by Judith Curry
“Like a magnetic field that pulls iron filings into alignment, a powerful cultural belief is aligning multiple sources of scientific bias in the same direction. – policy scientist Daniel Sarewitz
Statistician Regina Nuzzo summarizes the problem:
“This is the big problem in science that no one is talking about: even an honest person is a master of self-deception. In today’s environment, our talent for jumping to conclusions makes it all too easy to find false patterns in randomness, to ignore alternative explanations for a result or to accept ‘reasonable’ outcomes without question — that is, to ceaselessly lead ourselves astray without realizing it.”
Psychologists Richard Simmons et al. find that researcher bias can have a profound influence on the outcome of a study. Such ‘researcher degrees of freedom’ include choices about which variables to include, which data to include, which comparisons to make, and which analysis methods to use. Each of these choices may be reasonable, but when added together they allow for researchers to extract statistical significance or other meaningful information out of almost any data set. Researchers making necessary choices about data collection and analysis believe that they are making the correct, or at least reasonable, choices. But their bias will influence those choices in ways that researchers may not be aware of. Further, researchers may simply be using the techniques that work – meaning they give the results the researcher wants.
The objective of scientific research is to find out what is really true, not just verify our biases. If a community of scientists has a diversity of perspectives and different biases, then the checks and balances in the scientific process including peer review will eventually counter the biases of individuals. Sometimes this is true—but often this does not happen quickly or smoothly. Not only can poor data and wrong ideas survive, but good ideas can be suppressed.
However, when biases caused by motivated reasoning and career pressures become entrenched in the institutions that support science – the professional societies, scientific journals, universities and funding agencies – then that subfield of science may be led astray for decades.
Biases caused by a consensus building process
Consensus is viewed as a proxy for truth in many discussions of science. A consensus formed by the independent and free deliberations of many is a strong indicator of truth. However, a consensus can only be trusted to the extent that individuals are free to disagree with it.
A scientific argument can evolve prematurely into a ruling theory if cultural forces are sufficiently strong and aligned in the same direction. Premature theories enforced by an explicit consensus building process harm scientific progress because of the questions that don’t get asked and the investigations that aren’t undertaken. Nuzzio (2015) refers to this as ‘hypothesis myopia.’
If the objective of scientific research is to obtain truth and avoid error, how might a consensus seeking process introduce bias into the science and increase the chances for error?
‘Confirmation bias’ is a well-known psychological principle that connotes the seeking or interpretation of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or an existing hypothesis. Confirmation bias usually refers to unwitting selectivity in the acquisition and interpretation of evidence.
Philosopher Thomas Kelly (2005) provides the following insight into confirmation bias. As more and more peers weigh in on a given issue, the proportion of the total evidence which consists of higher order psychological evidence of what other people believe increases, and the proportion of the total evidence which consists of first order evidence decreases. Kelly concludes that over time, this invisible hand process tends to bestow a certain competitive advantage to our prior beliefs with respect to confirmation and disconfirmation.
Allen et al. (2020) demonstrate how dependence, pressure, and polarization can force a consensus, making reliance on consensus as an indicator of truth unreliable. As a result, a consensus can only be trusted to the extent that individuals are free to disagree with it, without repression or reprisal. Similarly, when strong incentives favor affirmation of a position, a consensus affirming it becomes almost inevitable, and therefore all but meaningless.
Communication theorist Jean Goodwin argues that once the consensus claim was made, scientists involved in the ongoing IPCC process had reasons not just to consider the scientific evidence, but also to consider the possible effect of their statements on their ability to defend the consensus claim.
The IPCC’s consensus-building process arguably promotes groupthink. ‘Groupthink’ is a pattern of thought characterized by self-deception, forced manufacture of consent, and conformity to group values. Janis (1972) describes eight symptoms of groupthink:
- illusion of invulnerability
- collective rationalization
- belief in inherent morality
- stereotyped views of out-groups
- direct pressure on dissenters
- self-censorship
- illusion of unanimity
- self-appointed mind guards
Many defenders of the IPCC consensus − both scientists and consensus entrepreneurs − show many if not all of these symptoms.
Thomas Gold (1989) discussed the dangers that ‘herd behavior’ poses for scientists, potentially leading to an inertia-driven persistence of false consensus opinion within the sciences. While herd instinct has value in sociological behavior, it has been a disaster in science − in science what we generally want is diversity. When people pursue the same avenue all together, they tend to shut out other avenues, and they are not always on the right ones.
It is not just the herd instinct in the individuals that is of concern. If support from peers and moral and financial consequences are at stake, then staying with the herd is the successful policy for the individual; however, it is not the successful policy for the pursuit of science. Mental herd behavior, even if it does not actually put a clamp upon free thinking, insidiously applies pressure to follow the fashion. The institutions that support of science − financial support, the journals, the judgment of referees, the invitations to conferences, professional recognition − are all influenced by herd behavior.
Economist William Butos (2015) characterizes the IPCC as a ‘Big Player’ in science in that it possesses all of the attributes characteristic of Big Players in markets: bigness in terms of influence, insensitivity to the usual constraints, and discretion in its ability to promote a favored direction of research. This characterization of the IPCC as ‘Big Player’ is similar to economist Richard Tol’s characterization of the IPCC as a knowledge monopoly. The IPCC’s influence in climate science is pervasive, allowing it to largely ignore the usual scientific constraints on the acceptance of hypotheses. Professional success in climate science has become more tied to the acceptance of the IPCC’s pronouncements than with the exploration of contrary possibilities.
The existence of the IPCC as a ‘big player’ and a ‘knowledge monopoly’ on climate change can lead to premature canonization of IPCC conclusions. Premature canonization refers to widespread scientific belief in a false or incomplete conclusion, which leads to suppression masquerading as rejection. Suppression occurs when the fear of social sanctions prevents ideas from being explored or empirical findings from being presented in scientific or public forums. In science, rejection occurs when an idea has been explored and the evidence has been found wanting. A classic, relatively recent case of premature canonization involves the scientific identification of causes of ulcers.
So what are the implications of these concerns for the IPCC’s consensus on human-caused climate change? Cognitive biases in the context of an institutionalized consensus building process have arguably resulted in the consensus becoming increasingly confirmed, and even canonized, in a self-reinforcing way. An extended group of scientists derive their confidence in the consensus in a second-hand manner from the institutional authority of the IPCC and the emphatic nature in which the consensus is portrayed. This ‘invisible hand’ marginalizes skeptical perspectives. Overconfident assertions by the ‘Big Player’ take away the motivation for scientists to challenge the consensus, particularly when they can expect to be called a ‘denier’ for their efforts and see their chances diminish for professional recognition and research funding.
