s value judgements?
3. Why should I not be skeptical of the claims of climate skeptics?
Max
Its is OT but your comment
“Thankfully, I don’t have to be very bright to doubt the addition of wind power to a large electric grid requires an equivalent addition of reserve power, or to doubt claims that wind-power doesn’t reduce CO2 emissions.” (find out why British wind farms are getting huge constraint payments as well as subsidies) and equating opposition to windfarms as pro nukers is a start.
You can disagree with Mr Tol, or me as much as you like – it is still a free blogosphere and the rabid warmists’ dream of capital punishment for all who disagree with them hasn’t come to pass yet.
However, my point was that clean water and the like make a tangible improvement on peoples’ lives, especially those of women in third world countries, and it does it now. Converting a reliable functioning electrical system to one that is unreliable and expensive because of some flawed model projections is a waste of money. It also condemns the poor to continuing poverty. That is why China and India are building super critical coal plants and nukes as fast as they can. China may be building wind farms, but their power planners aren’t counting on any useful generation from them. Many aren’t even connected to the grid, nor will they be in the near future. Their renewables are going to be massive hydros in the SW.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/country-profiles/countries-a-f/china–nuclear-power/
But all this is getting too far off post to continue this thread so I will let you take the floor.
ChrisM, I will try to address your comments.
1.It’s my understanding a grid must have the capacity to respond to fluctuations in demand for electricity, regardless of whether any electricity is generated by renewables, and generally the larger the grid, the more sources of reserve power it has, and the more capable it is of meeting fluctuations in demand. Given this flexibility why would an addition of a certain amount of capacity in renewable power require an equal addition of capacity in non-renewable power ?
Germany’s renewable energy sources met a record 27 % of the country’s electrical demand in the first quarter of 2014.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3436923/germany-energy-records/
If you believe Germany had to add new fossil-fueled power capacity equivalent to that amount (27% ) of demand, please site your source.
Obviously, if there is no grid, renewable power would need to be backed up by equivalent power from another source. A small isolated community, for example, might have renewables with diesel power backup, but the backup would have to be running only when needed.
2. Re China: Wind and Nuclear generate about the same amount of power in China. Nuclear may surpass wind in the future.
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/wind-projects-and-economy-in-china/150/435/83859/
3. Re pollution: Obviously, wind-power doesn’t foul the air, but burning fossil fuels does, particularly coal. In Germany, C02 went up because coal powered plants replaced some nuclear plants, not because wind and solar replaced some non-renewables.
4. Re Tol: What’s best to spend money on? We have different opinions.
Max-you major points are true but not on point. Adding wind to a system that already has adequate generation capacity does not impose a requirement for extra generation. If the wind is not needed, you are right there is no for the wind to be backed up, (Unless maybe the wind is intended to enable you to shut off large resources because allowing the wind, pushes them below operating minimums and you need more nimble, flexible generators to back up the wind fluctuation.). However if you need generation to serve load growth or for retirement of existing facilities, wind will need back up. I don’t know where (except maybe isolated places with diesel generators or other high fuel costs, or things done for research purposes, or general do goodie risk) where generation is added when there is no capacity need. More than 97% of the conversation is about capacity value- and wind proposals need backup.
Looking back, it doesn’t matter if wind serves 27% of demand or 97% of demand. The key for capacity value (and eliminating the need for backup) is knowing how much of that you could have counted on in advance for meeting the peak demand. Not sure if this late insomnic analogy is on point, but try it. Thankfully I would have spent a lot less last year to cover my own medical needs than I contributed to my company plan. But sitting it out put would have included huge risks from not knowing my needs in advance. It is silly, in either case, to speak of years, seasons, months, weeks, days or a particular hour when we could get by without backup generation or medical coverage. Good health to you and all.
Spell check did not like the technical term “do gooderism”. Made it – do goodie risk.
Here’s one for the US. Possible penetration of wind and solar into the grid without backup is small – and the costs scale up with penetration.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/grid-scale-costs.png
http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2012/system-effects-exec-sum.pdf
On the other hand wind is relatively cheap and you may as well use some – and maximise use because fuel costs are zilch. Not sure if the bird and bat costs are quite so negligible.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/blue-rose3-e1418789192370.jpg
I want to thank everyone on this thread for their comments and wish them a Merry Christmas. Planning Engineer I wish you good health and success in dealing with the insomnia.
Max
Germany is just one part of a supergrid across northern Europe and it is the instantaneous transnational power flows that hide the problems caused by the renewables. The correct question (as I believe PE alluded to) is why is Germany’s power the second most expensive in Europe, just behind Denmark which has even higher renewables penetration? Also, Germany has the populace protesting about the plans to cover the country in new transmission lines, which is the hidden part of renewable penetration. Your comments about it causing no problems seem different to what the Germans are saying: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/germanys-green-energy-destabilizing-electric-grids/ Who are we to believe?
Your China figures are out of date. In 2013, they commissioned two big nukes so that generation took a massive leap up. The last graph here:
http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=ch gives you a better idea of what their intentions for the next 25 years are. China has about 20% of its windfarms not connected to the grid because of no transmission lines and there is unlikely to be any change in that for the foreseeable future. They are having similar problems to Germany
The fuel cost of wind might be low (it isn’t zero as they need to backfeed from the grid to motor during light winds) but what about the resources needed to make them or the solar cells? Both the rare earth smelting and solar cell manufacture are very polluting industries, especially the way they are done in China.
This sets out the costs to Europe of their renewable policies https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/a-comparison-of-both-the-capital-cost-and-energy-production-effectiveness-of-the-renewable-energy-in-europe/
and here is the price of their electricity:
http://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-prices-in-selected-countries/
Correlation without causation – yeah – right.
My comments on the post by ChrisM | December 25, 2014 at 1:31 pm |
1. ChrisM, the source you cited doesn’t help your argument about electric power in China.
According to your source, China’s on-grid wind power capacity stood at 61 GW in 2012, about four times it’s installed nuclear capacity of 14.7 GW in 2013, and China plans is to increase wind capacity to 100 GW by the end of 2015, or almost twice the 58 GW nuclear capacity planned for 2020.
http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=ch
You would have been better off using the source I cited. But since you found it to be “out of date,” we will have to use your source.
_______
2. ChrisM said: “The correct question (as I believe PE alluded to) is why is Germany’s power the second most expensive in Europe, just behind Denmark which has even higher renewables penetration?”
Probably because half of the price of German electricity is taxes and fees. “Taxes and fees now amount to 52 percent of the monthly power bill for retail consumers, according to a new report released Wednesday (13.8.2014) in Berlin by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW).
A typical household that uses 3,500 kilowatt hours of power per year pays about 85 euros ($113) a month for electricity. That’s just one euro more than last year. About 45 euros, just over half the monthly total, is composed of taxes and special levies imposed by government. They include the standard value-added tax that applies to all goods and services, plus a special electricity tax, and a levy used to subsidize the buildout of renewable energy capacity under Germany’s feed-in tariff system.
The renewable energy levy alone adds 18 euros to the average monthly bill. But experts say that in coming years, the renewable energy levy will increase much less quickly year-on-year than during the past few years – indeed, some say it may start sinking. The reason: A new reform of the renewable energy subsidy law has capped the subsidies available for new wind turbines.”
http://www.dw.de/german-electricity-price-is-half-taxes-and-fees/a-17849142
_______
3. ChrisM said: “Also, Germany has the populace protesting about the plans to cover the country in new transmission lines, which is the hidden part of renewable penetration.”
Chris, your statement could be interpreted as a gross exaggeration. By definition the “populace” of Germany means the entire population of the country. Protesting are some Germans living near the paths of four high-voltage lines that are needed to carry wind generated power from the northern to the southern part of the country. Obviously, these Germans are not the entire population of Germany and this is not a plan to cover the country, all of Germany, in new transmission lines. Nothing is being hidden. If the lines were hidden, as some protestors have recommended, there would be no need to protest.
In an article about a recent protest in the German town of Fulda, the NYTimes referred to such protests as “an outbreak of not-in-my-backyard syndrome.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/world/europe/germans-balk-at-plan-for-wind-power-lines.html?_r=0.
_______
4. ChrisM said: “Your comments about it causing no problems seem different to what the Germans are saying: http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/germanys-green-energy-destabilizing-electric-grids/ Who are we to believe?”
Chris, if the anti-wind Institute for Energy Research tells us it speaks for the German populace on wind power, we should be skeptical.
‘China is the world’s largest power generator, surpassing the United States in 2011. Net power generation was an estimated 4,476 Terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2011, up 15% from 2010, according to EIA. Electricity generation increased by more than 89% since 2005, and EIA projects total net generation will increase to 7,295 TWh by 2020 and 11,595 TWh by 2040, nearly three times the generation level in 2010. The industrial sector currently accounts for three-quarters of China’s electricity consumption, according to FGE..
China generated 83 TWh of nuclear power in 2011, making up only 2% of total net generation. Although nuclear generation is a small portion of the country’s total power generation portfolio, China is actively promoting nuclear power as a clean, efficient, and reliable source of electricity generation. China’s installed nuclear capacity was 14.7 GW after the country added two reactors with 2.2 GW in 2013. China’s government plans to boost nuclear capacity to 58 GW by 2020. At the end of 2013, China had 31 reactors with almost 35 GW of additional capacity under construction, almost half of the global nuclear power capacity being built. These plants are slated to become operational by 2017, more than tripling China’s current capacity. There are several reactors and expansions, with a total capacity of 25 GW, that received approval from NDRC and are waiting to begin construction, according to FGE.’
‘Because of its cost-effectiveness and sizeable resource potential, hydroelectricity has become the key source of renewable energy in China. China was the world’s largest producer of hydroelectric power in 2011. The country generated 687 TWh of electricity from hydroelectricity, representing 15% of the country’s total electricity generation. This level was down from 2010 because of a severe drought in the southwestern region.
Installed hydroelectric generating capacity was 249 GW in 2012, according to FGE, accounting for about one-fifth of total installed capacity. The world’s largest hydropower project, the Three Gorges Dam along the Yangtze River, was completed in July 2012 and includes 32 generators with a total maximum capacity of 22.5 GW. The dam’s annual average power generation is anticipated to be 84.7 TWh. The Chinese government plans to increase hydro capacity to 325 GW by the end of 2015. However, China has faced some delays on projects resulting from environmental concerns and complications of population displacement.
‘In 2011, China was the world’s second-largest wind producer, generating 73 TWh, a level about 64% higher than in 2010. China’s installed on-grid wind capacity, which almost doubled each year since 2005, was 61 GW in 2012. However, absolute wind power capacity stood at 75 GW, representing a lack of transmission infrastructure to connect wind farms to the electric grid. The NDRC aims to increase wind capacity to 100 GW by the end of 2015, and the government is encouraging grid development to improve utilization of wind capacity. China is also investing in solar power and hopes to increase capacity from about 3 GW in 2012 to 35 GW by the end of 2015.The NDRC is also providing greater financial incentives for solar powered generation.’
Total generation (TWhr) 4,476
Nuclear 83
Hydroelectric 687
Wind 73
Most of the rest is coal and gas – and will continue to be on any feasible trajectory using today’s technologies.
Installed capacity is not the only metric – but needs to be considered alongside the capacity factor. The amount of time the energy is available. For nuclear – 90%. For wind – perhaps 35%.
In any case – neither wind or nuclear make much of a contribution. Wind could be expanded a little – nuclear a lot with the right economics.
Two realities emerge. The need for fast mitigation – should you feel that this is a problem.
‘Adopting aggressive mitigation of short-lived greenhouse gases such as black carbon, tropospheric ozone and methane as proposed in the ‘lifetime leveraging’ architecture would not only reduce China’s contribution to climate change by reducing the atmospheric burden of these pollutants and the associated radiative forcing, but would also address its substantial air quality problems. China contains four of the ten most polluted cities in the world and urban air pollution is responsible for approximately 1 in ten of every death in China (WHO, 2007). Policies to improve industrial combustion efficiency, to replace traditional biomass burning with improved stoves, and to reduce tropospheric ozone formation all have substantial health co-benefits consistent with China’s national development strategy. Moreover, the technology to implement these policies exists and has already been deployed in developed nations.’
And the need to leverage investments in new energy technology.
Max
You are showing your stupidity again. Please learn the difference between GW and GWh, especially dispatchable GWh. Go back and actually read what Planning Engineer wrote.
Almost all those taxes and fees in Europe are to pay for the renewable energy obligations, so thank you for confirming my point. And note they are projected to significantly rise over the next five years.
If the opposition to the transmission lines is only a small group of NIMBYs, why are they having to totally revise the plans? http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9d82108-1800-11e4-a82d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3N1gEYutl
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5fbaa96e-0e1d-11e2-8b92-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3N1gEYutl
ChrisM, how dare you call me “stupid” for quoting from a site you recommended in the first place ! What the hell is wrong with you!
You said “Almost all those taxes and fees in Europe are to pay for the renewable energy obligations, so thank you for confirming my point.”
How long did it take you to figure out building things cost money?
Then you said “And note they are projected to significantly rise over the next five years.”
“Note” ? Note where?
You close by saying “If the opposition to the transmission lines is only a small group of NIMBYs, why are they having to totally revise the plans?”
DUHH …. Because they want to be nice to the small group of NIMBYs.
ChrisM, rather than being nice, you seem to like not being nice. It certainly was not nice of you to call me “stupid” for quoting from a cite you recommended. Not only was it not nice, you made yourself look stupid. You should be both ashamed and embarrassed. I hope you can find a way to redeem yourself.
Max
You are being stupid and what’s more having a good deal of projection with it. Brandon was right.
The discussion was energy and the graph I referenced was in those units. So you quote GW without converting. That is why I know you aren’t an engineer.
You also quote from German documentation that proves what I have been saying. Most of the taxes and levies are to pay for the additional costs of the renewable generation. That is why energy intensive industry is leaving Germany to go to China and India. Please actually understand what you are C&P before pushing send.
With regards to the situation in Germany, I have two friends who are working there in the renewable energy industry. I also get the trade magazines from a variety of sources. The stories they tell are different to the NY Times. Plant is being built that doesn’t generate but just harvests subsidies. Like the ones that used floodlights to generate solar power. And I think your “anti wind” organisations actually know more than NYT that gave up being the statement of record long ago.
ChrisM said in his post on December 26, 2014 at 4:25 pm |
Max
“You are being stupid and what’s more having a good deal of projection with it. Brandon was right.
The discussion was energy and the graph I referenced was in those units. So you quote GW without converting. That is why I know you aren’t an engineer.”
______
ChrisM, did you first suspect I’m not an engineer when I said I’m not an engineer?
HA HA !
OK, enough levity. ChrisM, you have a memory problem. Let me call attention to your post of December 25, 2014 at 1:31 pm, where you said
“Your China figures are out of date. In 2013, they commissioned two big nukes so that generation took a massive leap up. The last graph here:http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=ch
gives you a better idea of what their intentions for the next 25 years are.”
Now, compare your referenced graph to the following comment I made in my post of December 25, 2014 at 2:16 am
“2. Re China: Wind and Nuclear generate about the same amount of power in China. Nuclear may surpass wind in the future.”
ChrisM, as you can see, my comment is consistent with the graph.
I’m sorry your memory is too weak to recall what I said yesterday, and I won’t hold you responsible for saying bad things about me because your memory is faulty.
I quoted the figures without any fanfare. Maxy has trouble with numbers, reality, integrity, intellectual depth, niceness. He’s just an all round package of disappointment for his teachers and parents.
China Total generation 4,476TWhr
Nuclear 83
Hydroelectric 687
Wind 73
Most of the rest is coal and gas – and will continue to be on any feasible trajectory using today’s technologies.
Rob, ChrisM must award me 1st place for stupid because I quoted that source before you quoted it. You get 2nd place. You can’t win ’em all.
Sorry Maxy – you quoted the wrong figures for the wrong reasons from the freakin’ EIA – a relatively reliable source that I have used many times. You do need to get the numbers right when transcribing – and you do need to understand the concept of capacity factor. Then you need to put it into the context of something other than a schoolboy pissing contest. You lose on all these counts. .
WRONG !
1. My quotes were 100% accurate. I take pride in quoting accurately. It’ll be a cold day in hell when you find me misquoting.
2. Your remarks show you didn’t read or didn’t understand all the comments in the discussion and don’t no what the hell you are talking about.
Max
Our thread is getting so long that comments are getting out of sync. My remarks about GW refer to this remark from you
“According to your source, China’s on-grid wind power capacity stood at 61 GW in 2012, about four times it’s installed nuclear capacity of 14.7 GW in 2013, and China plans is to increase wind capacity to 100 GW by the end of 2015, or almost twice the 58 GW nuclear capacity planned for 2020.”