The consensus building process acts to amplify personal biases, and marginalizes disagreement from either a majority opinion or the opinion of the loudest or most motivated person in the room. One can only speculate on the magnitude and importance of the biases introduced into climate science by the IPCC’s consensus seeking process.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
The examples of false consensus in history are legion and have affected all areas of knowledge from medicine to plate tectonics. However, with climate science we have a perfect storm of two other factors missing from most other fields:
• The belief that the problem stems from the collective guilt of all mankind, a kind of “original sin”. Look no further than the world’s major religions to understand how susceptible humans are to this kind of fundamental belief.
• Climate science is funded almost exclusively by governments, mostly run by those who want more power to “do good”.
So we have a mix religion and politics, the perfect conditions for the rise of self righteous redeemers like Al Gore.
The first time the Earth had a fever, they blamed mumps.
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-earth-has-fever-missing-earthquake.html
The climate change narrative also has a third element akin to religion which that It’s claims and prognostications cannot be proven.
When it comes to self deception about the nature of scientific consensus, James Delingpole puts even Judith’s commentariat to shame :
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2021/04/potty-delingpole-and-goblin-of-doom.html
then that subfield of science may be led astray for decades.
The proper word is not decades, the proper word is generations.
The powerful people who enforce the consensus must pass away and be replaced and they may have brainwashed the next generation before they passed. Recall that they are the teachers and no one passes the classes if they question the dogma.
New Knowledge comes from outside consensus groups. If a consensus member is skeptical, they are kicked out. They can only maintain 97% consensus because they cannot possibly kick all the people who question them fast enough. New students are forced to comply or they do not get accepted into the club. Instead of becoming a Climate Scientist, they become a Meteorologist and keep their opinions to themselves until they get well established or retire. Or, they go into business and capitalize on the huge profits in the renewable energy scams. They promote green energy scams, like carbon trading or such, they make huge profits and sell it to some groups retirement fund before it goes bankrupt. Enron would be one example and solar energy has many examples: https://www.bing.com/search?q=solar+energy+companies+that+went+bankrupt&cvid=0100680322974756be9ecc8da14a4bfd&aqs=edge.1.69i57j0.16690j0j1&pglt=299&FORM=ANSPA1&PC=DCTS
New Knowledge comes from outside consensus groups. If a consensus member is skeptical, they are kicked out. They can only maintain 97% consensus because they cannot possibly kick all the people who question them fast enough. New students are forced to comply or they do not get accepted into the club.
a) The consensus on the basics is far higher than 97%.
b) You seem to know nothing about the history of science.
And Appell comes along to prove the point with his illusion of invulnerability!
Within my network of a few hundred professionals – most of whom work in the bioeconomy – the ‘consensus’ opinion is held by about 30%. We are glad to work on renewable projects because by being involved we can make them more reasonable, and, after all, our clients need help to make a living and comply with government directives, however ill conceived.
David Appell | April 10, 2021 at 9:41 pm |
a) The consensus on the basics is far higher than 97%.
The famous 97% consensus – Odd that someone who fails to recognize the blatant misrepresentations, flaws, etc in the various 97% consensus studies, somehow grasps the complexity of climate science.
Belief in the validity of the 97% consensus goes to the point of this article – How we fool ourselves.
Quote “The proper word is not decades, the proper word is generations.—— Recall that they are the teachers and no one passes the classes if they question the dogma.”
Likely not even then. Not if the ‘teachers’ have already been cononised, and that ‘system’ has plenty of vested interests.
https://t.co/YwdRBYISpi?amp=1
Since the 1960s there’s been a great expansion in science education. This led to careerists taking over scientific institutions and education. Once upon a time – pre 1960s – the only people who made careers in science did it out of fascination and love of science itself. But these new careerists lead science astray, not because they have no scruples. They succeed by claiming the moral high ground. By implying the rest of us are moral degenerates because we want a better life for ourselves. They literally do consider themselves ethically above us and smarter too. They’re mainly effective in confusing media, politicians, and some very rich business people about science. Fear is very effective. They cannot do permanent harm to science because science is ‘stuff which works’. That’s it’s literal description – an explanation of how the world works in terms of other things in the world. The explanations are tested and validated by experience of the world. The new careerists can do temporary harm to science by befuddling some scientists with models and speculation. But they cannot erase Richard Feynman and Karl Popper. They may damage education, science education, and the standing of science in society. They can’t permanently harm science. No return to a pre-scientific dark age is possible.
Dilbert’s explanation:
1.Chronic Cubicle Syndrome – Dilbert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcPx-dHYASU
2. Dilbert Chronic Cubicle Syndrome -Studying Ratbert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzN3pYzp7zE
3. Chronic Cubicle Syndrome – Department of Statistical Distortion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAichhoZrKs
Explanation of teh Dilbert:
https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/scott-adams-chris-and-matt-go-to-hell
a benevolent dictator might be preferable at any point, but the benevolent dictator will be killed or replaced at any time by extremely powerful and evil replacement. Benevolent Dictators do not suppress the opposition and they do not last long. I do not know the best government but we just left better for much worse.
But the IPCC has nothing to do with real climate science. Their assignment was to blame climate change on humans, and claim man made climate change was dangerous.
In 1995, the IPCC declared natural causes of climate change were “noise”, and it became obvious their conclusion had been pre-determined in 1988, when the organization was formed.
4.5 billion years of climate change from natural causes were dismissed as “noise” — natural causes no longer mattered — with no logical explanation given. This was merely asserted.
That’s not real science — it’s science fiction.
And then came COVID-19.
After the scientists and doctors got done with their wrong predictions, and wrong advice, concerning COVID-19, I believe this advice is wise:
Never buy a used car from a scientist, because you can’t trust them.
AGW is classic group think, in no small measure because of
“ belief in inherent morality”.
When one believes the very survival of mankind hangs in the balance, who needs scientific integrity. We have to get our priorities straight. What is a little fudging of the data and convenient rationalization, when so much is at stake.
That is a good way to describe them, but they are using the
Climate and Covid, they do not need to believe it. This is not about saving the climate system or saving humans, it is about power and money.
Bingo. Pope is on target. And to parallel your other posts, consensus is politics — science is data. I also agree that CO2 is good for the earth — we need more. Leftists won’t like this CO2 video …
https://newtube.app/user/RAOB/aGqDEVt
Agreed. And changing values and forms of government.
An example of “fudging of the data?”
The best of intentions from the “Team “
“A word of warning. I would be careful about using other, independent paleoclimatology … work as supporting your work. I am attaching my version of a comparison of the bulk of these other results. Although these all show the “hockey stick” shape, the differences between them prior to 1850 make me very nervous. If I were on the greenhouse deniers’ side, I would be inclined to focus on the wide range of paleoclimatology results and the differences between them as an argument for dismissing them all”
From this report .
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/climategate-emails.pdf
David Appell | April 10, 2021 at 9:27 pm | Reply
An example of “fudging of the data?”.”
Virtually every paleo climate reconstruction
see climate audit dot org
The classic ‘aims justify the means ‘ trick’
H/t Max in ‘Get Smart.’
Check out Henry Bauer’s “Dogmatism in Science and Medicine: How dominant theories Monopolize Research and Stifle the Search for Truth”
https://www.amazon.com/Dogmatism-Science-Medicine-Dominant-Monopolize-ebook/dp/B008AHNIGS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Dogmatism+in+science&qid=1618088920&s=books&sr=1-1
Reblogged this on ClimateTheTruth.com and commented:
Consensus is NOT science
““Like a magnetic field that pulls iron filings into alignment, a powerful cultural belief is aligning multiple sources of scientific bias in the same direction. ”
True. It’s like pre the Enlightenment period being repeated. But the alarmists beliefs are not supported by the empirical evidence.
Empirical evidence suggests global warming and increasing CO2 concentrations are beneficial for:
• the biosphere (both terrestrial and ocean) – many references
• energy consumption (Lang and Gregory, 2019) https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183575
• agricultural productivity (Dayaratna et al.,2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-020-00263-w
• sea level rise, water resource availability, severe weather, and health are more positive than projected by FUND and the other most cited Integrated Assessment Models.
Therefore, policies to reduce global warming are detrimental to the global economy and human well-being.
Policies and actions need to be implemented to maximise the benefits of global warming, not to try to reduce global warming.
Citing one paper to prove that CO2 is good for agriculture is as biased as it gets. Its easy to cite 10 that say the opposite. Who are you trying to fool, at this stage?
CO2 is a plant food. You should not have skipped the third grade.
Plants need more than food to flourish — they also need appropriate amounts of water and the right temperature range. Both of the latter change with changes in CO2.
David
Please post these 10 that say the opposite. It shouldn’t be a problem as you write that its easy
tonyb
Surely we know in general terms that more CO2 in the short term is beneficial for agriculture? Most Plant species evolved in climates with much higher CO2 levels, hence why we grow some crops in high CO2 environments, and why there has been a recent greening of the biosphere. There is little evidence to suggest that plausible emission scenarios will result in CO2 levels that would be directly harmful for plant growth?
So I think you are suggesting that the indirect effects of more CO2 to increase the radiative forcing will at some point in time override the benefits of more CO2?
But if that is your argument I don’t think it holds up to almost any analysis. The problem is that CO2 fertilisation is a scientific fact. Whereas the effects of future anthropogenic climate change are completely unknown. Without being able to know the first order effects of increasing GHGs on GMST, we have no hope of being able to make any skilful projections for the effects on plant growth.
To be clear, the science of anthropogenic climate change is highly speculative.
From first principles it is impossible to skilfully predict the future state of the climate in say 50 years time. Projections are actually the comparison of multiple counter-factuals.
About the only thing I understand we actually know is that increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will result in an increase in the radiative forcing. For example a doubling in CO2, all things being equal (which they are not i.e. feedbacks) , would result in an increase in GMST of approximately 1’C after equilibrium.
Mr Appleman
There are thousands of science papers proving the advantages of CO2 enrichment, and many decades of greenhouse owner experience with CO2 enrichment.
There may be a few papers that don’t find any advantages, but I’d guess more than 95% of studies do support CO2 enrichment, based on 24 years of reading about the subject.
If you do not understand photosynthesis, and believe greenhouse owners know nothing about growing plants, then you need your head examined.
Here is a link to a 1000+ page paper summarizing thousands of studies (first link), and a link to a website that summarizes a few studies every week (second)/
I imagine you could not care less, but others reading these comments may be interested:
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
https://co2science.org/
“For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002.”
— “Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming,” David B Lobell and Christopher B Field 2007 Environ. Res. Lett. 2 014002 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/1/014002
“With a 1 °C global temperature increase, global wheat yield is projected to decline between 4.1% and 6.4%. Projected relative temperature impacts from different methods were similar for major wheat-producing countries China, India, USA and France, but less so for Russia. Point-based and grid-based simulations, and to some extent the statistical regressions, were consistent in projecting that warmer regions are likely to suffer more yield loss with increasing temperature than cooler regions.”
– B. Liu et al, “Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yields by three independent methods, Nature Climate Change (2016) doi:10.1038/nclimate3115
“Agriculture is one of the economic sectors most exposed to climate change impacts, but few studies have statistically connected long-term changes in temperature and rainfall with yields. Doing so in Europe is particularly important because yields of wheat and barley have plateaued since the early 1990s and climate change has been suggested as a cause of this stagnation. Here, we show that the impact of climate trends can be detected in the pattern of long-term yield trends in Europe. Although impacts have been large in some areas, the aggregate effect across the continent has been modest. Climate trends can explain 10% of the slowdown in wheat and barley yields, with changes in agriculture and environmental policies possibly responsible for the remainder.”
— “The fingerprint of climate trends on European crop yields,” Frances C. Moorea and David B. Lobell, PNAS vol. 112 no. 9, 2670–2675 (2015
“Total protein and nitrogen concentrations in plants generally decline under elevated CO2 atmospheres…. Recently, several meta-analyses have indicated that CO2 inhibition of nitrate assimilation is the explanation most consistent with observations. Here, we present the first direct field test of this explanation….. In leaf tissue, the ratio of nitrate to total nitrogen concentration and the stable isotope ratios of organic nitrogen and free nitrate showed that nitrate assimilation was slower under elevated than ambient CO2. These findings imply that food quality will suffer under the CO2 levels anticipated during this century unless more sophisticated approaches to nitrogen fertilization are employed.”
— “Nitrate assimilation is inhibited by elevated CO2 in field-grown wheat,” Arnold J. Bloom et al, Nature Climate Change, April 6 2014
“Higher CO2 tends to inhibit the ability of plants to make protein… And this explains why food quality seems to have been declining and will continue to decline as CO2 rises — because of this inhibition of nitrate conversion into protein…. “It’s going to be fairly universal that we’ll be struggling with trying to sustain food quality and it’s not just protein… it’s also micronutrients such as zinc and iron that suffer as well as protein.”
– University of California at Davis Professor Arnold J. Bloom, on Yale Climate Connections 10/7/14
“Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness,” E. N. J. Brookshire & T. Weaver, Nature Communications 6, Article number: 7148, May 4, 2015.
Abstract: “Dietary deficiencies of zinc and iron are a substantial global public health problem. An estimated two billion people suffer these deficiencies, causing a loss of 63 million life-years annually. Most of these people depend on C3 grains and legumes as their primary dietary source of zinc and iron. Here we report that C3 grains and legumes have lower concentrations of zinc and iron when grown under field conditions at the elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration predicted for the middle of this century. C3 crops other than legumes also have lower concentrations of protein, whereas C4 crops seem to be less affected. Differences between cultivars of a single crop suggest that breeding for decreased sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 concentration could partly address these new challenges to global health.”