I had written:
“Your China figures are out of date. In 2013, they commissioned two big nukes so that generation took a massive leap up. The last graph here:
http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=ch gives you a better idea of what their intentions for the next 25 years are.”
Note how I specifically reference the TWh graph for the generation out to 2040 while you quoted part of the text on nameplates back to me. Your quotes might be 100% accurate but they are still wrong as they answer the wrong question. The reason I used the size of the new nukes in GW not GWh was in their first couple of years, their load factor can be anything between 50 and 90%. That is about 10% of the total generation, so significant. So your comment about wind may be surpassed by nukes is wrong as it already has been (2012 by my reckoning). .
The not being an engineer wasn’t in reference to your previous self-declaration. It was from your total lack of understanding of how a grid works. Any source that doesn’t support wind is biased in your eyes. Engineers that work in the electricity industry (I am a 30 year veteran and I suspect Planning Engineer has a decade or more experience than me) and have to deal with the day to day problems either don’t know what they are talking about or I think you used pro-nuke at one stage (I can’t be bothered searching all the posts, so if I misquoted you, I apologise). You make these grand pronouncements from your self declared lack of knowledge basis. All your information has come from skim reading a few articles. You probably have never been in a control room in your life.
If someone like Planning Engineer came out with your comments, I would certainly take notice. Yours are just noise with a very low signal ratio.
ChrisM, congratulations on your 30 years of experience as an engineer in the electric industry. I’m sure your employers appreciate all that you have done, and if you are retiring, I’m sure you will be missed.
I wish I didn’t have to say this but I suspect you are stuck in the past and fear change. You seem to trust old ways of generating power, such as nuclear, and mistrust new ways, such as wind. You resist evidence that doesn’t support your position, and give the impression you hope revolutionary technology fails, so you will be proven right.
ChrisM, whether you like it or not, times change. It’s not too late for you to break from the past and accept the future. Don’t have people calling you a fuddy-duddy.
Max_OK, Weird Citizen Scientist | December 26, 2014 at 9:04 pm |
WRONG !
1. My quotes were 100% accurate. I take pride in quoting accurately. It’ll be a cold day in hell when you find me misquoting.
2. Your remarks show you didn’t read or didn’t understand all the comments in the discussion and don’t no what the hell you are talking about.
Maxy once quoted a link I provided to the effect that excess winter deaths in the UK were cold related. The quote said that excess deaths were cold and flu related – which Maxy apparently thought proved his point about excess deaths not being caused by cold.
With China’s power production – Maxy transcribed one or two of the numbers incorrectly – but I never quibble about typo’s. The fact is that he used installed capacity rather the energy generated for comparison. The difference for different technologies is a 90% capacity factor for nuclear – for instance – and 35% for wind. As I patiently explained. It changes the equation dramatically.
Maxy responds by being ignorant, abrasive, abusive, almost functionally illiterate, innumerate and technically ill informed ,
Max
You really have no idea, do you? Our industry has had massive changes over the years, with PLCs then DCSs running everything. On the turbine technology side, ORCs are the current big thing. As I am one of the youngest in my line, my retirement is a long time away.
The reason I am against wind (and solar) is it is inefficient (in energy density terms), has to be propped up by subsidies, needs massive infrastructural support, and is not dispatchable. If you want to live in a world where the lights go out at dusk, or a High comes over, and pay very high prices for what power there is, that is your prerogative. I can name a lot of third world countries that would suit you. However, don’t expect others to want to join your Utopia.
ChrisM and Rob Ellison,
I’m afraid the old adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is true. Recent research explains why:
http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2013/august/aug26_inhibitoryneurons.html
ChrisM, I suspect a lot of what you learned over your career of 30 years is now passé, engineering being more affected by obsolescence than most professions. You aren’t going to talk the Germans out of their commitment to renewables with outdated “it can’t be done” arguments. Merkel has already doubled down on renewables. Remember “necessity is the mother of invention.”
I hope you don’t end up like Rob Ellison. He stopped learning new tricks long ago. Poor Rob drifts in out of comas while reading my posts, then makes silly comments about what he imagines I said. I feel embarrassed for him.
What a maroon – he makes a dumbass rookie error and then doubles down on the dishonesty and bad faith.
We suspect he never was all that bright.
Here is the example I was looking for from Germany 2012 – Max’s vision of the future:
“For weeks now, the 1.1 million solar power systems in Germany have generated almost no electricity. The days are short, the weather is bad and the sky is overcast.
As is so often the case in winter, all solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity at the same time. To avert power shortages, Germany currently has to import large amounts of electricity generated at nuclear power plants in France and the Czech Republic. To offset the temporary loss of solar power, grid operator Tennet resorted to an emergency backup plan, powering up an old oil-fired plant in the Austrian city of Graz.
…Solar farm operators and homeowners with solar panels on their roofs collected more than €8 billion ($10.2 billion) in subsidies in 2011, but the electricity they generated made up only about 3 percent of the total power supply, and that at unpredictable times.
The distribution networks are not designed to allow tens of thousands of solar panel owners to switch at will between drawing electricity from the grid and feeding power into it…German consumers already complain about having to pay the second-highest electricity prices in Europe.”
At the time, the wind wasn’t blowing either, with the highest generation on the turbines at about 20% nameplate and often below 5%. Only problem is he doesn’t want the nukes there for support. “100% accurate” will be his “Mission Accomplished”
Absolutely not! The true believers will stick to their hockey stick like stink on a monkey.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/10/01/revisions-to-pages2k-arctic/
http://climateaudit.org/2014/10/07/pages2k-vs-the-hanjiharvi-reconstruction/
http://climateaudit.org/2014/10/27/the-third-warmest-arctic-century/
http://climateaudit.org/2014/10/28/warmest-since-uh-the-medieval-warm-period/
Does everyone everywhere agree? Of course not. Nor do they disagree. They have followed a simpler procedure: Kaufman’s corrections were not made on the paper itself, but elsewhere. They do not mention or acknowledge McIntyre. The corrections do not recalculate the results of the paper. No one else paid any attention. Nice and simple.
Therefore: I can still go to any non-skeptical site and see posts and comments that PAGES2K is the gold standard of paleo studies, that _every single_ reconstruction ever made shows a hockey stick, and that McIntyre has been thoroughly discredited and no _real_ scientists take him seriously.
Thank you Max. Best holiday wishes to all.
I think scienceofdoom.com should be on the list of very worthwhile climate science blogs; it takes a serious in-depth look at science issues, and one can have a useful and polite discussion there.
Agreed.
agreed, SOD is one of my favorites
SoD is in it’s own class. It’s effectively a place, where non climate scientists (but often people with otherwise useful background knowledge) try to figure out, how much they can understand about climate science. The host makes an extraordinary contribution by searching for scientific papers, where essential points have been discussed (these papers are often rather old as more recent papers start by assuming that their readers know all that already) and by summarizing salient points from the papers being presented.
The limitations of that approach become often visible, because a major part of science requires so much background knowledge that getting there on a blog is very difficult, if not impossible, but I like site very much. The main weakness is perhaps that intervals between the posts have grown rather long. That’s probably unavoidable taking into account the effort most of the posts require.
With out a doubt, she puts a lot of work in her posts.
SoD certainly showed great patience when I used to read it. More than most. Similar to Ferdinand Engelbeen.
Michael
Ferdinand puts a good case for the modern rise in co2 being attributed to man and is well worth reading. However, contrary to the impression he might give, he is no warmist.
I went with him to a climate conference in Southampton with main speaker dr Iain Stewart and we gave the good doctor– nice man- a grilling.
Ferdinand does not think that current levels of co2 have, or will make much of a difference to temperatures.
Tonyb
Thanks for the tip. That makes two more to follow.
Captdallas: “Is telling people the world as we know it is not likely to end because of CO2 constructive or destructive?”
Max_OK: Cap, I think it’s useless. You are to preaching to the choir.
Captdallas: “Is telling the world that building out solar electric infrastructure is not a great idea when the current state of the art is over priced and likely to improve in efficiency and cost over the next decade.”
Max_OK: Do many listen, and if so, do they agree?
Captdallas:”How about recommending that nuclear power be given a second chance since Jane Fonda is not a real scientist after all?”
Max_OK: Good luck convincing the public nuclear power is hazard free.
Captdallas: “What about mentioning than corn ethanol might not have been the greatest thing to mandate?”
Max_OK: I agree, but if a know denier says it’s a bad thing, some people will think it must be a good thing.
Captdallas: “Isn’t there a place for folks that just point out the less than brilliant ideas that seem to be adopted by the herd or are you just looking for yes men?
Max_OK: The problem is those folks may be seen as members of another herd, a smaller herd that’s biased and wrong.”
Max OK, So then by labeling someone a “denier” of something they may as well not speak up. That is pretty much the reason we “deniers” tend to come off as buttholes, we may be the only rational ones and we tend to be over yelled by the minions.
It turns out that “deniers” are people that question authority. The in-crowd was formed by questioning authority but they don’t like their authority being questioned. So has the world always been.
Questioning authority can be unprofitable.
Max, “Questioning authority can be unprofitable.”
There are quite a few wealthy contrarians that have a different opinion.
Indeed, there are. Cap, I wish you a Merry Christmas.
Dubbly stupid:
Obviously, there ain’t any such thing as a deniar. It’s a term used by those who can’t argue their belief based on facts and their merits. And if they on top of that want to believe that something somebody the label ‘denier’ says, therefor must be wrong, and draw the conclusion that the opposite must be right or at least close to right ..
.. that just reaffirms how inept a thought process there is behind their faith.
And what would even a known ‘denier’ mean to such individuals in this context? If they are not aware of that this ‘logic’ completely strips them of any reason (or reason to listen to on additional word they utter), and if they don’t know that ‘denier’ has no tangible meaning wrt to climate, what would their belief in somebody to be a known ‘denier’ mean, other than that they are completely incapable of forming meaningful thoughts alone they can argue among grown-ups? But just rehash nonsense that has been fed to them by others (possibly equally inept, or worse)?
quote from a famous political speech from my part of the world…
“my opponent is a known thespian”
:)
==> ” It’s a term used by those who can’t argue their belief based on facts and their merits. ”
Who uses the term “warmist?” How about “alarmist?” “Warmista?” “Warmunist?”
And when Judith calls people “deniers,” is that because she can’t argue her belief based on fact and their merits?
==> “Obviously, there ain’t any such thing as a deniar.”
Is a “deniar” a French “skeptic?”
Joshua, are you saying that the words ‘alarmist’ or ‘warmist’ are too difficult to comprehend? That they lack any meaning?
Because you seem to want to put it on equal footing with the term ‘denier’ ..
And yes, that seems to be a quite common response from those who need scripted (or rehearsed) not arguments but talking-points.
I’d say it is one more instance from those who’d rahter live in a one-narrative-world …
Joshua | December 25, 2014 at 9:46 am |
Who uses the term “warmist?” How about “alarmist?” “Warmista?” “Warmunist?”
Warmunist? That’s a good one. I’ll save that for later.
Jonas –
Apparently you want to play games of moral equivalence with pejoratives.
Me? I’d rather just call a pejorative a pejorative.
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
PA –
Glad I can help out, bro.
Joshua
The term ‘denier’ is, precisely as I said, used as a substitute for arguing anything factual. You seem to comprehend that part. But then you’d rather change the subject to some irrelevant nit-picking, it seems … even ‘throwing stones in glass houses’!?
Maybe you’d already forgotten what I commented on!?
Jonas –
The term “denier” is used as a pejorative, as are “alarmist,” “warmist,” etc., blah, blah.
IMO, none of them are used as descriptive terms, and none of them are accurate, although the people that use them all say that they are accurate and descriptive terms.
Sameolesameol, Jonas. Sameolosameol.
People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Joshua,
“Warmist” is not even close to the deeply insulting “denier.” As I remarked to Max,OK, Cub Reporter recently, it’s hard to tell if the trademark warmist obtuseness is intentional or not. What’s your take on that?
Happy Holidays,
PG
Joshua, you already said that. And there is still no point there. You even seem to have missed the actual point completely (re: who ‘started throwing stones’)
But let me be a little bit more direct and hopefully clearer:
The term ‘denier’ is thrown around quite freely and often among some of those who (for some reason?) are hoping for some climate related threat to be looming and real. As a label (pejorative as you note). But, and this is the important thing: Without any relation the issues, to what is actually said or claimed. And almost always as a means to avoid the topic and what the other party actually is arguing.
A completely nonsense-term. And most often those who use it can’t egen present a coherent explaation of what they want it to mean. (Not surprising, since they mostly are equally unable to argue what their own position).
My contention (based on long emprical observation) is that those who feel compelled to throw that term around, rarely ever have anything meaningful to say or add to the topic. As I said, mostly they are struggling even to get their own talking points (usually picked up from SkSc-level sites) reasonably correct, let alone understanding what it actually argues.
And since you missed the first times, I’ll repeat:
I think Max_OK:s example when he used ‘denier’ prefectly well described exactly that.
So, Josha, did you get it this time? Understand what I am saying? Note: Not asking if you agree or not, only if you are comprehend what I describe. If you have nothing better to add, than ‘stones’ or ‘sameold’ I conclude that my observation once more was confirmed …
PS Warmist, activist, alarmist are descriptive. No, not necessarily meant as flatter, but they have a clear meaning. Mostly relevant I’d say. But I really don’t even know why you brought them up in your first reply DS
LOL at “hazard free”…
Wihnand, “LOL at “hazard free”…”
Right, the progressive precautionary principle. There is no cause so small that it doesn’t demand immediate regulation. Carl Hiaasen couldn’t make up some of this stuff.
Nuke power plants are “Murphy’s Law Proof”
If anything can possibly go wrong, it won’t.
HA HA
Well, more people have died in the back seat of Ted Kennedy’s car than have died from nuclear power plant radiation accidents in the US.
Don’t worry about nuclear weapons. No one in the U.S. has ever been killed by a nuclear bomb, but one died in the back seat of Ted Kennedy’s car. Worry about riding in Kennedy’s car.
The Bishop posts a link to an interesting essay on the problems with scientific paper retractions
http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/are-retraction-wars-a-sign-that-science-is-broken/
Though climate science isn’t specifically mentioned, a lot of the problems identified still hold true.
I wanted to label monoamine oxidase -B, not -A, so I ordered an antibody made from a synthetic peptide specific to the MAO-B protein. However, the actual sequence used is a commercial secret, so I order a second antibody, raised to a known MAO-B sequence.
I got quite different labeling. Now as it happens the second MAO-B specific IgG labled oligodendrocytes; a cell type that is easy to visually identify and we KNOW does not have MAO-B. The former IgG didn’t label oligodendrocytes, but did give me cell labeling that is indicative of astrocytes.
Now not everyone is going to spend an extra $350 buying a back-up antibody; I do because I am skeptical of the tools I buy. Now the antibody I found labeling Oligo’s has been used by others.
Judith, Happy Christmas 2014.
Alex.
‘Being a skeptic does not mean you don’t have an opinion about what is more likely than not to be true. What it does mean is you are not attached to that position as an end it itself. For many faux-skeptics, their position becomes a flag to rally behind– a territory to defend. The “hiatus” was a welcome and much beloved event for AGW skeptics. It ending would be a loss for their cause, but no doubt they’ll find other rallying points, no matter how full of vacuous pseudoscience they might be.’
The ‘hiatus’ was predicted.
‘If as suggested here, a dynamically driven climate shift has occurred, the duration of similar shifts during the 20th century suggests the new global mean temperature trend may persist for several decades. Of course, it is purely speculative to presume that the global mean temperature will remain near current levels for such an extended period of time. Moreover, we caution that the shifts described here are presumably superimposed upon a long term warming trend due to anthropogenic forcing. However, the nature of these past shifts in climate state suggests the possibility of near constant temperature lasting a decade or more into the future must at least be entertained.’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GL037022/full
Superimpose anthropogenic warming on this.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif
It is more commonly framed as uncertainty, speculation, something to be considered. But it is always framed in response as denial of what we do know and in tones dripping with supercilious bile. In reality if they knew anything they would understand how little they understand.
I suggest instead that a dynamically driven climate shift occurred in 1998/2001 accompanied by extreme shifts between ENSO states – that it resulted in dramatic changes in cloud cover and the planetary energy dynamic – that the resultant plateau in planetary energy content will persist for decades and that the major natural climate drivers are cooling on a decadal to centennial scale.