— “Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition,” Samuel S. Myers et al, Nature 510, 139–142 (05 June 2014).
“Greater levels of CO2 made no difference one way or the other. At higher temperatures plants open their pores, called stomata, to capture the elevated CO2, which boosts photosynthesis, greening the leaves. But plants also tend to close their stomata in warmer temperatures to prevent water loss. Mora says that on balance the two effects cancel out.”
— “Plants Will Not Flourish as the World Warms: A new study contradicts the notion that higher temperatures will enhance plant growth,” Mark Fischetti, Scientific American, June 10, 2015
“Crop Pests Spreading North with Global Warming: Fungi and insects migrate toward the poles at up to 7 kilometers per year,”
— Eliot Barford and Nature magazine, September 2, 2013
“Suitable Days for Plant Growth Disappear under Projected Climate Change: Potential Human and Biotic Vulnerability,”
— Camilo Mora et al, PLOS Biology, June 10, 2015
“Elevated CO2 (or low O2) atmospheric concentrations decrease rates of photorespiration and initially enhance rates of photosynthesis and growth by as much as 35% in most plants (C3 plants). This enhancement, however, diminishes over time (days to years), a phenomenon known as CO2 acclimation. Most studies suggest a strong link between CO2 acclimation and plant nitrogen status. Nitrogen is the mineral element that organisms require in greatest quantity.
“Carbon Dioxide Enrichment Inhibits Nitrate Assimilation in Wheat and Arabidopsis,” Arnold J. Bloom et al, Science, 14 May 2010, Vol. 328, Issue 5980, pp. 899-903.
General Mills CEO Ken Powell told the Associated Press:
“We think that human-caused greenhouse gas causes climate change and climate volatility, and that’s going to stress the agricultural supply chain, which is very important to us.”
8/30/15
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-general-mills-greenhouse-gas-cuts-20150830-story.html
“Anthropogenic increase in carbon dioxide compromises plant defense against invasive insects,”
Jorge A. Zavala et al, PNAS, 5129–5133, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0800568105
“Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any supposed positives.” Smith et al. PNAS (2009),
“Rice yields decline with higher night temperature from global warming,” Shaobing Peng et al, PNAS v101 n27 9971-9975.
“Unfortunately, the simple idea that global warming could provide at least some benefits to humanity by increasing plant production is complicated by a number of factors. It is true that fertilizing plants with CO2 and giving them warmer temperatures increases growth under some conditions, but there are trade-offs. While global warming can increase plant growth in areas that are near the lower limits of temperature (e.g., large swaths of Canada and Russia), it can make it too hot for plant growth in areas that are near their upper limits (e.g., the tropics). In addition, plant productivity is determined by many things (e.g., sunlight, temperature, nutrients, and precipitation), several of which are influenced by climate change and interact with one another.”
“Does a Warmer World Mean a Greener World? Not Likely!,” Jonathan Chase, PLOS Biology, June 10, 2015.
“Climate trends were large enough in some countries to offset a significant portion of the increases in average yields that arose from technology, carbon dioxide fertilization, and other factors.”
“Climate trends and global crop production since 1980,” D.B. Lobell et al, Science (July 29, 2011)
“For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002.”
— “Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming,” David B Lobell and Christopher B Field 2007 Environ. Res. Lett. 2 014002 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/1/014002
“We also find that the overall effect of warming on yields is negative, even after accounting for the benefits of reduced exposure to freezing temperatures.”
— “Effect of warming temperatures on US wheat yields,” Jesse Tack et al, PNAS 4/20/15
“Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any supposed positives.” Smith et al. PNAS (2009),
“Grasses are fundamental to one of Earth’s most widespread biomes (grasslands), and provide roughly half of all calories consumed by humans (including wheat, rice, corn and sorghum). We estimate rates of climatic niche change in 236 species and compare these with rates of projected climate change by 2070. Our results show that projected climate change is consistently faster than rates of niche change in grasses, typically by more than 5000-fold for temperature-related variables. Although these results do not show directly what will happen under global warming, they have troubling implications for a major biome and for human food resources.”
“Climate change is projected to outpace rates of niche change in grasses,” F. Alice Cang et al, Biology Letters, 27 September 2016.DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0368.
“…The results consistently indicate that rising temperatures will lead to reductions in crop yields. An increase of 1°C would be more severe for global maize yield (7.4% decrease) than for rice (3.2% decrease), and decreases in maize yield in the United States would be twice those seen in India (10.3 and 5.2%, respectively). Although this work points to worrying consequences of a warming world, it remains very difficult to predict the cumulative impact of multiple factors related to climate change, such as elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and precipitation….”
“Crop yields expected to fall as temperatures rise,” Emily Morris, Science
08 Sep 2017: Vol. 357, Issue 6355, pp. 1012-1013
DOI: 10.1126/science.357.6355.1012-f
“Ask the Experts: Does Rising CO2 Benefit Plants?” Annie Sneed, Scientific American 1/23/18
From this article:
“Even with the benefit of CO2 fertilization, when you start getting up to 1 to 2 degrees of warming, you see negative effects,” she [Frances Moore, an assistant professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis] says. “There are a lot of different pathways by which temperature can negatively affect crop yield: soil moisture deficit [or] heat directly damaging the plants and interfering with their reproductive process.” On top of all that, Moore points out increased CO2 also benefits weeds that compete with farm plants.
“We know unequivocally that when you grow food at elevated CO2 levels in fields, it becomes less nutritious,” notes Samuel Myers, principal research scientist in environmental health at Harvard University. “[Food crops] lose significant amounts of iron and zinc—and grains [also] lose protein.”
“Temperature is a primary factor affecting the rate of plant development. Warmer temperatures expected with climate change and the potential for more extreme temperature events will impact plant productivity…. The major impact of warmer temperatures was during the reproductive stage of development and in all cases grain yield in maize was significantly reduced by as much as 80-90% from a normal temperature regime. Temperature effects are increased by water deficits and excess soil water demonstrating that understanding the interaction of temperature and water will be needed to develop more effective adaptation strategies to offset the impacts of greater temperature extreme events associated with a changing climate.”
— Jerry L. Hatfield and John H. Prueger, “Temperature extremes: Effect on plant growth and development,” Weather and Climate Extremes 10 (2015) 4–10.
“Corn Yields Under Higher Temperatures,”
Figure 18.3, p 421
U.S. Global Change Research Program, 2014 National Climate Assessment
“Temperature response surfaces for mortality risk of tree species with future drought,” Henry D Adams et al,
Environmental Research Letters, Volume 12, Number 11 (2017).
“Crop production losses associated with anthropogenic climate change for 1981-2010 compared with preindustrial levels,”
Toshichika Iizumi et al, International Journal of Climatology, 20 August 2018
Abstract:
“The accumulated evidence indicates that agricultural production is being affected by climate change. However, most of the available evidence at a global scale is based on statistical regressions. Corroboration using independent methods, specifically process‐based modelling, is important for improving our confidence in the evidence. Here, we estimate the impacts of climate change on the global average yields of maize, rice, wheat and soybeans for 1981-2010, relative to the preindustrial climate. We use the results of factual and non‐warming counterfactual climate simulations performed with an atmospheric general circulation model that do and do not include anthropogenic forcings to climate systems, respectively, as inputs into a global gridded crop model. The results of a 100‐member ensemble climate and crop simulation suggest that climate change has decreased the global mean yields of maize, wheat and soybeans by 4.1, 1.8 and 4.5%, respectively, relative to the counterfactual simulation (preindustrial climate), even when carbon dioxide (CO2) fertilization and agronomic adjustments are considered. For rice, no significant impacts (−1.8%) are detected. The uncertainties in estimated yield impacts represented by the 90% probability interval that are derived from the ensemble members are −8.5 to +0.5% for maize, −8.4 to −0.5% for soybeans, −9.6 to +12.4% for rice and − 7.5 to +4.3% for wheat. Based on the yield impacts, the estimates of average annual production losses throughout the world for the most recent years of the study (20052009) account for 22.3 billion USD (B)formaize,6.5B for soybeans, 0.8 Bforriceand13.6B for wheat. Our assessment confirms that climate change has modulated recent yields and led to production losses, and our adaptations to date have not been sufficient to offset the negative impacts of climate change, particularly at lower latitudes.”
“The major impact of warmer temperatures was during the reproductive stage of development and in all cases grain yield in maize was significantly reduced by as much as 80-90% from a normal temperature regime.”
– Temperature extremes: Effect on plant growth and development, Jerry L. Hatfield and John H. Prueger, Weather and Climate Extremes 10 (2015) 4–10.
“Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any supposed positives.” Smith et al. PNAS (2009)
“Crop yields expected to fall as temperatures rise,” Emily Morris, Science
08 Sep 2017: Vol. 357, Issue 6355, pp. 1012-1013
DOI: 10.1126/science.357.6355.1012-f
“We found that in the cropping regions and growing seasons of most countries, with the important exception of the United States, temperature trends from 1980 to 2008 exceeded one standard deviation of historic year-to-year variability. Models that link yields of the four largest commodity crops to weather indicate that global maize and wheat production declined by 3.8 and 5.5%, respectively, relative to a counterfactual without climate trends. For soybeans and rice, winners and losers largely balanced out. Climate trends were large enough in some countries to offset a significant portion of the increases in average yields that arose from technology, carbon dioxide fertilization, and other factors.
“Climate Trends and Global Crop Production Since 1980,” David B. Lobell et al, Science 29 July 2011, v333.
**
“During a 20-year field experiment in Minnesota, a widespread group of plants that initially grew faster when fed more CO2 stopped doing so after 12 years, researchers reported in Science in 2018.”
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/rising-co2-levels-might-not-be-good-plants-we-thought
climatereason: Judith won’t allow so many words to be posted here, and never approves my comments
“Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any supposed positives.” Smith et al. PNAS (2009)
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/11/4133.full.pdf
“Crop yields expected to fall as temperatures rise,” Emily Morris, Science
08 Sep 2017: Vol. 357, Issue 6355, pp. 1012-1013
DOI: 10.1126/science.357.6355.1012-f
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6355/1012.6
“Ask the Experts: Does Rising CO2 Benefit Plants?” Annie Sneed, Scientific American 1/23/18
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ask-the-experts-does-rising-co2-benefit-plants1/
From this article:
“Even with the benefit of CO2 fertilization, when you start getting up to 1 to 2 degrees of warming, you see negative effects,” she [Frances Moore, an assistant professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis] says. “There are a lot of different pathways by which temperature can negatively affect crop yield: soil moisture deficit [or] heat directly damaging the plants and interfering with their reproductive process.” On top of all that, Moore points out increased CO2 also benefits weeds that compete with farm plants.
“We know unequivocally that when you grow food at elevated CO2 levels in fields, it becomes less nutritious,” notes Samuel Myers, principal research scientist in environmental health at Harvard University. “[Food crops] lose significant amounts of iron and zinc—and grains [also] lose protein.”
“For wheat, maize and barley, there is a clearly negative response of global yields to increased temperatures. Based on these sensitivities and observed climate trends, we estimate that warming since 1981 has resulted in annual combined losses of these three crops representing roughly 40 Mt or $5 billion per year, as of 2002.”
— “Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming,” David B Lobell and Christopher B Field 2007 Environ. Res. Lett. 2 014002 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/2/1/014002
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/1/014002
“We also find that the overall effect of warming on yields is negative, even after accounting for the benefits of reduced exposure to freezing temperatures.”
— “Effect of warming temperatures on US wheat yields,” Jesse Tack et al, PNAS 4/20/15
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/05/06/1415181112
“Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any supposed positives.” Smith et al. PNAS (2009), http://www.pnas.org/content/106/11/4133.full.pdf
General Mills CEO Ken Powell told the Associated Press:
“We think that human-caused greenhouse gas causes climate change and climate volatility, and that’s going to stress the agricultural supply chain, which is very important to us.”
8/30/15
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-general-mills-greenhouse-gas-cuts-20150830-story.html
David Titley: Plants do better, but so do weeds. There are ag thresholds, what about water cycle, there are huge issues of ag in a changing climate.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2015/12/senate-hearing-live-blog.html
“Total protein and nitrogen concentrations in plants generally decline under elevated CO2 atmospheres…. Recently, several meta-analyses have indicated that CO2 inhibition of nitrate assimilation is the explanation most consistent with observations. Here, we present the first direct field test of this explanation….. In leaf tissue, the ratio of nitrate to total nitrogen concentration and the stable isotope ratios of organic nitrogen and free nitrate showed that nitrate assimilation was slower under elevated than ambient CO2. These findings imply that food quality will suffer under the CO2 levels anticipated during this century unless more sophisticated approaches to nitrogen fertilization are employed.”
— “Nitrate assimilation is inhibited by elevated CO2 in field-grown wheat,” Arnold J. Bloom et al, Nature Climate Change, April 6 2014.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2183.html
“Higher CO2 tends to inhibit the ability of plants to make protein… And this explains why food quality seems to have been declining and will continue to decline as CO2 rises — because of this inhibition of nitrate conversion into protein…. “It’s going to be fairly universal that we’ll be struggling with trying to sustain food quality and it’s not just protein… it’s also micronutrients such as zinc and iron that suffer as well as protein.”
– University of California at Davis Professor Arnold J. Bloom, on Yale Climate Connections 10/7/14
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/10/crop-nutrition/2014
Richard GreeneEnergyforMe writes:
https://co2science.org/
A non-peer reviewed site paid for by fossil fuel interests, intended to fool gullible people just like Mr GreeneEnergyforMe and his ilk.