This speaks for itself.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/smeed-fig-7.png
More salt at the Law Dome is La Niña.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/vance2012-antarticalawdomeicecoresaltcontent.jpg
At some fundamental level natural philosophy is always speculative. This particular speculation deserves to be considered in far greater depth than we usually find with space cadets. .
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/blue-rose3-e1418789192370.jpg
As someone who has become addicted to the climate blogosphere, I have to say that the rise of the skeptic and lukewarmer blogs is an incredibly interesting story. I think there is a great opportunity for a really good science writer to write book to inform and even entertain the general public. This would have to be done from a lukewarm or skeptic perspective. I don’t think a warmist could even confront many of the topics.
Mary Christmas Judith.
You and Climate Etc. are appreciated.
A Skeptical Christmas to all, and have a Happy Hiatus. :)
: ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : ) : )
I’ve detected some boredom from the contributors of climate blogs regardless of their orientation. The result is piling on (each other), snark is replacing smart. Science discussions, lacking anything new, are rehashes and supposed new thinking of old science. The real action, politics and policy, are still the domain of the warmists. Skeptics have yet to jump on this very important and finally only important bandwagon. Evidence is abundant that lawmakers and national leaders are not paying attention to actual science so much as potential new revenue sources/excuses. The effort to tie weather extremes to climate change is probably the most common lever being pumped.
Skeptics do seem to be expecting more from the home team in terms of accuracy and credibility with many popular posters of science articles having to justify to a greater degree some of their claims. These threads are easy to spot by the homies blindly defending their team with Real Climate-like dramatics er, tactics.
The most fascinating thing for me has been the morphing of skeptical blogs from minority view outposts to bastions of serious science and policy discussion. Climate Audit on paleoproxies, Judith’s generally, BH on UK policy, Paul Homewood, JoNova…
And it is not the blogs per se or their growing readership. It is the denizens who increasingly grab and analyze raw data (e.g. Bob Tisdale from KNMI) or contribute decades of professional expertise (Planning Engineer here). We are witnessing the democratization of climate science and policy, at the expense of increasingly irrelevant MSM and paywalled journals.
No small thanks to our gracious hostess.
Happy Holidays Judith. May you, your family, and your denizens experience peace on earth. Thanks for letting me occaisionally contribute my two cents.
+1
The blogosphere provides a venue for people of courage to stand up to the UNFCCC/IPCC bullies and the progressive green mafia. It has become indispensable.
This is an important fight to wage. Happy holidays to all of my fellow “deniers”.
Yes. It has become harder for the elite to control the message.
” This article by Bishop Hill sums it here, where BH relates a story of hypocrisy about Dana Nuccitelli who wrote a scathing review of the Hockey Stick Illusion on amazon.com, then subsequently remarked that he hadn’t read the book.” – Judith.
Gee, that sounds familiar……something about a driveby comment lauding some book or other, then being challenged on those comments and the person saying they really didn’tknow, they were just realting someone else’s takeon the book.
Damn, who was that??
McNall’s comment refers to the philosophical direction here: your intellectual drive is towards what it INFERS as opposed to what it RELATES.
As Dianne West pointed out in her book about Communist infiltration of American institutions and political decisions, the real problem is not observation but inference. In climate science, the real problem is not what we measure but what we “make” of it. What does “deep uncertainty” mean we should do? is what you write about. McNaull is looking for what the deep uncertainty “is”.
Response is the greatest challenge, not observation. North Korea hacked Sony and threatened those who might what to see The Interview? Okay, that those are facts, bald and unpleasant. But what should we do about it? Ahhh, there is either the problem or the solution. “CAGW”: real or a threat, the question is, what do we do? When does a threat become “real” enough to be treated as real and not as a possible outcome that might (or might not) require action now or in the future?
This is how I see Climate etc., a voice of consideration towards action or, if appropriate, inaction. Climate etc. is the voice of one’s careful uncle who says we should discuss the situation, think carefully before we act, and even think carefully IF we should act. Because a lot of what we think we know, we don’t know or have gotten it wrong.
Which is why the eco-green liberal press does’t like Climate etc. That group knows. For certain, in all areas and details, and has already figured out what has to be done – not just what could or might or should be done, but what HAS to be done. It is way past thinking, discussing, analysing or questioning: all those things are reactionary and conservative foot-dragging. A get-behind-me-comrade-or-piss-off is the proper and operative way.
A little bit scary, actually.
===>? “As Dianne West pointed out…”
Seriously? The birther? That Dianne West?
==> “…in her book about Communist infiltration of American institutions and political decisions,….”
Wow. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. Don’t forget to check under the bed.
Diana West.
I’ll go with the theory that North Korea is probably not smart enough to hack Sony without help. And Eco-Green is not smart enough to hack climate, no matter what help they get.
Adding my own small voice to the mix http://earthshattered2.blogspot.ca/
The first article I posted (a few days ago) gives an idea of my thinking- there are stories which come to the public (IF the public even sees them) piece-meal, random bits at random times. I figure to try and bring what pieces I can find together, to present a better picture of what is going on in certain aspects of the climate debate, both science and politics / ideology.
Is the policy debate what you mean by politics / ideology? The policy debate is arguably why the scientific debate is going on.
Well, the first article tries to cover one aspect of that- the fact that there appears to be widespread, serious dissent among the memberships of the various scientific organizations which have posted a pro-AGW stance. Which rather punches a very large hole in the ‘97% consensus.’
There are also a lot of policy oriented climate blogs, such as http://www.globalwarming.org/. One interesting thing is that a lot of the science focused blogs seem to have little interest in specific policy actions and issues. But then science and policy are two different bodies of knowledge. Perhaps the blogospheric divide just reflects the broader divide.
==> ” But then science and policy are two different bodies of knowledge. ”
That are inextricably linked, with no clear line for distinguishing the two.
Yes, but still they are still very different. For example, knowing about the new CEQ NEPA guidance is very different from knowing about the latest CO2 sensitivity study. Very few people understand both. This is basically the difference between law and science, Congress and the IPCC for example. They are linked by process but the respective populations have relatively little to do with one another and the blogosphere reflects this divide. The flow of information between these two largely distinct populations is quite interesting and poorly understood.
Sorry to hear you like Dan Kahan’s work, Dr. Curry. I think he is off the mark and just adds to the confusion.
I think he and JC add more to the discussion in terms of understanding policy problems and potential useful approaches than anywhere else.
I do not see psychological analysis as a way to understand policy problems, quite the contrary.
Interesting – How do you think he is “off the mark,” David?
His idea seems to be that ideologies cause beliefs when actually they are just categories of beliefs. The suggestion is thus that ideologies make us irrational and that is false.
As for the first part – AFAIK, he doesn’t think that ideologies “cause” beliefs so much as he thinks that ideology influences how people reason. Do you think that isn’t true?
As for the second part, and I’m pretty sure about this – he doesn’t think that ideologies make us irrational. That’s a pretty fundamental misreading on your part – likely, ironically enough, the product of motivated reasoning (because we both know that the view that beliefs are irrational is a bit of a pet peeve of yours).
You really should be more clear about what he says before passing judgement on what he says. Again, making that kind of judgement suggests some motivated reasoning on your part – (although it doesn’t suggest that you doing so is irrational. It could be considered to be entirely rational to filter information so as to confirm a bias).
Your saying that ideologies influence our reasoning is just what I mean by their causing it. Everyone’s ideology (and everyone has one) is simply what they believe placed in a category. That category names their beliefs, it does not influence them. For that matter, motivated reasoning is also a non-explanation, along the lines of Aristotelian physics. I have studied Kahan’s work fairly closely.
David –
==> “Your saying that ideologies influence our reasoning is just what I mean by their causing it. Everyone’s ideology (and everyone has one) is simply what they believe placed in a category. That category names their beliefs, it does not influence them.”
There is certainly no mutual exclusiveness there. Ideology can name/categorize beliefs as well as influence them.
That’s really quite an astonishing claim – to say that ideology doesn’t influence one’s reasoning process, and thus their beliefs.
==> “I have studied Kahan’s work fairly closely.”
If you’ve read him fairly closely, then it seems odd that you characterize him as “suggesting” that ideologies make us irrational. He doesn’t.
David –
From Wiki:….
Follow the cited link:
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1103&context=fss_papers
Start on page 1082
from page 1088:
There’s quite a bit more. They are, rather explicitly, arguing against the view that beliefs (in this case w/r/t risk and associated policies) are irrational.
Hammer/nail, David. Hammer/nail.
Yes, I was rather surprised by this, too. I suppose it’s possible that Kahan has improved his communication skills – and/or pulled up his climate science knowledge socks – since I last made what turned out to be a rather futile attempt to engage him in rational discussion of his ideas.
It is equally possible that Kahan has deserted his little-Johnny-one-note “position” which seems to colour all his research (or at least all of his accounts thereof that I’ve read).
Recognizing that I should at least explore such possibilities, I did spend some time on Kahan’s site, today. One of his posts that I had ploughed through included a lengthy quote from … wait for it … Lewandowsky, of all people!
And I have not been able to shake an image of “birds of a feather …” from flying through my mind, ever since! The only bright-spots of this little excursion were some responses from NiV – whose comments are always a joy to read, IMHO.
There are many skeptic blogs where warmists aren’t censored.
Are there any warmist blogs where skeptics aren’t censored?
Ones which are no longer in use?
I love this concept of “censored.”
Persecution complex much?
Joshua
Do you dispute that there is a greater likelihood of a person’s comments being censored at a site if they point out the weakness in the “IPCC position”? This is a common practice.
Joshua, if you can point me to a long sequence of non-deleted posts* by a ‘skeptic troll’ at a ‘warmist’ site, I would be interested to read it.
*Comparable to, say, the the currently 31 posts out of a total of 134 posted by ATTP at Bishop Hill here.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2014/12/18/sans-ifs-sans-buts-sans-everything.html?currentPage=3#comments
We are all given a pretty loose rein here, and at BH. Where is the warmist equivalent?
Censored. Deleted. Snipped.
Don’t imply persecution.
Rob –
==> “Do you dispute that there is a greater likelihood of a person’s comments being censored at a site if they point out the weakness in the “IPCC position”? This is a common practice.”
I’m quite sure that when Judith or RPJr. or Anthony or Brandon moderate my comments, they would argue that it isn’t because I might simply because I’m expressing disagreement with their views.
IMO – if someone want to express disagreement on “realist” sites, it is easy to do so in ways that you won’t get moderated w/o altering the analytical disagreement.
People mostly get moderated because the blog proprietors think that they’re being obnoxious or repeating debunked ideas without accepting feedback in good faith.
I don’t believe in moderation because, IMO, it is almost usually based on subjective and arbitrary (in the sense of being subjective, not in the sense of being random) reasoning.
But irrespective of that, the hand-wringing about “censorship” is drama-queening nonsense (and IMO, hilarious).
IMO, people should stop taking themselves so seriously and stop exploiting serious issues like censorship.
The problem with many warmist sites is that the blog proprietors are obnoxious and keep repeating debunked ideas without accepting feedback in good faith.
PA
+1
Joshua writes- “IMO – if someone want to express disagreement on “realist” sites, it is easy to do so in ways that you won’t get moderated w/o altering the analytical disagreement.”
My experience at Scientific American and Discover would be examples completely contrary to your opinion.
It’s not a concept. It’s a fact. You have a problem differentiating between the two? Or just unaware of the definition?
Let’s see if I can help improve your vocabulary:
cen·sor
ˈsensər/Submit
verb
past tense: censored; past participle: censored
examine (a book, movie, etc.) officially and suppress unacceptable parts of it.
“my mail was being censored”
synonyms: cut, delete parts of, make cuts in, blue-pencil, redact; More
My comment offering evidence contrary to catastrophic anthropogenic warming was censored. The moderator at andthentheresphysics.com examined my comment and deleted it.
Questions?
David –
I don’t think blog comments should be moderated. I have expressed that opinion to Anders.
But your free speech has not been “censored.” you have been disinvited to comment on someone’s blog. Don’t be a drama queen. Censorship is a real issue. .don’t exploit it.
I once made compelling comments against AGW on another blog. A lady in a disapproving way said “I hope you are proud of yourself.” I instantly thought that I was being reprimanded much as I would for having told the children there is no Santa Claus. The subtext was ” how dare you destroy our beliefs”
That kind of attitude is pervasive on warmist sites. If there was true self confidence in the science, they would welcome challenges. It all appears to be more like prayer meetings.
I don’t share your opinion that “censor” is a highly loaded term. “Denier” is a highly loaded term but I’m barely able to raise an objection to that being applied to me because the association between questioning the global warming narrative and gassing millions of Jews is so far fetched that it speaks more to the desperation of warmunists than it does to the evil of catastrophic global warming skepticism.
What association with “censor” is it that has gotten your panties in such a bunch over it?
David –
I think that your notion that you’re being “censored” is hilarious.
You’ve been disinvited to comment on a blog.
Censorship is something to take seriously, being disinvited to comment at someone’s blog, not so much. Stop exploiting the issue of censorship for the sake of building up your ego.
You clearly think that Anders and people who agree with him about the science are mistaken in their views, and further that they are “anti-humanist,” blah, blah, blah.
Your view underlying your comments on the science is why you were moderated. You are using science as a proxy for ideology.
There are people who can express their disagreement about the science there without getting moderated. Your speculation about Anders’ moderation algorithm is too simplistic to be of any use. Throw it out and start over. If you want to comment there, build a better algorithm.
Their ideology differs from yours. They aren’t interested in having you at their party. Go throw your own party.
Write that down.
No Joshua. I’m using science to determine that warmunists are espousing an ideology driven narrative under the auspice of science.
You, being scientifically illiterate, have no means of determining the difference between science and ideology. You make yourself appear to be an ankle biting misogynist troll as a result.
Write THAT down.
http://www.recaption.com/uploads/716652a4d8f76cd38.jpg
I’d say blogs like this one are becoming ever more like the bulletin boards of the 90s, with tight-knit topics and participants.
Freehat
That’s an interesting observation. Yes, there are a hard core of regular participants with a small number of those making up a disproportionate amount of the comments..
However it is notable that when certain specialist subjects are discussed there are always new participants or a return of those who come infrequently.
Tonyb
Tonyb
Always look forward to your comments. I am tired of the bickering back and forth but enjoy the blog and science. When the graphs are shown and reference articles linked this is a lot of fun. But the nasty back and forth gets tiresome. But thanks for your continued engagement with fan and courteous requests to push him back on the track for honest responses. You and gates back and forth is also fun.
Merry Christmas.
Scott
Scott
Thanks for your Kind comments. Rgates is pretty knowledgeable. Fan also knows a lot, Some of it factual. I enjoy his comments but you won’t tell him that will you?
I don’t know if you ever caught my Christmas piece from several years ago in which I argue, half seriously, that Charles Dickens is to blame for the Anglosphere obsession with climate change?
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/bah-humbug/
All the best at Christmas
Tonyb
Judith –
==> “Politically correct climate change orthodoxy has destroyed our ability to think rationally about the environment…”
Interesting alarmism neocons. I mean what with their brilliant analysis and predictions about the best policy for Iraq, why would we question the veracity of their analysis and predictions on something so comparatively simple as economics and the climate?
jeez, Joshua
US policy on Iraq was the product of a government
many “conservatives” disagreed
no doubt some “neocons”
I can think of a few “liberal” members of Congress who supported it
and some “conservatives” who did not
your comment confirms Judith’s point about orthodoxy and rational thinking
Joshua…
I sort of agree. Politically correct climate change orthodoxy has not destroyed my ability to think rationally about the environment.
But there is sort of a problem. Political correctness has had an influence on the science and the reporting. The politically correct claim that diversity is necessary and beneficial, that is, until it includes people that disagree them.
I’m not really sure what a Neocon is but I’m a small government libertarian so I’m pretty sure I disagree with them.
PA –
Not sure exactly how you’d measure “political correctness” objectively.
Both sides in the climate wars are fully convinced that their side gets the shaft from the media. Both sides feel that pressure to conform has intimidated scientists.
I look at all those claims and see a bunch of drama-queening.
==> “I’m not really sure what a Neocon is but I’m a small government libertarian so I’m pretty sure I disagree with them.”
In theory, neocon ideology would seem incompatible with “small-government libertarianism.” In reality, relatively few small-government libertarians left much space between themselves and the neocons w/r/t Iraq.
I do give credit to Ron Paul in that regard (and to Rand Paul w/r/t Cuba). Too bad they;re l*natics and slaves to political expediency other issues.
PA –
Caught in this blog’s god-awful moderation filter. I’ll break it into parts.