And it worked beautifully.
david
i am grateful for your efforts but the first one i looked at had a counter argument published.
I was concerned at this comment
“David Titley: Plants do better, but so do weeds. There are ag thresholds, what about water cycle, there are huge issues of ag in a changing climate..”
There are many books that note the effects of a changing climate on agriculture. Do you believe climate has remained constant through history?
John Kington, a colleague of Phil jones at the University of East Anglia, wrote an exceptionally good book on changing climate and its effects on agriculture
just dipping into a random decade we note of water rationing at Manchester between 1578 and 1585 were now replaced by remarks about a bad succession of harvests due to exceptional rainfall and grain had to be imported from the Baltic, this caused food riots
We see throughout history detailed accounts of too much cold, too much warmth, too much rain, too little rain , too much wind, too little wind.
There are numerous books on such agricultural changes from the Romans, Through Francis Bacon, The English Parliament , Hubert Lamb E Roy Ladurie, Phil jones and very many more.
From this we can see that the cold conditions that has devastated this years French wine crop can be traced back to similar occurrences over the last 2000 years.
It is unfortunately very rare to have constant calm favourable weather and the ‘whining of farmers’ about the weather was recorded back in Roman times. If Mr Titley believes the changing conditions of the modern era are unique then he really needs to read more. Climate changes.
As you have taken the trouble to list various papers I will have a look at more over the next few days.
tonyb
Appleman
You have your fantasy world of huge temperature increases from CO2 and a climate crisis, that has been predicted since 1957 by Roger Revelle, and never shows up.
You have a small minority of studies claiming CO2 is a negative for plantsm while in realityland greenhouse owners KNOW those studies are wrong … and the large majority of srudies, over 95% that favor CO2 enrichment, are right.
The fact is that we have all been living with rising CO2 levels, especially since accurate measurements began in 1958. we don’t need always wrong wild guess computer models — we have up to 45 years of experience with ACTUAL global warming.
Food crop productivity has been exploding for the past 60 years, and more CO2 is part of the reason.
Not only is CO2 a “fertilizer”, but it also boosts water use efficiency so plants require less water.
You smarmy dismissal of the CO2 Science website I recommended in an earlier is typical leftist behavior — no review of any articles at the website — just the usual generic character attack upon anyone who publishes scientific information YOU don’t like — and that is a perfect demonstration of your closed mind.
The extra CO2 in the atmosphere, and slightly warmer climate, has greened our planet — expanding the square miles useful for growing crops.
You can look up the Leaf Index Area or NASA’s Vegetation Index, both measured from satellites.
The link below has charts of the good news, including rising crop yields, during ACTUAL rising temperatures, and ACTUAL rising CO2 concentrations, since the 1960s (no green fantasies of the future, and no wild guess computer model predictions — just reality):
https://elonionbloggle.blogspot.com/2021/04/rising-crop-yields-and-other-good-news_8.htm
If this were true, wouldn’t we actually see a decrease in ag yields? We keep hearing how coffee production will implode, the same with wheat, or whatever crop du jour, yet yields keep breaking records after records.
climatereason wrote:
i am grateful for your efforts but the first one i looked at had a counter argument published.
Make sure you don’t cite it, ok?
Please cite 10 papers that say CO2 is bad for agriculture — or even one. Thank you.
Here, Rob:
https://judithcurry.com/2021/04/10/how-we-fool-ourselves-part-ii-scientific-consensus-building/#comment-946960
I’m not a fan of David (I told him a few times already, and until Judy steps in he’ll never learn), but you’re giving him own goals.
> Rob
Roy.
Sorry, Rob.
It is pretty hard to see those losses in the crop yield data, David.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/key-crop-yields?country=~OWID_WRL
Gao et al. (2019): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2019.107652
“Highlights
• Global cropland is greening and trends are twice that of natural vegetation.
• Agricultural greening can explain one-third of Northern Hemisphere greening.
• Agricultural greening in less developed regions is greater than developed regions.”
I find Mr. Appel’s citations interesting with regards to the decline of nutrition in plants. Not dispositive, but well worth further examination.
As for yields, most of what he cites is models predicting smaller increases in productivity and is somewhat suspect. And here in the real world, the modest warming we have seen to date has accompanied an average 1.5% increase in cereal yields, without having put any more land under the plow. (The very real caveat to that is the increase in total factor productivity in agriculture, as the developing world gains access to better technology and improved methods).
Thomas, how do you know warming is responsible for the increase in cereal yields? What study shows that? After all, yields depend on many factors.
There are so me 46 nutrients that are essential for heathy and nutritious food. Water and light can be added to the list. Nutrients are released from parent rock by soil organisms in a symbiotic relationship with plants.
Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are increasing levels in the atmosphere. At current levels there is an increase of about 12% in photosynthesis. Largely as a result of minimising stomatal numbers and size thus minimising water loss in transpiration across leaf surfaces.
We have lost about half of the organic matter in soils over the past 100 years. Returning carbon lost because of less than optimal farming practices to soils has the potential to increase agricultural productivity by 100’s of percent. As well as increasing water infiltration and holding capacity – mitigating flood and drought – and releasing nutrients from parent rock in usable forms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJouJhLM48
Soil scientist Rattan Lal estimates that returning carbon to soils could sequester 157 ppm CO2 by 2100. Atmospheric CO2 is a resource is a resource to be used most effectively.
Farmers are heroes and cows are great. Shortsighted CO2 is good confirmation bias doesn’t come close
I don’t know what the fuss is about. Of course scientists disagree! That’s what research publications are for, to enable researchers to air their disagreements. Scientific advances eventually emerge as a byproduct. My PhD supervisor, a classic Doctor-Professor of the old European school, loved nothing more than a good old-fashioned scientific argument. He would turn in his grave at the psychological dissection of such debate. It’s normal, it’s what we do, it’s science!
But now we’re told that there’s no disagreement! I was in airports in November, 2020, and I saw signs that warned of the climate “debate,” in quotation marks. The implication is that there isn’t any debate.
Look at the Great Barrington Declaration for Covid-19: this was shot down pretty quickly and harshly, yet it’s sound science and is arguably the policy of least harm.
Look at ivermectin: the science is quite clear that this is a life-saving drug we should be using right now to fight Covid-19, yet instead of this we’re discussing how and when and if we’ll all need vaccine passports (I think we all know where this is heading.) With ivermectin, the need for a vaccine passport disappears: the population that wants to take the vaccine does so, the rest of us take ivermectin (that would be one dose every two weeks, folks, after the initial 2-day regimen; works on variants, too) and those left over really don’t matter.
Disagree that scientists debate so much anymore: too many simply spout doctrine and get deeply offended if you challenge them.
We’ve gone insane.
Who are you, or economists, to decide it’s sound public health science? What’s your expertise in the subject, or theirs?
David says, “Who are you, or economists, to decide it’s sound public health science? What’s your expertise in the subject, or theirs?”
When we talk about things involving mechanics– how to build a bridge or set a bone, or how to make computer chips– then “the science” is pretty clear and we can “trust the science.” But this only applies to things that are strictly mechanical. When it comes to (some) disease processes and treatments that move beyond simple mechanics, then the cause-effect relationship can be distorted by social and psychological (and economic) inputs, and I think that’s what this top post is about. When it comes to Covid-19 response, then a whole slew of considerations come into the mix, not just “what’s the best (mechanical, direct cause-effect) way to handle this”? The best mechanical way might have been to weld everyone into their homes. The question doesn’t just become “how do we stop the virus” because our measures will necessary have social and economic implications, for obvious reasons. So economists certainly should have input into the public health measures we enact to deal with Covid-19, because if we shut down everything– an approach focused solely on stopping the virus– then jobs and businesses will be lost, people will go hungry, etc. Would this cause more harm than good? Even ordinary citizens can, and should, be involved in the decision-making process because they can say: “wait a minute, you want to force us to do these things under the guise of medical necessity? Why is forcing necessary? Why can’t the people decide for themselves? Why can’t the government simply advise or strongly encourage– why does it have to mandate? Was our country [the US] founded on ‘stay safe’ or ‘stay free’?” It’s not so simple as “do what you’re told and shut up because we’re the experts.”
So no, leaving this up to only one group of experts to inform mandates is a very dangerous idea. They can advise all they want to but for the government to take the next step and make mandates strictly on narrow public health grounds, with no thoughtful consideration of economic and political and social consequences, might lead to a medical police state. Oh wait … that’s already happened. Once a police state– for whatever justification– is in place, then it’s a simple matter to extend this in the manner of “it’ll only be a few weeks to flatten the curve.” Politically, we’re in a very dangerous position when we allow a medical police state to emerge. Many of us believe that the best policy is to not go there, and the considerations that inform that decision are pertinent to any decision regarding the best policy to handle a pandemic.
It’s also possible that a powerful and devious entity could theoretically manipulate the population into a (subtle or not-so-subtle) police state through orchestration of a (largely fabricated) medical emergency. It’s considerations such as these “what if” scenarios that led to our constitutional republic, that tried to head off potential schemes that might diminish individual freedom and self-determination.
The Great Barrington Declaration is a document that considered all harms and tried to forge a path ahead of “least harm,” taking a wide view of all medical, economic, social and psychological inputs, and put together with a good dose of common sense that seems too uncommon these days.
Don wrote a lot of words to say, “I have no expertise in public health.”
David has used a few words to demonstrate that he doesn’t understand the nature of public health.
“Many defenders of the IPCC consensus − both scientists and consensus entrepreneurs − show many if not all of these symptoms.”
And we’re supposed to believe that detractors of the consensus position on the science don’t have their own biases and groupthink?
Right.
Yes detractors have biases too. But they have no power to get other people to fall into line.
I see this all the time. Powerful senior researchers who have lots of money have the ability to subtly steer junior scientists in their direction. Part of this is just human nature. The nature of consensus seeking in my field too has not been helpful. It has often been more about how to keep funding flowing than about science.
Yes detractors have biases too. But they have no power to get other people to fall into line.
Scientists never “fall in line” — it is antithetical to everything they are trained to be. They are convinced by evidence and arguments. Every scientist has the power to make arguments and convince people. What commenters here are really complaining about is that non-aGHG arguments for GW aren’t convincing to the vast majority of scientists. So instead they have to make up lies about biases and data fudging and pal review and the like, because they’re desperate and have no other arguments (and haven’t for at least 15 years now). They don’t even go outside of their own safe little ecosystem. The climate keeps changing, and world has moved on.
I’ve been doing science for 45 years and know what people do. The most problematic is burying negative results. That was true in climate science with regard to models but that is starting to slowly change. But the degree of the skill by cancellation of large errors is still not well known. CMPI6 I think is a pretty big leak to cover up though and perhaps things are improving.
There is also real pressure particularly for younger researchers to tow the party line of the field leader(s). I’ve seen it many times. Soft money funding is very tenuous and not towing the line will often have career consequences. Some senior scientists are worse than others of course.
I don’t think this post or the comments (with perhaps one exception) are focused on the tired debate about the greenhouse effect. It’s about science itself and your response will just muddy the waters by conflating other issues.
“Scientists never fall in line”? Utter hogwash. Scientists are just like the rest of us and hold no special moral high ground. The Arrogance factor is, however, generally higher and that leads to being blinded to inconvenient information that does not support an elitist viewpoint. Also, like everybody else, money can be a corrupting influence to evenhanded investigations in pursuit of the truth.
I suppose I am a biased detractor – my observations and common sense tell me that “consensus”, IPCC determined “Climate Change”, is a deflection from the bigger picture climate variables. In paying attention to politics, you should see It is about control and shifting economics.
Al Gore let the cat out of the bag early on when he said the science is settled and not debatable! As soon as that was said, all should have been skeptical
You touched on my point when you argue CO2 alone is not responsible for better growing conditions!
Please quote Gore, and provide a link.
Al Gore (Davos, January 2020) “The scientific consensus is moving toward unanimity; it’s nearly there.”
Will that do, Mr Appell?
It was an angry response to, I am pretty sure, Bjorn Lomborg vs Al Gore back in 2007ish.
A huge part of the problem in current science is the “peer-review” process. It might as well be termed the “new ideas exclusion” process. When a peer-reviewer’s job, public image, publications, and entire career are built around a particular paradigm, the chances that they will allow the publication of anything that seriously threatens that paradigm are infinitesimal.
We desperately need a new system to judge the validity of scientific ideas. At present, the closest that we have is open public review of ideas, such as is practiced at WUWT. People badly misunderstand what the purpose of WUWT is. I discuss this question here.
However, WUWT is far from ideal, in part because sadly, far too many consensus climate scientists lack the albondigas to either post their ideas there, or attack the ideas of others there … I’m up for any ideas on how to break the death grip of consensus climate science on the journals. The term “pal review” is more than appropriate, and the rot goes far deeper than that.
w.
w.
Willis Eschenbach wrote:
“We desperately need a new system to judge the validity of scientific ideas. At present, the closest that we have is open public review of ideas, such as is practiced at WUWT.”
Idiotic comment of the year, so far.
Willis Eschenbach wrote:
“We desperately need a new system to judge the validity of scientific ideas. At present, the closest that we have is open public review of ideas, such as is practiced at WUWT.”
Hilarious. Truly hilarious.
Seems to me what is desperately needed is integrity, which is an “old fashioned” concept. Such a virtue, however, is inconvenient to the Left and their “ends-justify-the-means” approach to seizing and retaining control over the population in order to increase their own wealth.