Part I:
PA –
Not sure exactly how you’d measure “political correctness” objectively.
Both sides in the climate wars are fully convinced that their side gets the shaft from the media. Both sides feel that pressure to conform has intimidated scientists.
I look at all those claims and see a bunch of drama-queening.
Part II:
==> “I’m not really sure what a Neocon is but I’m a small government libertarian so I’m pretty sure I disagree with them.”
In theory, neocon ideology would seem incompatible with “small-government libertarianism.” In reality, relatively few small-government libertarians left much space between themselves and the neocons w/r/t Iraq.
I do give credit to Ron P*ul in that regard (and to R*nd Paul w/r/t Cuba). Too bad they;re l*natics and slaves to political expediency other issues.
Joshua | December 25, 2014 at 7:21 pm |
Both sides in the climate wars are fully convinced that their side gets the shaft from the media. Both sides feel that pressure to conform has intimidated scientists.
You have hit on something that troubles me about the climate debate. It seems to be political. The same data is looked at from both sides and causes two radically different conclusions.
There are so many bad studies that anyone can defend any point of view.
It would be helpful if studies that are critical to the debate were ruthlessly examined by people biased against the studies. This would eliminate a lot of the chaff and leave us with studies we could have some confidence in.
John –
Read about the PNAC, and their political analyses leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Then look at the names of their membership,and evaluate their degree of influence in the development and implementation of the Iraq policy. Then try to find some liberals among them. Then get back to me.
We’ll talk.
Evidently Joshua would like Saddam Hussein and his sadistic rapist brothers in charge of Iraq again.
Either that or he has somehow discovered a process by which he can turn back time, do things differently, and know that the result of the different actions would be.
David –
==> “Evidently Joshua would like Saddam Hussein and his sadistic rapist brothers in charge of Iraq again. ”
Precisely. You nailed it. Write that down.
Anyway, David –
It’s been fun. But I’m sure other Climate Etc. readers are tired of the handbag fight, and it’s a beautiful warm day and I have a stack of cedar shingles that won’t nail themselves onto the woodshed roof.
Write that down.
Earlier you said “If you’ve read him fairly closely, then it seems odd that you characterize him as “suggesting” that ideologies make us irrational. He doesn’t.” You seem to think that Kahan doesn’t argue that and you would agree with not arguing that.
And yet here you are saying, “Interesting alarmism neocons. I mean what with their brilliant analysis and predictions about the best policy for Iraq, why would we question the veracity of their analysis and predictions on something so comparatively simple as economics and the climate?”
So let’s see if we can unpack this. Neocons engaged in analysis and predictions about war which included things that you think were wrong. Hardly surprising since most predictions about war are wrong and analysis is always a tricky business when you’re dealing with war, no matter who is doing it, but since they were Neocons doing it, you think it was particularly wrong because they were Neocons, which suggests a. Either you think that ideology rules beliefs which would contradict your stance earlier or b. your ideology is making you blind to the vagaries of war and the difficulties that follow and c. your defense of your own ideology leads you to make the very irrational observation that if a Neocon get’s something wrong about war then they will obviously get something wrong about a subject that has nothing to do with war. Which is obviously, a non-sequitur, and seems particularly irrational for one that was just arguing that ideology does not make one irrational. Except, apparently, in your opinion, if they are Neocons. (Which seems to be the subtext of Kahan’s work, (and most of your comments) but that’s for a different post.) It seems, like most of your comments, to be an absolutely confused muddle that leads with your ideology which you follow into all sorts of inane and fatuous remarks and observations.
Happy New Year. May the new year bring forth a paradigm that buries the ‘CO2 as a linear control knob.’ metaphor. May we toss out the inaccurate metaphor of the atmosphere as a green house. May we bring shame down on the heads of those in the civilized world who worked to promote the idea and law that classifies CO2 as a pollutant. And may we find the courage to castigate those who continually engage in rent seeking, authoritarian behavior and pursue policies along those same, corrupt, lines.
Daniel –
I love you, man. #1 Climate Etc. commenter. Keep it up!
Joshua rules out, a priori, that if the US hadn’t brought down Saddam Hussein’s regime, that Hussein might have acquired and detonated a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon in a major US city.
The fact of the matter, of course, is that we can’t turn back the clock, do things differently, and thus be able to observe whether the results would be better or worse.
Joshua’s narrative is sheer speculation produced by a weak mind.
Joshua,
Glad you like it. But do you learn anything from it? Or is your ideology bullet proof to logical contradiction and fatuous nonsense?
Daniel –
Is there any way I can learn from it without reading the whole thing? Every time I try reading it I bust out laughing and my sides start to hurt.
But let me see if there’s anything to learn…
==> ” you think it was particularly wrong because they were Neocons, which suggests a. Either you think that ideology rules beliefs which would contradict your stance earlier or…
????
I said that ideology influences beliefs – a statement that is completely consistent with the idea that the ideology of neocons influenced their beliefs about the best foreign policy options, but did not rule their beliefs. I never said, nor do I think, the ideology “rules beliefs.” I’m not even sure what that means. I don’t think that neocons’ beliefs about the optimal foreign policy for Iraq were irrational – which is what I was discussing with David elsewhere. You are making an odd mixture of influencing beliefs, “ruling” beliefs, and the question of irrationality that, unfortunately, has little connection to anything I’ve said.
==> ” b. your ideology is making you blind to the vagaries of war and the difficulties that follow and”
Not at all. But just because the vagaries of war are difficult to predict, there were many, many experts who predicted, rather precisely, the ways that the neocons’ beliefs about the optimal foreign policy w/r/t Iraq were wrong. Unfortunately, while they were people who had studied foreign policy, they also uniformly rejected the best advice of many ME experts and many people in the State Department. It’s a matter of record, Daniel.
==> ” c. your defense of your own ideology leads you to make the very irrational observation that if a Neocon get’s something wrong about war then they will obviously get something wrong about a subject that has nothing to do with war.”
Now that’s actually a fair point. Well done. Just because the necons were rather spectacularly wrong in their analyses and predictions about optimal foreign policy, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they’d likewise be wrong in their analyses and predictions about optimal energy/climate change-related policies. It does stand to reason that since they were all long-time students of foreign policy, if they’re going to be right about anything it would be something related to their field of expertise as opposed to issues not related to their field of expertise (which would relate to the publishers of Tol’s analysis, not Tol himself). But there’s no guarantee in that respect, so I’ll give you a point there. Keep it up, and you’ll no longer rank above other favs such as GaryM, Wags, Chief, Don, Mosher, and Peter Lang, who almost never get any points.
==> “Which is obviously, a non-sequitur,
Fair enough. It reminds me of when “skeptics” argue that because a minority of people who were experts in climate science some 50 years ago felt that there was some likelihood that the climate was in a cooling trend, therefore other experts in climate science some 50 years later, with all the advances made in the related technology, and all the increased information related to what affects long-term climate – are more likely to be wrong in their analyses and predictions.
==> “Which seems to be the subtext of Kahan’s work, ”
What, in god’s name are you talking about?
==> “And may we find the courage to castigate those who continually engage in rent seeking, authoritarian behavior and pursue policies along those same, corrupt, lines.”
That seems a bit harsh, Daniel – but when you come across someone who fits that description, let me know. I’d like to exchange views with such a person to see what sorts of ideology might have influence their beliefs – and what leads them to have an ideology so completely different from my own.
my humble predictions for the future
my gift to the blogosphere…you are welcome
today is Christmas day…
he that outlives this day and comes safe…
oops… wrong holiday
great amounts of formerly sequestered carbon has been released so likely that much damage has already been done if the theory holds
(unlikely, as I too think sensitivity is low and nature holds surprises)
I say this issue shall be little remember’ed
as technical innovation will overtake it
… the true great crisis facing humanity is not climate change…it is
DESK TOP HUMAN REPRODUCTION
soon making babies will no longer be done the old fashioned way…to much risk…to much left to chance
what does Gaia do to those attributes no longer required for promulgation of the species?
history shows that she eliminates them without prejudice
cinch up your pants…it’s gonna get weird
:)
Yes – 3-D baby printing is the future.
JS ….
How do you explain that only humans and mole rats are naked?
You would think everything that lives at the equator would be hairless.
“How do you explain that only humans and mole rats are naked?”
I don’t need to explain it because it isn’t true.
At least two breeds of canines are hairless… the Mexican and Peruvian Hairless. Both of which originate close to the equator.
Just about all mammals have occasional hairless offspring. They usually don’t survive long in the modern cold climate but if the earth happened to get back into a tropical epic it might be an advantage which is why the trait is occasionally brought to the fore.
The rule of thumb is that hair (or fur) color and texture is a very plastic genetic trait that recombination can easily and quickly change.
“DESK TOP HUMAN REPRODUCTION”
Last time I tried that the cleaning woman walked in on us.
So?
I haven’t read all the comments today, but for me one thing is very clear.
One of the biggest and best changes on the Climate Blogosphere is a certain Forum by a virtually unknown blogger 5 years ago.
The forum of course is CLIMATE ETC.
The virtually unknown blogger is of course Dr Curry.
Very well done indeed and a Happy Christmas to all on here.
Most of the wrapped presents have been opened save a few for those to come later today. Toys are are strewn about, parts missing require digging through the wrapping paper in the trash. Chanticleer ensemble sing classical Christmas and liturgical pieces from a new DVD player. Time for reflection from a position of quietude.
Like harkening angels announcing the coming of a new king, the blogosphere has announced the arrival of a climatological hiatus along with the misdeeds of those within the temple.
As true more than two thousand years ago as it is today, those who control the narrative direct the course of mankind’s making of history until of course leadership corruption necessitates a re-thinking of the paradigm. Offshoots along the way, like Sky Dragons develop their own gospel prompting derision by others who know their truth is right and righteous. Yet their audaciousness and tenacity prompts yet other offshoots and so on and so forth.
Today, as true as yesteryear, the building of relationships are the essential constructs for human progress in the caring of our fellow man. To me, the blogosphere facilitates relationship building amongst a diverse and hitherto never before amalgamation of curious and talented individuals. Relationship building requires trust and individual integrity; hallmarks I view as essential in science and its discussion.
Happy Holidays everyone. Thank you Judith Curry for this gift of your blog.
I believe WUWT is by far the most popular among the “skeptical” crowd. Isn’t that where people should go for cutting edging scientific analysis and commentary?
Joseph, I am not sure what most of the folks commenting on WUWT are after, but Anthony’s blog has a pretty good variety of stuff and he spends a lot of time making it interesting. Being popular requires more work than you might think.
Joseph, I’m not so sure about cutting edge scientific analysis, sometimes maybe, but if there is scientific analysis the comments usually rise to the occasion. Anthony posts a lot of guest posts which i think is wonderful and likely a lot of work. Some seem a bit loose, others well conceived.
Never take anything to the bank though without reading the comments.
Seriously Capt WUWT should be an embarrassment to all skeptics even if sometimes good points are made. Almost every scientific paper that is written about has “Claim” in the title. And then what usually follows is some shallow analysis that an expert working in the field would laugh at. And then you have people like Tim Ball encouraging the conspiracy related thinking that is prevalent among the commenters. Not to mention that there are numerous errors made by the commenters that are rarely corrected, reinforcing the posters belief that he is making sense. I don’t know Capt. if you get a kick out criticizing mainstream scientists and their work as well greens, I guess it does make sense to go there.
Joseph
I agree that there are posts at WUWT that take unsupportable positions. How about criticizing what you found wrong with the specific post? There is also a lot of good information available at that site.
I not going to do that here and when you try to do it at WUWT you are ganged up on by several posters and it becomes completely impossible to respond to all of them. Not very satisfying for me..
Joseph
I suggest that if you have a scientifically accurate point that can be made to show something posted at WUWT is inaccurate, you can post it once there and the point will stand or fail on its merits.
Much of what is posted there is little more than speculation not really worth commenting on. At least they generally do not ban people for commenting in a civil manner.
What has changed over the past five years?
1. There are no longer official denials of data fabrication.
2. The threat to the survival of society from destroying the reliability of government science is usually ignored.
Well…
The problem is a given political viewpoint has saturated some areas (government, news, science, psychology, education) to the point that extremely biased people are able to exert a lot of influence over the information available to the American public. The saturation is bad enough that these individuals are unaware of their bias – because of a lack of dissenting voices.
The solution is easy – discrimination is wrong – and this is discrimination. 40% of the American public are conservatives. Any government funded activity such as government, science, judicial appointments, or education that doesn’t meet the 40% criterion would be required to have an affirmative action plan to achieve 40% representation with “preferences” for conservatives in areas where they are underrepresented, and be required to yearly reports on their failure or success in meeting the goals. Federal Education and science funding formulas would have to take discrimination against conservatives by institutions account, and give grant preference to conservative scientists.
Members of the APA (American Psychiatric Association) with its 1/236 (according to Megan McArdle) ratio would be banned from testifying in Federal Court as expert witnesses until real progress (20% or more representation) is achieved with a trend of steady improvement.
Further the administration should be required to produce a yearly report on bias in the media and its distorting effect on news.
The problem with science isn’t reliability but the fact that peer review has become pal review or otherwise hijacked. The failure of peer review means another mechanism must replace it. The solution is to require by law that any study used as a basis for public policy must be replicated and red teamed (reviewed by a group with no activist connections or conflict of interest, with a 50% pay incentive to find fault). Evidence of misconduct found by the red team would result in a 10 year federal grant ban for the authors of the study.
It isn’t a perfect solution – but it isn’t a perfect problem.
I have a couple of problems with this solution.
1. Affirmative action just means that less qualified people are doing the work. Even if they have the same world view as me, I still find the practice not recommendable.
2. Government regulation of media? Again even if it means that the media has to tilt toward my point of view I can’t recommend the action. It is simply a line that I would never cross, and would not vote for anyone who proposes doing so.
Furthermore, there are much better controls that could be put in place;
1. Government funded research should require complete disclosure of methods, data and results. No pay walls for government funded papers. There may be exceptions to this, say for national interests, but it should be the rule rather than the exception.
2. We should increase the public’s control of how government dishes out funding dollars and the transparency of how this happens. The taxpayers should be able to simply go to a website and see how much money we are spending on climate research for instance and where exactly that funding went as well as exactly what that funding produced. We should be able to answer such questions as who voted for this? Currently these decisions are made by non-elected and therefore non-touchable people.
Just my two cents worth.
Prior to the blogs, some interesting ‘discourse’ took place on something called ‘usenet’ ( youngsters can look it up ). In the group ‘sci.environment’, James Annan and Raymond Pierrehumbert would occasionally post. That’s also where William Connely, Lubos Motl, and Josh Halpern would opine.
The signal to noise ratio wasn’t high, but it helped with access to news, data, and info that’s more readily available today.
I was quite prolific on Usenet as well.
‘The moderator reserves the right to just capriciously delete comments which use as their premise that standard textbook physics is plain wrong.
This is aimed to reduce the continual stream of unscientific rubbish that gets placed here as comments.’ SoD – http://scienceofdoom.com/etiquette/
This and the other netiquette provisions of SoD – if applied here – would result in most comments disappearing. For example.
‘Interesting alarmism neocons. I mean what with their brilliant analysis and predictions about the best policy for Iraq, why would we question the veracity of their analysis and predictions on something so comparatively simple as economics and the climate?’ Josh
Let’s deconstruct – I assume he means ‘interesting alarmism (from) neocons’. Apparently Richard Tol is a ‘neocon’ who got it wrong on Iraq and therefore is never redeemable.
He certainly looks like a mad ‘neocon’.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/TOL.jpg
We could actually discuss the details of the analysis – Tol is quite wrong on ‘The Science’ and so can’t say anything sensible about the economic future – and he misunderstands the threats to biodiversity and so can’t frame solutions. But that’s not what it is about – is it?
That would take some actual effort and cognition.
What it seems to be about is progressives owning the future one blog sneer at a time. The underlying practice seems to be to submerge anything they vaguely feel is politically incorrect under a stream of constant petty interjections – usually short, sneering comments on neo-cons, old white men and – a favourite of mine – psychologically aberrant posters of grandiliquent drivel. What more is there to say other than well done Josh
Is this an environment conducive to the evolution of a serious blog? Quite evidently not.
Seasons Greetings to our hostess and the Denizens.
The landscape of the climate blogosphere has indeed changed, for the better IMO.
First, accumulating knowledge. Steve McIntyre over at CA now has a substantial body of work at his site which he often refers to in new posts, so we are past the ABC stage and well into post-graduate school over there. To a lesser (but growing) extent, the same applies here. The same can be said of WUWT, Bob Tisdale’s and numerous other skeptic and lukewarmer sites.This keeps things moving forward, and also provides invaluable free resources for people wanting to catch up on particular topics or otherwise educate themselves.
Secondly, the segmentation has increased – so there are more sites that specialise in things like energy costs and policy, economics, politics, biology (notably Dr Susan Crockford’s excellent site) and so on. This is again tremendously useful for educational purposes, and helps people who have particular interests to keep up to date.
Thirdly, as Dr Curry noted, the traffic, both absolute and relative, at dedicated CAGW sites has declined. Whether this has been compensated by the very large volumes of traffic at MSM generalist sites which uncritically run a lot of alarmist material is moot.
It’s an intriguing topic, and one which researchers are taking an interest in, although so far a lot of the material produced (such as Lewandowsky & Co.’s) is poor quality.
Finally, Dan Kahan, Dr Curry? Oh, dear. He is just a slightly upmarket version of Lew and his pals, who uses a lot of big words to describe the conceptual framework of an intellectual pygmy, IMO. But each to their own, I guess. :)
Thanks for putting up with us for another year, and very best wishes for 2015.
“On twitter, there has recently been much discussion of 2012 post Climate Trolls – An Illustrated Bestiary…….. You would be surprised at the scientists on twitter who thought this analysis was spot on; ATTP was the one who originally posted on twitter” – JC
Thanks, never seen this before.
…and it is spot on.
The blog times are indeed giddy, with all kinds of wild notions finding a home. Global sea ice above av, W Antarctica clearly volcanic, everything supposed to be unprecedented shown to be well-precedented after a five minute check…Outrageous!
These crazy psychedelic hep-cats of the net are even allowed to refer to recently precipited white flood-risk stuff as “snow”. What next? They’ll be calling Lake Effects “blizzards” and polar vortices will be “freezing cold winters”.
It’s unprecedented!
“The skeptics blogs continue to thrive”
Uh, no, not so much. Traffic on WUWT has plummeted over the last year: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com
Tony’s mind grapes have fallen over 8,000(!) slots in the countdown of top sites.
Your own site declined in position by over 40,000(!) in the last three months: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/judithcurry.com.
Continuing to fact-check the claims above, RealClimate’s numbers are actually improving: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/realclimate.org.
SkS’s traffic rank is flat, compared to your and Watt’s declining numbers: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/skepticalscience.com.
Although Jo Nova has a post up whistling in the dark about her own falling numbers, her rank is down as well: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/http%3A%2F%2Fjoannenova.com.au.
Climate denial, like other conspiracy theories, has found a natural home on the web, so I doubt boring old science facts will ever compete with bodice-ripping nonsense in absolute page hits. But there doesn’t seem to be any substance to claiming that the stars of the deniers are in the ascendent or that science-based blogging is in decline.
Away with your damn facts Robert: we’re doing blog-science here!
Oh Robert, such sour grapes. On the brighter side, anyone visiting your site qualifies as growth for you.
Did I miss the list of discontinued Climate Blogs the last 5 years?
Spiritual principles were the solution to the darkness that engulfed the world ~ 2020 years ago.
Selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of the problem again today and spiritual principles are the only hope for the world.
‘The Uncertainty Monster monster – The ways of the world are deep and mysterious. Do not be too eager to deal out taxes in judgement, for even the very wise cannot see all ends. Let’s just wait and watch a few more decades.
How they see themselves
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/files/2012/10/bestiaryB1.jpg
How the world sees them
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/files/2012/10/Joey.jpg
Favorite blog: Climate Etc.
Special attack: We must not take any actions until we are 100% certain it is too late.
Favorite Topic: IPCC definitions of “likely” and “very likely”
Best counter: Uncertainty is actually not your friend in risk assessments (duh!)’
Familiar? They tend to treat you like an idi_t no matter what if you disagree with memes forged in blogospheric echo chambers of the groupthink left. . Well let’s risk it and disagree.
The ultra-rational position from Tol is: “The first rule of climate policy should be: Do no harm to economic growth. But the IPCC was asked to focus on the risks of climate change alone, and those who volunteered to be its authors eagerly obliged.”
This is not about doing nothing – but taking the practical and pragmatic options. We could go into it in some detail – but they are never the right details for these people. They want something else. By their own admission they want to do economic harm out of the very best intentions of these guardians of the galaxy.
The profound irony is that they have not a clue – or little honesty – about Earth sciences or computing.
‘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…
Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable. They echo other famous limitations on scientist’s expectations, namely the undecidability of some propositions within axiomatic mathematical systems (Gödel’s theorem) and the uncomputability of some algorithms due to excessive size of the calculation ‘
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
To quote McWilliams from both the abstract and a footnote. James Hurrell and colleagues in an article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society stated that the ‘global coupled atmosphere–ocean–land–cryosphere system exhibits a wide range of physical and dynamical phenomena with associated physical, biological, and chemical feedbacks that collectively result in a continuum of temporal and spatial variability. The traditional boundaries between weather and climate are, therefore, somewhat artificial. The large-scale climate, for instance, determines the environment for microscale (1 km or less) and mesoscale (from several kilometers to several hundred kilometers) processes that govern weather and local climate, and these small-scale processes likely have significant impacts on the evolution of the large-scale circulation (Fig. 1; derived from Meehl et al. 2001). The accurate representation of this continuum of variability in numerical models is, consequently, a challenging but essential goal. Fundamental barriers to advancing weather and climate prediction on time scales from days to years, as well as longstanding systematic errors in weather and climate models, are partly attributable to our limited understanding of and capability for simulating the complex, multiscale interactions intrinsic to atmospheric, oceanic, and cryospheric fluid motions.‘ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2009BAMS2752.1
Emphasis mine. It is partly grid resolution. Both problems require a whole lot more data and a whole lot more computing power. The weight of evidence is such that modellers are frantically revising their strategies. They have asked for an international climate computing centre and $5 billion (for 2000 times more computing power) to solve this new problem in climate forecasting. The monumental size of the task they have set themselves cannot be exaggerated.
Climate and models are chaotic but they are fundamentally different. Models have temporal chaos – calculation evolve a step at a time. Climate evolves in both space and time – spatio-temporal chaos. The ambition to encompass the latter with the former in the context of structural instability and sensitive dependence on the one hand and abrupt climate change on the other may be doomed to disappointment.
With climate – a dynamically driven climate shift occurred in 1998/2001 accompanied by extreme shifts between ENSO states. It resulted in dramatic changes in cloud cover and the planetary energy dynamic – and the resultant plateau in planetary energy content seems likely persist for decades.
It is commonly framed in real science as uncertainty, speculation, something to be considered. But it is always framed in response as denial of what we do know and in tones dripping with supercilious bile. In reality if they knew anything they would understand how little they understand. So they have pretty much lost the plot and the war through blind belief in a lack of uncertainty.
You’re probably right that your ass is huge and definitely wrong about everything else.
Ha ha ha! I stopped reading when he made the “100%” comment, which showed he was not serious, but if he did allow that his has a huge derriere, it is probably that it is true.
Unitary electron theory – Wheeler and Feynman’s theory that there is only one electron in the universe – explains how they have disappeared up their own arses but not the all important why.
Seriously? Do they not get that Hugh Jass is sending them up for their snide and silly little comments? That they are being huge arses from some ideological commitment to a progressive future one smarmy little gibe at a time? That any serious and in depth comment – as the above certainly is – is the object of insult and blanket denial from I presume a silly little space cadet and that is the extent of their rational parry and critique?
It’s a bleak little mystery all right.
This El Nino has been a real nail biter. We are lucky just to have survived.
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!
Well, as a former frequent visitor to WUWT, the introduction of nested comments has reduced my visits a great deal. It’s also why I don’t come here until threads are well underway, and rarely revisit threads except from the bottom up.
It is the host’s choice, of course. But those of us who don’t have endless amounts of time to read and re-read long threads are going to make our decisions accordingly.
I guess you don’t have much of a nesting instinct…
Johanna
Regarding WUWT that is exactly why I have reduced my visits. Previously, following an interesting thread could be easily done by working from the bottom of the thread upwards until you met up with the extent of your previous reading.
With so many threads now it is impossible to follow them all.
With Climate Etc there are far fewer threads so it is usually possible to catch up to the part of the nesting where you placed a comment.
tonyb
Hi Tony, hope you had a good Christmas.
Checking on follow-ups to your own comments is easy – just use CtrlF and search for your name. But I agree with Phil below that the inability to find all new comments easily is a major deterrent.
When Anthony Watts was asking for feedback on nesting I made this point, but he has chosen to stay with it, so I have chosen to significantly reduce the number of visits I make to his site and to individual threads on it..
I think that WordPress (and other blog software such as Squarespace etc.) should have a little pick-menu which allows the user to choose among a few thread options such as latest comment, earliest comment, and nested conversations. It is a simple matter technically and allows the user to rely on a preferred option, and to change the ordering with one click.
I rarely return to threads or try to read all comments due to the great inconveniences of trying to resume reading, etc.
IMHO, nested comments do have their merits (although they are a very poor imitation of the nesting one would find on Usenet – using an appropriate app with a “killfile”, to which one can readily consign the contributions of those in whose comments one has no interest, so that they are no longer visible!) But as implemented by WP, they are far from ideal.
My chosen “work-around” is to run through the thread via date search. While all browsers do offer such a feature (usually invoked via [Ctrl+F]), I find that Google’s browser offers the most info and flexibility.
Once I have entered my date criteria, it becomes a far less tedious (and time consuming) task to just hit the [Enter] key in order not to waste time and/or effort when one encounters a thread/sub-thread polluted by the pompous little dreck-producers – and/or to skip other threads/sub-threads in which one might have little interest, for whatever reason!
Yes, you’ll land on such comments if they meet your date criteria, but just hit [Enter] to move quickly on to the next – and hope for a more worthwhile landing;-)
Hi HIlary –
==> ” it becomes a far less tedious (and time consuming) task to just hit the [Enter] key in order not to waste time and/or effort when one encounters a thread/sub-thread polluted by the pompous little dreck-producers –”
Season’s Greetings!!
(Did I spell your name right?)
OMG! Joshie with the unintentional irony again. He’s the putz of unintentional irony.
it takes about 2 minutes to read every comment on a WUWT thread.
invest in a speed reading course.
I genuflect to your immense intellectual superiority, which, not being self-evident, has to be highlighted by you at every opportunity.
Some of us, admittedly members of the lower orders as designated by you, like to reflect on what we read as we go along. Some people read slowly (compared to your F1 or perhaps even supersonic speed) but try to derive wisdom from it.
Pity Pointman’s Prat of the Year awards are finished. But, wait till next year. Mosher and Kahan will be my joint nominations.
It is disappointing that so few Climate scientists have followed Judith Curry’s brave lead 5 years ago. While not expecting a mad dash to the exits the wagon circling strategy seems to be working.
The fall in the number of warmist blogs readership indicates a change in mainstream perception of the issues.
However there is still a large rump of committed decent people who believe the other people in the world, the non decent, uncommitted majority need to be made to help others.They need a cause to believe in, any cause, and humans causing global warming fits the bill. They are well off, have succeeded due to their parent’s sacrifices and the benefits of a fuel driven economy though they feel it is due to their own (cough) work ethic.
But they will insist on people feeling a little pain.
What needs to change is a push to demonise some other aspect of human behaviour that they can all jump on the bandwagon of.
Plus an obvious cooling trend for 5 more years with no major disasters to conveniently blame.
Plus more scientists joining the uncommitted group or even admitting the science to date has been wrong.
Happy Xmas all.
“Plus an obvious cooling trend for 5 more years”
Since there’s no cooling trend now, but rather a warming trend, this wish seems pretty nonsensical.
Hypercomplex Uncertainty
Judy/curryja
Compliments on reference to at the Climate Change National Forum and your review Climate Sensitivity Uncertainty.
See more at: http://climatechangenationalforum.org/climate-sensitivity-uncertainty/#sthash.58KZL6K3.dpuf
PS Recommend finding a better term than “wicked” due to its (im)moral rather than physical connotations. e.g., recommend using “hypercomplex” or “O-complex” for “Omega” Nth dimensional complexity.
Tried a brief comment for the first time at hotwhopper yesterday on a post about PAGES2K, listing a few of McIntyre’s recent posts that bring back the MWP. First and last time, apparently, as my comment went into moderation and has not appeared.
Update Dec 28: still nothing. Guess that’s that; completely civil comment, brief, no links included.
It’s beyond me what the point of such a blog could be.
I find Skeptical Science to be a particularly scurrilous blog. It is amazing that a publication that is so obviously incompetent and deceptive gets so much play. You can start off with the name, (Skeptical), which is obviously 100% wrong because SKS supports consensus science unabashedly. Brandon Shollenberger has caught the proprietor of SKS, John Cook, in an obvious lie. See http://www.hi-izuru.org/wp_blog/2014/11/an-obvious-lie-made-more-obvious/ Notwithstanding, the obvious gross deficiencies of the site, warmists defend it and rely on it. (For instance, Andy Revkin lists it on his NYT’s blog and President Obama referred to the 97% “study’ [which has been thoroughly demolished] in his comments justifying CO2 restrictions.)
Truly pathetic and disgraceful situation.
JD
Yes, here’s one of those “disgraceful” research papers that SKS linked to recently:
http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~matthew/Maher_et_al_GRL_EOR_2014.pdf
How dare SKS favor science over pseudoscience, eh?
“The latest generation of climate model simulations are used to investigate”.
Yup, typical warmist propaganda. The study should start out “We are going to use failed models so we can generate false claims”, at least that would be honest.
Gates linking to one paper. I didn’t say that 100% of their links were bogus. I made 2 particular points. Do you care to address directly the points I made and to dispute them.
Perfectly stated PA…for someone who favors skewed Pseudoscience to real science. You are in your groove!
I actually read the study and it was kind of interesting but they don’t have the 1940-1975 data they would need to make an effective point.
It is another “the aerosols did it” study. Since the bad aerosols are gone there won’t be more hiatuses.
Wait till 2020 and see what happens.
What you seem oblivious about is 80-90% of studies are wrong, so 80-90% of your studies are wrong (particularly the model-based and other hand-waving studies).
About all that can be done, is to check what the study says about future climate and see if it happens.
“Andy Revkin lists it on his NYT’s blog and President Obama referred to the 97% “study’ [which has been thoroughly demolished] in his comments justifying CO2 restrictions.”
_____
You really need to let go of trying to unmask the 97% number as false. There are more fruitful pastures if you insist on spending your time as a faux-skeptic. Refer to this for your future discussions on how the 97% number is wrong:
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/peter-doran-on-the-97/
The problem with faux-skeptics, is that they can’t move beyond certain basic things to actually change and learn. The “hiatus” was a great learning opportunity and real scientists took that opportunity to expand the knowledge base of climate science. Faux-skeptics held on the the rather simpleton notion that the “hiatus” proved AGW was wrong, which of course 97% of real climate scientists don’t believe to be the case.
R Gates. You still haven’t addressed whether you consider the blog’s name to be honest and whether B Shollenberger caught John Cook in an obvious lie on an important matter. You still avoid the main points of my post and try to change the topic. If the blog’s name is dishonest and if Cook is caught in a major lie, most scientifically literate people would ignore the blog. You instead are trying to excuse Cook’s behavior by changing the subject to obviously defend a dishonest blog. (for instance discussing the hiatus) Please answer the two issues raised here. It is funny that you claim others engage in pseudo science when you go to such great lengths to avoid the issues I have raised.
JD
1. Regarding the blogs name: Skeptical Science. Right under the title it clearly states: “Getting Skeptical about Global Warming Skepticism”.
So it clearly states why they use the term skeptical in their title. Not dishonest at all. There are many faux-skeptics around who like to use the title of “skeptic” without really being an honest rational skeptic. Skeptical Science unmasks these faux-skeptics and calls out pseudoscience for what it is.
2. Regarding whether John Cook lied about posting a link to the Lewandowsky research questionnaire: I’ve got no opinion about this as I’ve not researched it, nor really have much interest in the topic. There enough good debunking of faux-skeptical claims on SKS to make the site useful to me for general information, though I rarely post there.
Overall SKS is a useful site for general information and nicely breaks down pseudoscience debunking into different levels for the novice and more advanced student of climate.
Gates: At least you responded my questions. The excuse of being skeptical about skepticism is an obvious dishonest dodge to attract relatively uninformed skeptics to their site. It is equivalent to using the name honest in a blog when the blog is really dishonest — for instance, such a proprietor could state that he is honest about his dishonesty. Or, maybe an honest person could state in SKS tortured way that he is dishonest about his dishonesty.
Instead of being straightforward and honest about its mission, it knowingly chooses to mislead its readers by having “Skeptical” in its name. “Skepticism” as used 99% of the time refers to challenges to authority and consensus. SKS turns this around and misleads its readers by using a cheesy rhetorical device. If SKS was so confident in its work, why wouldn’t it give itself an honest name? If it was engaged in a true scientific undertaking, why wouldn’t it directly state what it was all about?
JD
Gates said “Regarding whether John Cook lied about posting a link to the Lewandowsky research questionnaire: I’ve got no opinion about this as I’ve not researched it, nor really have much interest in the topic.”
_______
People like to do what they do best. It sounds like you aren’t very good at supposing and nit picking.
R. Gates — your linked article misrepresents the Cook study, It says, “When it came to actual experts, about 97-98% agreed that we are warming and that it is mostly us (human activity is a significant contributing factor).” Well, “significant” doesn’t mean “most”. (In fact, if you look at Cook’s technique, I don’t think it even purports to show agreement that man’s contribution is “significant”, but only that it’s greater than zero.)
Although the Cook study is bogus, I think its conclusion is essentially correct. There is overwhelming scientific support for the idea that man’s activity contributes some amount to global warming. However, look at all the things Cook’s study doesn’t show. Cook does NOT claim to show widespread scientific agreement that
1. Man’s activity causes rapid warming.
2. Man’s activity causes harmful warming
3. Man’s activity causes catastrophic warming
4. Various solutions being propounded by the UN, EPA, etc., are necessary to save us from catastrophe
5. Various solutions being propounded by the UN, EPA, etc., are sufficient to save us from catastrophe.
Unfortunately, many people, including President Obama, have represented Cook’s study as showing more than it claimed to show.
I think SKS makes it clear what is it is “all about” in the subtitle to the blog. They are clearly not trying to deceive anyone. 30 seconds on the blog makes it abundantly clear what position they take. Overall, the term “skeptic” is not the reserved domain of any one group, and I myself used to go by the moniker of “Skeptical Warmist” here on CE, but it seemed to much of a tongue-in-cheek statement about skepticism for some to get the joke, so I dropped it. Those who doubt the validity of AGW do not own the title of Skeptic. It is quite valid to be a Skeptical Warmist, and indeed, the only truly valid position from a rational skeptical and pure science perspective is to be such. I’d better always be skeptical about everything, including AGW, but that does not mean that I might not think it is likely more correct than not overall. Being a skeptic is a tool, not a destination, and thus, even though I might think that AGW is likely generally true, it is always a provisional truth, and an honest skeptic is always looking for new data to help them evolve, modify, or otherwise abandon all their provisional truths. That’s the foundation of honest skepticism. It is s journey…a tool…never a destination or a badge you wear.
Remember folks, R. Gates, who likes to say he is truly skeptical, doesn’t care if his sources are liars. He apparently doesn’t even care if they use lies to justify claims in work published in scientific journals.
For those who don’t know, the SI of the Lewandowsky paper used Skeptical Science traffic patterns to argue it had a reasonable proportion of responses from skeptics. While the argument has many issues, the fact Skeptical Science never posted a link to the survey means they don’t matter. That means the Lewandowsky paper has absolutely no way to argue the survey had a representative audience.
That point, of course, ties into the fact the correlations Lewandowsky found were bogus, created entirely by him misapplying statistical tests. The tests he used requires the data being examined have certain properties, properties his data lacked due it having a skewed sample. The effect was to create correlations out of nothing. The exact same approach can be used to find “statistically significant” correlations between basically any two items, no matter how unrelated they may be. I’ve given several demonstrations of this, such as here before
In any event, I’ll be more skeptical of everything said by someone I know to be a liar. That’s especially true when the person uses lies to justify faulty arguments in scientific papers then tries to tell me what the scientific literature says. The way I see it, if a person lies about a topic, I have to assume he might well lie about it again.
On a final note, I should point out I don’t deserve credit for catching this lie. Others caught him in it well before my post. My post just shows how obvious it is what he said was untrue.
” It sounds like you aren’t very good at supposing and nit picking.”
_____
I can be good at both if I need to be, I simply don’t enjoy nit picking. I am definitely more of a “big picture” guy, but I can drill down to the “nits” when the need arises.
This actually brings up a good test to see how faux-skeptics (pseudoscientists) versus real scientists responded to the “hiatus”. Three general categories:
1. Deny there was a hiatus. This would be akin to a true-believer in AGW. No real rational skepticism. The hiatus must not exist because AGW is all there is etc. This is pseudoscience on the side of AGW.
2. Deny there is AGW going on, and insist that the hiatus proves it. This is pseudoscience against the existence of AGW.
3. Accept what the data was saying, and try to use it to modify the provisional truth or understanding of AGW and how the climate system operates, especially in terms of the kinds of natural variability we might see in the coming century. A great deal of research has been put into trying to understanding the causes of both the current hiatus as well as previous hiatus and warming periods in the 20th century. This is honest real science, and involves being a rational skeptic, knowing that your understanding of the climate is always a provisional truth, and that theories and understanding is always evolving.
R. Gates said ” I simply don’t enjoy nit picking. I am definitely more of a “big picture” guy, but I can drill down to the “nits” when the need arises.”
_______
I find nit pickers tiresome. Brandon Shollenberger excels at nit picking, but every time I try to read about his picking my mind wonders off or I get sleepy.
Brandon is no slouch when it comes to supposing either.
Max_OK, Citizen Scientist:
There is something weird about a person who repeatedly jumps into discussions to insult people for the arguments they make while never actually trying to rebut those arguments.
I suppose I don’t need to say more.
Gates: “I think SKS makes it clear what is it is “all about” in the subtitle to the blog. They are clearly not trying to deceive anyone. 30 seconds on the blog makes it abundantly clear what position they take.”
Not so. Here is there subtitle: “Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation.” This has nothing to do with true scientific skepticism, which is a search for the truth. An accurate subtitle for the blog would be something like: “Supporting the consensus of scientists who believe that increasing CO2 poses a threat to civilization.” From that point the opening page goes to a an article about two scientists who study ocean warming. Again, if you are practicing true science, why the need to deceive? Why not state clearly and concisely where you are coming from? One of the obvious answers is that John Cook wishes that readers believe that he came to his conclusions from a true vantage point of skepticism about Hansenite “science.” and that they will give his blog more credence than another which started off as being predicated on Hansenite “science.”
JD
Brandon Shollenberger said on December 26, 2014 at 4:04 pm |
“There is something weird about a person who repeatedly jumps into discussions to insult people for the arguments they make while never actually trying to rebut those arguments.
I suppose I don’t need to say more.”
_______
Whew ….. that’s a relief !
Just a minute here, didn’t Brandon himself jump into the discussion? This is textbook “the pot calling the kettle black.”
Right from SKS related to why it is named what it is:
“Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to improve their understanding. Yet this isn’t what happens with climate change denial. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that purports to refute global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say?”
______
Seems pretty straight forward to me. I can’t imagine how someone would be confused about what they might expect to find on the site. A review of skeptical arguments, in detail and hundreds, if not thousands of links to professional research.
The Subtitle of the SKS is : Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism.
Again, pretty straight forward. How could anyone but a complete dullard fail to understand what the site was all about? I see no attempt at all to deceive.
Gates: “Again, pretty straight forward. How could anyone but a complete dullard fail to understand what the site was all about? I see no attempt at all to deceive.”
The right question is how can anyone but a complete dullard claim that supporting a consensus position is associated with scientific skepticism? Skepticism is the antithesis of consensus. If you are for scientific truth, why not make your position as simple and clear as possible?
JD
PS I have nothing further to add on this thread.
It’s been almost exactly a year since this research came out on understanding the role of clouds in constraining the ECS number:
http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~matthew/Maher_et_al_GRL_EOR_2014.pdf
What was interesting to me over the course of the the lengthy discussions about this paper was how so-called “skeptical” blogs reacted to this paper. It seems anything that might indicate a higher ECS gets treated quite differently (more critically) than lower ECS research, which is usually welcomed and cheered on skeptical blogs. Real skeptics should be neutral and dispassionate, right?
Oops, here’s the link to the cloud study:
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-cloud-mystery-global-temperatures-4c.html
Ok, different study. Says the TCR and ECS are higher due to clouds because there are more low clouds.
We’ll see. The lower troposphere isn’t warming. Can’t warm the surface much without warming the lower troposphere.
Can’t have high TCR/ECS without lower troposphere warming so… this is another “wait until 2020 and see it they are wrong” study.
The outlook of these studies is the hiatus is going to end. If it doesn’t end soon they are wrong.
“Says the TCR and ECS are higher due to clouds because there are more low clouds.”
____
No, that’s not what the study suggests. Re-read, or at least watch the interview with Sherwood:
“The key to this narrower but much higher estimate can be found in the real world observations around the role of water vapour in cloud formation.
Observations show when water vapour is taken up by the atmosphere through evaporation, the updraughts can either rise to 15 km to form clouds that produce heavy rains or rise just a few kilometres before returning to the surface without forming rain clouds.”
Technically you are correct – the study says there are more lower troposphere updrafts that don’t produce clouds. I interpreted the lower updrafts as lower clouds but what they are claiming is more low level circulation. Which should warm the lower troposphere which doesn’t seem to be happening.
The real test of Sherwood will come when models are corrected per his suggestions.
1. If people don’t correct the models, one can conclude there is no consensus on his explanation.
2. If they do correct it, it will get interesting.
“Global average temperatures will rise at least 4°C by 2100”
Hmmmm…..
~4.0C per century begs the question
– why is observed warming only 1.5C per century?
Why would we expect any acceleration when forcing has DEcelerated?
Mosher,
I agree that the incorporation of Sherwood’s findings in more future models is going to be a test, and if that happens it will indeed get interesting as it will push ECS estimates higher. There is also the other rather controversial claim by some that the hiatus has proven that ECS needs to be lower and/or the models are running “too hot.” I tend to think too much is being put into the natural variability of the hiatus. All this will get resolved in the next 5-10 years (unless we get a really big volcano to go off). I tend to think that Sherwood has some strong arguments, and a bit higher ECS (somewhere between 3 and 4C) is more in alignment with the paleoclimate data coming form the mid-Pliocene. We are also going to hear more about the other GHG’s (mainly N2O and methane) in the next few years, as the effects form these gases could add up to 0.5C additional warming by 2100, and thus, even if CO2 by itself was only 2.5C ECS, we’ve got the potential extra kicker of the other gases, which takes us to the 3C.
This is the kind of wild exaggeration that gives climate research a bad name.
Lucifer said:
“Why would we expect any acceleration when forcing has Decelerated?”
____
Guess all they have in hell is pseudoscience. There has been no “deceleration” in the forcing from the rising GHG concentrations. By the broadest measures of net energy in the climate system we have, the system has continued to accumulate energy, without pause, for many decades. The only deceleration we had was back when Mt. Pinatubo erupted, and that only lasted for a few years at most.
There has been no “deceleration” in the forcing from the rising GHG concentrations.
Annual growth rates of GHG forcing peaked thirty years ago:
http://ej.iop.org/images/1748-9326/8/1/011006/erl459410f5_online.jpg
“The real test of Sherwood will come when models are corrected per his suggestions.”
The real test of any model is whether it matches observed conditions consistently over time.
Sherwood’s position could be correct and the models could still be highly inaccurate for unrelated reasons. Complicated system and many seem to like to jump to conclusions that they know how is will operate.
Well, Methane has a short lifetime. The GHG warming really depends on CO2. The CO2 lifetime seems to be shortening (increased environmental absorption). This means a higher TCR/ECS is needed for significant warming.
I’m not sure how the TCR/ECS can be high without TLT warming. Currently the surface is warming more than TLT (at least the adjusted surface temperature). To me that would seem to reduce the warming effect to the bottom of the atmosphere which would limit its effectiveness. Can’t increase the temperature gradient without increasing convection.
The cloud reduction means more insolation. Now there is a cloud reduction but it isn’t clear why and it is recent, not a persistent long term trend. It could just be part of a climate cycle.
I’m in wait and see mode. If the cloud thing is driven by a climate cycle it will swing back.
Lucifer,
You seem to want to mix two different concepts. Your first post said:
“…forcing has Decelerated…”
And then you showed a chart that talked about the GROWTH rate of forcing. Forcing and the growth rate of forcing are two different things, and additionally, for the forcing to actually be decelerating, it would have to be experiencing a negative growth rate (i.e. less than zero), and it clearly is not. Thus, even if your chart was the correct quantity you had in your original post it would be wrong, so it is wrong on two counts, regardless.
Sorry Lucifer, but you you taunt the scientists who go to hell with pseudoscience?
Gates- it is possible but seems highly unlikely.
At the end of the day, almost all the serious concerns regarding AGW resolve around the rate of sea level rise. If there is a significant acceleration increased concerns will have merit. Now, it seems like mostly religious like concerns.
“Well, Methane has a short lifetime. The GHG warming really depends on CO2.”
_____
Yes, methane has a shorter lifetime, but the overall concentrations have been rising right along with CO2 and N2O– thus the net forcing from methane has been rising as well, regardless of the shorter lifetime. Methane is in fact one area that I disagree with the consensus on. I think it will be a more significant issue than many in the consensus crowd currently ascribe it to be. Not catastrophic, but still significant. Recent studies like this are some reasons why:
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-methane-leaking-permafrost-offshore-siberia.html
http://phys.org/news/2014-12-warmer-pacific-ocean-millions-tons.html
“And then you showed a chart that talked about the GROWTH rate of forcing. “
Right – a lower rate means deceleration.
“All this will get resolved in the next 5-10 years (unless we get a really big volcano to go off). I tend to think that Sherwood has some strong arguments, and a bit higher ECS (somewhere between 3 and 4C) is more in alignment with the paleoclimate data coming form the mid-Pliocene. ”
The test of whether he has strong arguments is whether or not models are being upgraded to make the changes he would propose.
And if, subsequent to the those changes, metrics improved in hindcasting
“The real test of any model is whether it matches observed conditions consistently over time.”
err no.
you need to be more specific as to metric and use case.
“…almost all the serious concerns regarding AGW resolve around the rate of sea level rise.”
_____
Uh, no. Sea level rise is just one of the “serious” concerns among many.
Here are the top 10 frightening highlights of the National Climate Assessment:
Bigger, more frequent droughts.
Larger wildfires.
Glaciers and polar ice will melt at a faster rate.
The possible reemergence of currently uncommon diseases, such as dengue fever.
A higher risk of heat and respiratory stress from poor air quality.
Deteriorating infrastructure. For example, extreme heat is already damaging roads, rail lines and airport runways.
Water shortages and diminished water quality are more likely.
Food security could be at risk as climate change threatens crops and livestock.
Poverty will likely be exacerbated.
Species will become increasingly extinct as ecosystems are disrupted.
______
But thanks for playing!
R Gates, it seems your scepticism is a one-way street
“The real test of any model is whether it matches observed conditions consistently over time.”
_____
This goes back to a fundamental misunderstanding of models. Cliate Models will always be wrong, and if they are exactly right over an extended period, they will have been so heavily “curve fitted” that they are no doubt not telling you much. Real systems as complex as climate have natural variability that no model will follow exactly. What a good model will have is similar natural variably or “wigglyness”, but the natural variability “wigglyness” of the model will never match the real world, except occasionally by accident. What models should be is right over the long-term. They will tell us where the climate is generally headed, but can never tell us the exact path.
“R Gates, it seems your scepticism is a one-way street.”
____
Skepticism does not mean I don’t hold a position as being more likely than another. I think it is more likely than not that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. I think it is more likely than not that a large rock dropped above my foot will likely fall and cause me pain. It is more likely than not that the Human Carbon Volcano is altering the Earth’s climate system (as well as other things that humans are up to, like land use). And though I think all these things are more likely than not, I entertain all evidence to the contrary will equal passion and dispassion.
Steve writes- “And if, subsequent to the those changes, metrics improved in hind casting”
Can you please elaborate regarding the relationship between the accuracy of various models in hindcasts vs. their performance in matching observed conditions? I was not aware that GCM’s that performed better in the hindcasts necessarily have demonstrated better actual performance.
“err no.
you need to be more specific as to metric and use case.”
Lol–needing more specific metrics to measure performance of an individual model doesn’t make the general point less valid.
Again
“The real test of any model is whether it matches observed conditions consistently over time.”
Again. That is not “The real test”
The real test depends upon the metric and the use.
First a model is not an “it”. Models produce a large number of output files.
There are thousands of possible metrics, if not more.
Second “observed conditions” are not “it”. which observed “condition”
Third, “consistently over time” what do you mean by consistently? over what time frames? every second?
in other words, general assertions are empty, chest pounding, crap
Gates
It is NOT a misunderstanding of models or modeling.
Models need to demonstrate a reliable accuracy sufficient for their purpose over the timescales being considered. GCM’s need to show reasonable accuracy over time for the characteristics they are designed to model.
If a model does not demonstrate reasonable accuracy in matching observed conditions it should not be relied upon. Relying upon any model without it having a good history of matching observed conditions within consistent margins of error is very risky. Matching a hindcast is really nothing more than a part of a GCM’s development.
R Gates, I do apologise – I see now that you were just reporting on the alarmist claptrap about wildfires, diseases, air quality etc, but you’re about as sceptical of these things as the rest of us.
Sorry for getting you wrong.
“Models need to demonstrate a reliable accuracy sufficient for their purpose over the timescales being considered.”
_______
This is huge moving target then, eh?
“accuracy sufficient for their purpose…” Models don’t just have one purpose, and their most important one is not to duplicate the exact evolution of a climate system, but to show the general dynamics involved in that evolution. We cannot design a model that will track the exact path of a single speck of dust as it floats in your room, yet we can design models that will accurately tell you the rate of dust deposition on your table because we know most of the important dynamics involved. Specks of dusts are like the evolution of individual climate systems. Do you get it?
“Models need to demonstrate a reliable accuracy sufficient for their purpose over the timescales being considered. GCM’s need to show reasonable accuracy over time for the characteristics they are designed to model.
If a model does not demonstrate reasonable accuracy in matching observed conditions it should not be relied upon. ”
This is a common misunderstanding.
A simple example will suffice.
I have a model of DistanceToEmpty in my gas guzzling truck.
The way it works is simple. Based on an inaccurate sensor that measures fuel remaining ( in the fuel sending unit) the amount of fuel in the tank is estimated. It assumes the ground is level. Next, it looks at the average mpg over the last few miles.
It computes 278 miles to empty.
This model is always wrong, sometimes grossly wrong. For example, it actually measure the distance to empty without regard for the last 3 gallons in the tank. So it’s almost always off by 45 miles or so.
So, when I hit the city it reads say 30miles to empty. Now I transition to city driving and within a couple of miles it reads 6 miles to empty.
How could something so grossly innaccurate be useful.?
Well, it’s very useful. I’ve never run out of gas.
Question 1.
WHO relies on the model. Me
What do I rely on it for? To decide to stop to gas up.
How accurate must it be? Well, If its always biased low and its bias is less than the distance to the next gas station, then its as accurate as it needs to be.
Second example.
Guides for dropping munitions. My system may only predict the impact point of dropping a munition within 100 feet ( gravity un guided munition), But this can get the job done depending in the situation.
So.
1. Define the user
2. Define the use
3. Define the cost of the error.
Then you can start to define the required accuracy.
R. Gates | December 26, 2014 at 2:11 pm |
Yes, methane has a shorter lifetime, but the overall concentrations have been rising right along with CO2 and N2O– thus the net forcing from methane has been rising as well, regardless of the shorter lifetime. Methane is in fact one area that I disagree with the consensus on. I think it will be a more significant issue than many in the consensus crowd currently ascribe it to be. Not catastrophic, but still significant.
http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/education/methane/intro/methanesources.gif
Well… most of the methane sources are natural (plants, animals, bacteria). But human activities do seem to have doubled the methane level.
This is kind of good news and bad news:
The good news is megatons of methane hydrates aren’t going to make much of a dent.
The bad news is we aren’t going to give up eating so the rice and ruminants stay. This makes doing anything on methane other than marginal improvements difficult. About the only way to reduce the methane level is reduce the human population. If the left hadn’t been against nuclear weapons we might have made some progress on the methane issue.
You’re really flogging this study today.
The model study is interesting – but they don’t have the 1940-1975 data to really do anything useful.
It reads like another “the aerosols did it and since they have gone away we are doomed study”.
We’ll see. If 2020 is cooler they are wrong.
” If 2020 is cooler they are wrong.”
1) Cooler than what?
2) No qualifiers here? Real science always has qualifiers and context. what if a Tambora or Krakatoa sized eruption goes off in 2019?
3) It is a good clue that Pseudoscience is afoot when such blanket, unqualified statements are made with complete authority and certainty.
Food for thought: 2010-2014 will likely be the warmest 5 year period on record. 2003-2014 will likely be the warmest 10 year period on record. 2014 will likely be the warmest year on record. Are you suggesting if 2020 is cooler than 2014 that it proves anything at all?
I tend to use quantifiers not qualifiers.
You flog a lot of “the hiatus is ending and we are doomed” studies.
This makes it easy to evaluate the studies. If the hiatus doesn’t end we aren’t doomed. If 2011-2020 looks like 2001-2010 they aren’t good studies.
No particular reason to do anything until 2020. We should just wait and see who is right.
PA said: “You flog a lot of “the hiatus is ending and we are doomed” studies.”
_____
You can misrepresent the science, but please don’t misrepresent me. I don’t think I linked to one study that said “the hiatus is ending and we are doomed”, or anything similar or even close to similar. Accuracy is important in science, and absolutely crucial when speaking about another person.
A real skeptic would spend just as much time on warmist blogs scolding the alarmist denizens for treating anything that might indicate a lower ECS quite differently (more critically) than higher ECS research.
Anybody can see that this phony character is not neutral, and not a real skeptic.
Spending more time with people who don’t share your viewpoint is exactly what an honest rational skeptic does, with the hope and expectation that your provisional truths will be modified by the interaction (so long as that interaction is with real and not pseudoscientists).
If someone ask me to name one provisional truth that was modified by my hanging around on CE, I could name several, but the first one that comes to mind is my understanding of the LIA. Tony (Climatereason) has led me to view the LIA much differently, and I hope he knows how much I appreciate his hours of historic research!
Rgates
Thanks for your kind comment.
As a follow up to ‘the long slow thaw’ which covered the period 1539 to the start of the instrumental record in 1649 I am writing a piece called ‘ tranquility, transition and turbulence’ covering the period from around 1200 to around 1400 . To that end I got for Christmas ‘ the illustrated chronicles of Matthew Paris’ a monk who lived from 1200 to 1259 . I have quoted his pieces before as they cover the 1257 volcano we are both interested in.
I have difficulty in finding information for the period from 1400 To 1539 as much material was lost during the reformation in 1539 .
Coincidentally the autograph manuscript of Paris’s works is held in the library of my sons university Cambridge. It seems to have arrived there in the years immediately after the dissolution aroumd 1539 when britains aristocracy looted the church’s treasure trove of manuscripts. That is fortunate in this instance as in the years immediately prior to his death Paris rewrote his annals, removing his very rude and forth right opinions of the pope and other dignitaries, no doubt worried he would not get into heaven.
However a monk had made a copy of paris’s work and this one was never rewritten so we have to this day the latters scandalous opinions.
Anyway, in this book we have a strange reference to 13 february 1247when there was apparently an earthquake in England, for the first time since 1133. for three months the rides barely ebbed and flowed, and There followed a long spell of unseasonable wintry stormy cold wet weather that lasted until 11 July. I can’t trace any notable volcanos to this period but perhaps there was.
Tonyb
Very Interesting as usual Tony. I don’t know of exact volcanic eruptions for that year (1247) but I do know that the period from 1225 to 1275 was the most active 50 years of the past 2000 years globally. Ice core volcanic dust samples from both the NH and SH support this. Also, I would love to know what the stratosphere was doing during that year. Was there a large “end of winter” SSW event? What was the Atlantic ocean doing? What was the jet stream doing?
Certainly your research is a great resource to show us real world effects, but it would be great to have accurate enough proxy data that could show us more of the potential causes!
gatesy, gatesy
Spending your time exclusively scolding people who don’t share your viewpoint is exactly the opposite of what an honest rational skeptic does. You are a phony. Do you really think you are fooling anybody?
“Spending your time exclusively scolding people who don’t share your viewpoint is exactly the opposite of what an honest rational skeptic does.”
_____
You can have any viewpoint you want, and if it’s based on science I’ll never “scold”. It is the pseudoscience that tries to pass for science that get’s my attention. But if you have an opinion based on science that differs from mine, I am more than happy to listen with great attention! For example, I’ve have some great exchanges with some rather well known “consensus” scientists about issues where my opinion differs from theirs. Both theirs and mine is based on data, but the data is inconclusive– inconclusive, but not pseudoscience.
The civil exchange between R Gates and Tony Brown
above is the kind of discussion I believe Judith Curry
hoped, (continues ter hope?) ter bring about in setting
up Climate Etc and is the way that Judith conducts
her own public exchanges on climate change.
Tony,
Some additional reading to add to your list:
http://www.clim-past.net/10/921/2014/cp-10-921-2014.pdf
http://www.clim-past.net/10/359/2014/cp-10-359-2014.pdf
http://www.clim-past.net/1/9/2005/cp-1-9-2005.pdf
Rgates
Here is a synopsis of the period from 1220 to 1280.The weather had turned down prior to 1225 and there were decades of fine weather,decades of bad weather and individual years that fitted into each category.
Difficult to see this overwhelming influence of volcanoes during the period you cite.. The letter ‘k’ signifies research by KIngton of CRU, a colleague of Phil Jones.
—- —–
1200-1210
Rapid cooling caused wine production to fall plus influx of French wines. Fairly dry. But periods of extreme weather. K
1210-1220
Notably cold series of 7 winters –start of general advance of alpine glaciers that lasted over a century K
—— —— —–
1220-1230 several hot dry summers but decade characterised by periods of extreme wetness K typified by these accounts
1230-1240
Series of mild winters late in decade K
Three very hot summers with consequent drought but decade mostly characterised by periods of extreme wetness with one exceptionally cold winter
Chronological account from 1076 in the book ‘civil and ecclesiastical history of the city of Exeter’ Jenkins printed 1841
Ad 1230 the harvests having failed for two successive years, owing to continual rain which caused great overflowing of the river there was so great a scarcity of provisions that the people were obliged to eat horse flesh and to substitute bark of trees for bread
1240-1250
(Mostly) Dry decade especially good harvests 1246 to 1250 anticyclonic blocking of westerlies inferred good wine crops K
1250 to 1260
Notable summer warmth-. Good wine crops K
Seemed to be good in first half but deteriorated prior to volcano in second half of decade but then recovered quickly after volcano
1260 –1270 warm dry conditions K
Warm dry especially summer series of 3 wet autumns towards end of decade 1260 was momentous year. Couple of cold winters. Some great thunderstorms and references to great wind
1270-1280 circulation turned cyclonic –mixed seasons general wetness.K
Much flooding much wind some severe winter otherwise generally mild
—– —–
tonyb
Rgates
Thanks for those three links which i Shall read . The graphs in the last link look especially interesting
Tonyb
Gatesy does not challenge the Team consensus. You won’t find him arguing with the denizens on realclimate or those clowns on sks. His eye detects no pseudoscience amongst the warmistas. Gatesy is more sophisticated and clever than the typical warmist troll, but he is a warmest troll nonetheless.
And we don’t care if climate scientists use climate models for their own amusement. What we object to is them pretending the highly dubious projections of the models have any value for informing public policy.
please excuse OT question
perhaps someone in UK could give me a little more context about the
“10-10” exploding “denier” people campaign adds
best I could find was that they were actually produced to promote carbon reduction, but dropped after complaints
recently showed them to a friend who got very angry and assured me that they were fossil fuel industry propaganda designed to make environmentalist look bad
thanks
happy New Year to all
John
Here is a pretty accurate description of the ad! Which was one n a series of four.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Pressure_(film)
It was produced by an over zealous charity written by some big names and with big name actors.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Pressure_(film)
You can easily see the film by googling ‘ 10 10 exploding pupils ad’ (sorry I can’t do more than one link in my iPad)
It was a silly ad which caused a lot of fuss and was immediately withdrawn.
It was nothing to do with fossil fuel advocates and everything to do with environmentalists with too much money and too little sense who think they have the moral high ground.
Tonyb
thanks all
the ads are curious
shockingly violent
darkness lurks beneath good intentions
the indoctrination of kids is really a shame
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfnddMpzPsM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10:10
Real video by real greens.
I find the current environmental movement is disturbing. They are so “right” that their “evil” opponents can be treated harshly merely for having the wrong opinion.
John
If you are interested, the ad in question was merely one in a long line of attempts at indoctrination of the British public by the uk govt. the uk govt have always been the leaders in the fight against so called man made climate change and this article I wrote back in 2009 explains how this became such a politicised subject and one in which the US was far behind uthe UK and Europe, as America had never signed up to the Kyoto protocol
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/crossing-the-rubicon-an-advert-to-change-hearts-and-minds/#comments
The narrative drscribes how various green organisations had the ear of the govt at the very highest levels which eventually created the climate change act, the first legally binding attempt to reduce emissions and which has led directly to our chaotic energy policy and very high energy prices.
Apologies that after all this time many of the links won’t work
Tonyb
The video was made by environmental activists.. the 10:10 campaign. Founded by Franny Armstrong (the age of stupid filmaker)
Your friend is lying
fossil fuel industry propaganda designed to make environmentalist look bad
Religious zealots are always a hoot.
List of blogs I’m NOT banned at
Deltoid
hotwhopper
realclimate
shaping tomorrows world
skeptical science
but I’m banned at And then therrs physics.
( as are many others. Even dr paul matthews – IPCCreport blog)
It’s an echo chamber of sks types now.. it was interesting
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/troll_closet_scr.jpg
‘Perturbed-physics ensembles offer a systematic approach to quantify uncertainty in models of the climate system response to external forcing. Here we investigate uncertainties in the twenty-first century transient response in a multi-thousand-member ensemble of transient AOGCM simulations from 1920 to 2080 using HadCM3L, a version of the UK Met Office Unified Model, as part of the climateprediction.net British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) climate change experiment (CCE). We generate ensemble members by perturbing the physics in the atmosphere, ocean and sulphur cycle components, with transient simulations driven by a set of natural forcing scenarios and the SRES A1B emissions scenario, and also control simulations to account for unforced model drifts.’
https://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/rowlands-2012-fig1.png
https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/9287/Broad%20range%20of%202050%20warming%20from%20an%20observationally%20constrained%20large%20climate%20model%20ensemble.pdf?sequence=2
We get a broad range of results from a single model where the input parameters are varied systematically within feasible limits.
‘Various remotely sensed cloud properties are combined to investigate their impact on the top of atmosphere upwards radiative flux (SWUP) over the Southern Ocean, where climate models indicate a strong negative cloud shortwave feedback. Our calculated SWUP is verified against CERES data from 2007-2008 and shows low biases and R²>= 0.96. Our analysis tests the relative significance of seasonally varying cloud properties to SWUP and allows insight into how they interplay to form a negative climate feedback. Low cloud fraction reaches a maximum and droplet effective radius (re) a minimum in summer, which combine to increase SWUP during this season, relative to the annual average; re decreases account for 4-5 W/m² of extra SWUP, increases in low cloud fraction account for an extra 8-10 W/m². However, summertime SWUP is decreased due to decreases in the liquid and ice water paths of low clouds (by 5-10 W/m²) and phase transitions from ice to liquid (by 2-4 W/m²). Wintertime increases in liquid water path cause an increase in SWUP of up to 10 W/m². We hypothesize that the cloud climate feedback in models may be biased positively due to the under representation of cloud ice, thus weakening the negative optical depth feedback due to ice transitioning to liquid. Depending upon re, our estimate of the feedback effect of such transitions varies by a factor of 2-5, highlighting the importance of a more comprehensive understanding of aerosol and cloud processes in this region.’ http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/McCoy_etal_JC_2013.pdf
‘The global coupled atmosphere–ocean–land–cryosphere system exhibits a wide range of physical and dynamical phenomena with associated physical, biological, and chemical feedbacks that collectively result
in a continuum of temporal and spatial variability. The traditional boundaries between weather and climate are, therefore, somewhat artificial.
The large-scale climate, for instance, determines the environment for microscale (1 km or less) and mesoscale (from several kilometers to several hundred kilometers) processes that govern weather and local
climate, and these small-scale processes likely have significant impacts on the evolution of the large-scale circulation
The accurate representation of this continuum of variability in numerical models is, consequently, a challenging but essential goal. Fundamental barriers to advancing weather and climate prediction on time scales from days to years, as well as longstanding systematic
errors in weather and climate models, are partly attributable to our limited understanding of and capability for simulating the complex, multiscale interactions intrinsic to atmospheric, oceanic, and cryospheric fluid motions. ‘ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2009BAMS2752.1
Cloud is a result of these complex, multiscale interactions – and I would suggest that cloud narrative needs to be constrained by observation. But significant changes in cloud in future are likely to be driven by changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/cloud_palleandlaken2013_zps3c92a9fc.png
A decrease in cloud cover in the last warming period – a step change at the last climate shift – and relatively unchanged since.
‘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. ‘
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/roypta/369/1956/4751/F2.large.jpg
It seems impossible to dispel this idea that climate models have only one possible trajectory that more or less mimics nature. They don’t – they have many divergent solutions each with some probability of occurring. The probability that they do actually capture real world physics – ‘regime-like structures that are, although fully deterministic, subject to abrupt and seemingly random change’ – is precisely zero.
Always interesting to come back after a day or so and see that most of the recent comments are not related to the original thread, but rather have reverted to the standard arguments. In any case some may be interested in the emerging role of blogs in evaluation of the impact of scientific reports. These new measures are called altmetrics, in contrast to citation based metrics. See for example this top 100 article list for 2014: http://www.altmetric.com/top100/2014/. Note that Altmetrics.com is just one purveyor of altmetrics.
No. 8 – Searching the Internet for evidence of time travelers?
It’s now my No. 1 site.
As I have said before, my suspicions of the IPCC were aroused long before climate gate. It just seemed unlikely to me that a rare gas (less than 1%) could have such a profound effect on climate. So being a scientist and a pioneer of mathematical modelling, I resolved to investigate further. The result was my paper ( underlined above).
Yes, such a ‘rare gas’ can clearly have little effect……except on plants were it will cause spectacular increases in growth.
Go Team ‘Skeptic’!!
Amazing that all those plants can survive with so little plant food to go around.
Yes Michael. Many fast forest growth plants and pond scum
on fertile ponds can scrub the air of CO 2 very quickly, ref
The Chiefio blog..At 220 ppm a slow down in plant growth
is significantly noticeable, at 150ppm most plants will stop
growing. Increased CO 2 levels has improved crop yields
and is greening deserts.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130708103521.htm
Mathematical modeling and adjusted data?!?!?!?!
I love “skeptics.” Just love ’em.
In fact, love isn’t strong enough… too weak a word…
I lurve ’em.
nice
Joshua | December 26, 2014 at 6:11 pm |
“Our work was able to tease-out the CO2 fertilisation effect by using mathematical modelling together with satellite data adjusted to take out the observed effects of other influences such as precipitation, air temperature, the amount of light, and land-use changes.”
Mathematical modeling and adjusted data?!?!?!?!
I love “skeptics.” Just love ‘em.
It is sad that some skeptics have learned to torture data after observing warmers in action.
However unlike the warmers the skeptics haven’t actually waterboarded any data.
Touche. (
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=james+thurber+touche+cartoon&biw=1122&bih=656&tbm=isch&imgil=W0nW2c3u-im7VM%253A%253BM_gb0whOaqFLxM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fjimsworldandwelcometoit.com%25252F2012%25252F12%25252F07%25252Fthurbers-cartoons%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=W0nW2c3u-im7VM%253A%252CM_gb0whOaqFLxM%252C_&usg=__4-JB5b-2R9VitQ0HRz1WpqqLwLM%3D&ved=0CE4Qyjc&ei=ee-dVMqIMYby8gWnxIGoBQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=W0nW2c3u-im7VM%253A%3BSwRjGAwdf3paeM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fjimsworldandwelcometoit.files.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F12%252Fthurber-touche.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fjimsworldandwelcometoit.com%252F2012%252F12%252F07%252Fthurbers-cartoons%252Fthurber-touche%252F%3B600%3B517
Thank you, Michael. We will continue to kick alarmist ass. It’s not that hard to do but we still appreciate the moral support.
You’re always a class act, Beth.
beth,
Yet despite this ‘fast scrubbing’ and spectacular plant growth, CO2 levels just keep going up.
Sceptics would be sceptical.
‘Skeptics’ on the other hand…..
“Yet despite this ‘fast scrubbing’ and spectacular plant growth, CO2 levels just keep going up.”
This year out of about 9.8 gT, 4.2 gt went into the air and 5.6 gt went into the environment. Only 42% of emissions are going into the atmosphere – it used to be over 60%. The emission percentage absorbed by the atmosphere is dwindling. When the atmospheric absorption hits zero the warmers are out of luck.
The warmers are running out of time and fossil fuel. I’m starting to believe they won’t hit 550 PPM no matter how hard they try. You can’t make an environmental disaster story with 550 PPM of CO2 – that is just going to spur plant growth and benefit mankind and the little animals.
Sure the CO2 levels are going up – but not very quickly.
“Sure the CO2 levels are going up – but not very quickly.”
_____
Let’s cut the pseudoscience nonsense, eh?
Fact: CO2 levels are rising at the fastest rate in the entire geological record– faster even than the PETM event, some 55+ million years ago. At somewhere between 2-3 ppm a year, the current rise in CO2 levels is at least 10 times faster than anything seen before.
Surely sceptics would dig a little deeper than just a thought bubble – CO2 is plant food.
What exactly is the nature of CO2 fertilisation? – do all parts of a plant respond equally, or is there a change in the very nature of the plant; more productive, more woody??
Do all plants respond equally? Weeds are plants and by their very nature have some competitive advantages – are these further enhanced? Maybe they respond less favourably?
Sceptics would probably look in the literature for some answers…
haha a while ago here there was a whole moshpit inspired subthread on
“co2 is a trace gas, it cant cause planets to grow better”
pretty funny stuff.
Plants change stomata size and density with varying CO2. It gives a proxy for CO2 that shows much more dynamic CO2 changes than revealed in the ice core records.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/steinthorsdottir-fig-9.png
It shows not only that CO2 levels are the highest since the early Holocene – but that rates change dramatically.
The stomata control allows water to be conserved in CO2 enriched environments as plants absorb carbon dioxide – carbon being the defining factor in carbon based lifeforms.
‘The fertilisation effect occurs where elevated CO2 enables a leaf during photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into sugar, to extract more carbon from the air or lose less water to the air, or both.
If elevated CO2 causes the water use of individual leaves to drop, plants in arid environments will respond by increasing their total numbers of leaves. These changes in leaf cover can be detected by satellite, particularly in deserts and savannas where the cover is less complete than in wet locations, according to Dr Donohue.’
http://www.csiro.au/~/media/CSIROau/Portals/Media%20Releases/2013/DesertsGreeningRisingCO2/SatelliteData/High_Resolution.png
You might then start to wonder about secondary effects.
‘”On the face of it, elevated CO2 boosting the foliage in dry country is good news and could assist forestry and agriculture in such areas; however there will be secondary effects that are likely to influence water availability, the carbon cycle, fire regimes and biodiversity, for example,” Dr Donohue said.
“Ongoing research is required if we are to fully comprehend the potential extent and severity of such secondary effects.”
The very bright might consider practical and pragmatic mitigation options. The ultra-rational position from Tol is: the “first rule of climate policy should be: Do no harm to economic growth. But the IPCC was asked to focus on the risks of climate change alone, and those who volunteered to be its authors eagerly obliged.”
We could go into it in some detail – but they are never the right details for these people. They want something else. By their own admission they want to do economic harm out of the very best intentions of these guardians of the galaxy.
The profound irony is that they have not a clue – or little honesty – about Earth sciences or computing but go instead with the trite and the snide.
==> “The profound irony is that they have not a clue – or little honesty – about Earth sciences or computing but go instead with the trite and the snide.”
Unintentional irony of the highest order.
No one, and I mean no one, (not even Monfort), holds a candle to Chief.
R. Gates | December 26, 2014 at 7:18 pm |
“Sure the CO2 levels are going up – but not very quickly.”
_____
Let’s cut the pseudoscience nonsense, eh?
Fact: CO2 levels are rising at the fastest rate in the entire geological record– faster even than the PETM event, some 55+ million years ago. At somewhere between 2-3 ppm a year, the current rise in CO2 levels is at least 10 times faster than anything seen before.
Lets stop the pseudoscience nonsense indeed. Your statement on the PETM is incorrect.
http://hidethedecline.eu/media/BLANDET/PETMtimescale.jpg
http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/12527
“Finally, based on high-accumulation rate neritic deposits, the onset of the globally recorded acme of the dinoflagellate Apectodinium precedes the onset of the PETM global warming by some 2 kyr, which, in turn leads the CIE by ~3 kyr. Hence, sea surface conditions characteristic of the PETM, including extreme warming, initiated significantly prior to the injection of 12C-enriched carbon. This implies that this injection likely occurred as a result of global change, rather than the other way around, and invokes the dawn of the next challenge: solving the question how global change, including warming, could occur without a change in the isotopic composition of the exogenic carbon pool.”
==> “The profound irony is that they have not a clue – or little honesty – about Earth sciences or computing but go instead with the trite and the snide.”
Unintentional irony of the highest order.
No one, and I mean no one, (not even Monfort), holds a candle to Chief.
There is no irony of any sort – Joshua has not the slightest clue about anything but trite and snide asides. Always the same ones.
Little joshie with the unintentional irony BS for the millionth time. Somebody ask that tedious little clown why he can’t think up some new BS.
PA,
You seem to miss the point that CO2 is rising faster now than even the PETM event. Also you may want to do a bit more study on that event and the one-two warming punch that transpired. A little warming first and then a big injection of carbon– very likely from hydrate melting on the ocean floor, with methane then being added in great amounts to the atmosphere. Not unlike what may be going on now– only much faster today.
Thank you Gates, PA, Michael, Joshua, David, Beth, Steven for your replies. I’m not saying the IPCC has not done some useful work on climate. It is just that they missed vital periods which should have been investigated – like 1910 to 1940 – that contained important lessons on the on/off nature of climate change. You just can’t ignore evidence that is staring you in the face. In the event they put it all together and came up with the wrong conclusions.
“…except on plants were it will cause spectacular increases in growth.”
Congratulations Michael. Redbirds can learn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CO2, the magic gas that thaws the frozen ground into warm fertile soil, feeds the plants that spring forth, and makes them more drought tolerant.
All in trade for the flooding of a few useless islands as the bountiful ocean rises one or two feet per century.
What’s not to like?
If anthropogenic CO2 weren’t a natural consequence of harvesting the fossil fuels that enable our great human civilization to thrive and grow we’d have to invent some other means of injecting it into the atmosphere for all the good things it does!
GO SEE OH TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111
David, maybe you aren’t aware greenhouse operators use both CO2 and cooling to help plants grow. Plants like warm enough, not warmer and warmer. If you are interested in the details, see
https://hrt.msu.edu/Energy/Notebook/pdf/Sec2/Greenhouse_Temperature_Management_by_AJ_Both.pdf
http://dogsmakeeverythingbetter.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/cartoon_02.jpg
+1
Capt’nDallas
I just quite make out the names on the dog tags. Could you help me out?
LOL …think I’ll quote this when I pack up the stumps
on me blog. ) … Incidentally at stumps terday at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground, nice partnership, Harris
74 runs, Smith went on ter make 192, Oz 514 and
India 70/1.
Ignoring the snide and the trite – we have two very basic approximations.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/4/b/0/4b0d65a3fd906060b878e08d35d0f3c9.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/7/4/9/74945338ec357d4a68e5f5356f8f19a0.png
The temperature increase between between 1944 and 1998 was 0.4K. ΔF for an increase in CO2 over the sane period is some 0.95W/m^2.
λ = ΔT/ΔF = 0.42
Double CO2 and:
ΔF = 3.7W/m^2
and:
ΔT = 0.42 * 3.7
= 1.6K
Worst case scenario. How much of that warming was the result of greenhouse gases?
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/wong2006figure7.gif
What the data shows in the satellite era is cooling in the IR band and strong warming in shortwave. It relates to clouds in low frequency climate regimes.
Was all the increase in CO2 anthropogenic in origin? Plants have stomatal control and decrease pore size and stomatal density in high CO2 environments. An adaptation mechanism that allows water to be conserved. It provides a direct measure of past CO2 concentrations that shows much more dynamic CO2 changes than we see in the ice core records.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/steinthorsdottir-fig-9.png
What we know is that CO2 flux from soils and vegetation have increased substantially in the past few decades. Could this turn around if low frequency – decadal to centennial – climate variability turns to cooling?
So we have a 1.6K at the worst case for a doubling of CO2 – at 0.07K/decade. Is this worth worrying about? Especially as warming seems pretty unlikely for 30 odd years?
Good graph but not the one I wanted.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/wong-et-al-2006.png
Well, I like the analysis. Since you are assuming zero natural cycles and zero solar (both positive for the period) it is setting an absolute upper bound for the GHG related forcing.
How were higher values of TCS or ECS ever justified?
by doing the math right
Steven Mosher, “by doing the math right”
So if “sensitivity” turns out to be less than half of the mathematically correct 4.5C, then the physics must have been wrong?
By assuming that the model ensemble of opportunity range had any intrinsic value, that ice core CO2 records adequately captured CO2 dynamics and – silliest of all – counting the modern warming from 1950.
Once you engage with the scientific reality – you should try it one day Moshpit – the math is simple.
The real problem is that linear climate sensitivity – high or low – is not a terribly useful idea. As much as people seem to like it.
Rob, you have to remember that Mosher only recently changed from quoting the formerly mathematically correct no feedback sensitivity of 1.5 C per doubling to the currently mathematically correct ~1C +/-0.2 per doubling. The math is always correct, it is just those darned assumptions :)
No captain
the mistake is here
“The temperature increase between between 1944 and 1998 was 0.4K. ΔF for an increase in CO2 over the sane period is some 0.95W/m^2.”
Step 1. select a base period ( say 1850-1865)
Step 2 select an ending period ( say 1999-2014)
Some care must be done with this, see nic lewis.
if you’re period is too short, you’ll not even get TCS
step 3. get the TOTAL change in forcing.
step 4 calculate lambda.
step 5. multiply by 3.7
Of course you have to look at uncertainties.
But if you try to do this over a short period. say 1944-1998, then
its easy to see how you get it wrong. just pick a different 50 year period.
plus you have to look at all forcings.
Lots of assumptions, but you at least have to do the basics right
Steven Mosher, “plus you have to look at all forcings.
Lots of assumptions, but you at least have to do the basics right.”
The Nic and Judith paper came up to ~1.6 C using the IPCC assumptions which includes a linear “sensitivity”. With cloud feedback being more likely negative than positive, it is unlikely “sensitivity” is linear. Time will sort that out.
What wasn’t included in that dQ which has a whopping ~60 years worth of coarse estimates was a conveniently ignored long term memory issue starting circa 1700. There is potentially 50% of the actually forcing being produced by long term variability or multi-centennial scale lag time. That would turn the “boundary value” problem into an initial value problem which is FINALLY getting a bit of serious discussion.
So being mathematically correct is not the same as using the correct math.
The change in forcing can be calculated from the CO2 concentration at the start and the end of the period using the second equation.
The change in forcing between 1994 and 1998 is 0.95W/m^2.
The temperature change over the period from HadCRUT4 is 0.4K
λ can be calculated then as ΔT/ΔF – and substituted back into the first equation after calculating ΔF for a doubling.
The period was chosen deliberately as inflection points in the surface temperature record – and should be preferred to arbitrary starting such as 1950. The only thing I change is the starting point – based on the new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and at least not warming since.
The 5.35 factor is based on line by line calculations, CO2 and temperature are measured. The only assumption is that all of the warming is anthropogenic. The measured temperature integrate all the forcings.
Yes Moshpit – you need to get the basics right. You’re not even close.
Capt.
There is not a chance that sensitivity is linear – or that all warming was anthropogenic.
Rob, “There is not a chance that sensitivity is linear – or that all warming was anthropogenic.”
I prefer “unlikely”. Sounds sciency.
Their result is a 5 – 95% confidence interval on ECS of 1.1–4.1K;TCR is 0.9-2.5K.
dont get rid of the uncertainities.
Steven Mosher, “dont get rid of the uncertainities.”
I am not. They are getting rid of themselves :)
“With cloud feedback being more likely negative than positive.”
—–
Please list the most recent research indicating this is the case. Partucularily the ‘most likely’ conclusion.
“There is not a chance that sensitivity is linear – or that all warming was anthropogenic.”
—-
There is a chance that sensitivity is quite non-linear and that over 100% of the current warming is anthropogenic– meaning, without it, we’d be much cooler.