I guess you have integrity Mike, right, but nobody else. Right?
Well I partially agree with Willis. There are instances of senior scientists (often with a financial or career conflict of interest) killing papers that provide negative results or critiques. I’ve had at least one paper that we invested several person years in be rejected in peer review because it didn’t sufficiently deal with why we didn’t use the more standard statistical analysis methods. Perhaps relatively easy to fix, but my statistician co-authors retired and don’t have time to help so my only real option is to go to another journal. However, I will say generally my experience with peer review has been positive. My only complaint is that a lot of repetitive and very small improvement types of papers get published that don’t add much and clutter the journals.
But the structural problems are really very strong with positive results and selection bias very very common. Senior researchers become heavily invested in selling their work or methods and have strong incentives to keep the “perfect” results coming out but filing their “less good” results in the desk drawer.
The problem with the blogosphere is that it is hopelessly cluttered with often anonymous activists whose sole purpose is the cast doubt and attack others. One has only to look at the infamous Atomsk Sanakan with a massive Twitter footprint and his often personal and nasty attacks on John Ioannidis and scores of others to see the problem. Thank goodness John has struck back and dismantled the amateurish attacks. We live in an age of intense politicization of everything and the internet feeds obsessive people (and paid actors) who have little better to do in their lives but spread vile and superficial falsehoods online.
Willis, spot on.
The Australian Academy of Science has recently released a paper by 15 of the usual suspect activists, THE RISKS TO AUSTRALIA OF A 3°C WARMER WORLD. It was peer reviewed by six named colleagues. (There are 450 or more references, so I wonder how many references each reviewer had read.)
But the interesting thing is that three of the peer reviewers included 18 papers that they themselves had authored or co-authored among these 450 plus total.
I thought it was poor scientific ettiquette to peer review ones own papers.
Geoff S
The reviewers reviewed the paper, they didn’t write it. See the “Expert panel” list above the list of reviewers, p 5.
You can be sure everyone associated with that report is aware of the scientific literature, especially of the section for which they are experts.
https://www.denmark.wa.gov.au/Profiles/denmark/Assets/ClientData/risks-australia-three-deg-warmer-world-report.pdf
“I thought it was poor scientific ettiquette to peer review ones own papers.”
Maybe they should have gotten WUWT to review it.
The “Risks to Australia” report covers remedies as well as risks. A word search reveals 42 mentions of “renewable” while “nuclear” is mentioned ZERO times. For those of limited numeracy, that’s a ratio of infinity, which is a very, very, very big number. I conclude that the report may be authoritative on climate science (or not – I’m no expert) but has zero credibility on energy technology. There are implications …..
Tom, can they bury the nuclear waste outside your town? Store it there temporarily? Truck it through? It’s going to last, what, 25,000 years? Or am I missing a zero or two?
Write to your politicians and advocate for nuclear power. Write to them and criticize the report. Write to the Aus Acad Sci and criticize the report. Write politely to all the scientists and see if they say anything. Write letters to the editors and op-eds and criticize it. Organize local groups. Join protests. Hold protests. Or complain on a blog that nobody reads.
Re your response to my comment on the AAS report, let me reassure you I already do my bit on the role of nuclear energy in reducing emissions. My comment was mainly aimed at folk who think that renewables are infinitely more likely than nuclear energy to get the world down to zero energy emissions. They don’t know very much about energy.
Well, a blog that none of the people you’re looking to influence reads (and certainly deep into the comments section).
Tom, I believe the goal of renewables is to NOT introduce sequestered carbon into the active carbon cycle. What many don’t realize is that by planting and harvesting crops to be turned into renewable fuels which are then burned, they are actually just increasing the rate at which renewable carbon is circulated within the carbon cycle. This results in more CO2 in the air, of course. It will take many years of using renewables to reach a steady state of CO2 concentration, at a much higher level than today.
Seems to me, the report should have mentioned nuclear, with some form of +/- relative to other approaches. All forms of energy approaches should be reviewed/assessed to establish credibility. Further the fundamental claim of 3 degree C should have been critically reviewed, as it forms the basis of the proposed actions.
As the report apparently did not even consider nuclear then seems highly likely it is just more propaganda from the green religion. Send to the circular file.
Dear Willis,
Yes, weak peer review is a big problem, but perhaps this is mainly in the domain of politicized science where the subject matter is flimsy, repercussions are serious and memories are long because careers are at stake. A few years ago, out of curiosity I chased down the (open) reviews of a nutrition paper from University of Toronto that was publicized in the media because it was on the salt content of restaurant hamburgers. The reviews were basically one line endorsements. The paper was ridiculous, but it got published in a supposedly reputable journal–so here you have the editor not doing his or her job. I have read analogous stuff in toxicology, although the scientific weaknesses tend to be better concealed by jargon and statistics, so the publications sound authoritative. Journalists are snowed as usual. In my line of work (geology), as an editor I occasionally reject manuscripts without review because they are so deficient that it would be a waste of precious referees’ time. When I am asked to do reviews myself, which averages out to be one every two weeks, I will typically spend a full day on each and submit pages of comments. Some referees are even more thorough. But then my specialties are not politicized. A couple are topical, but fortunately the majority of the researchers are good scientists and critical comments are usually welcome.
To be honest, I do not think there is a solution to this problem, at least at the scientific level. You were right on in your December WUWT posting.
Yours,
Brian Pratt
Brian, do you think toxicologists are qualified to review papers in geology?
Mr. Appel, do you think astrophysicists should review papers on hydrology?
WUWT –
I always found WUWT most useful when the poke fun at some of the most absurd scientific studies which have little to do with scientific reality –
one example is the loss of farm employment in viet nam post 1970 blamed on global warming not withstanding :
Higher food production
migration to cities where manufacturing has begun to transform the economy of the nation following 30+ years of war in indochina
My question – who is going to make fun of the anti-science greens if WUWT doesnt do it.
Thanks Willis. Excellent comment
Good essay Judith. This same kind of thing has been going on in my field with the NASA 2030 vision for CFD. Only a select few of the most powerful researchers in the field were involved initially although they did ask for feedback from the community at large. Based on conversations I have had with some, its clear that how to improve funding for CFD was a significant consideration. Most junior scientists are simply not in a position to offer any critiques given their often tenuous funding situation. As a senior scientist who has few financial or employment concerns, I was able to speak freely and did have some impact on this thing.
They opted to go with eddy resolving time accurate simulations and to de-emphasize older methods that have been highly successful and might be extended in their accuracy and robustness. I personally think this is the wrong direction as climate modeling has shown. Chaos has not yielded many advances in 60 years with still profound ignorance about the nature of the attractors, the predictability of the flows, or their computability.
I also have been trying to write up and publish some quite substantial proof that the literature is very biased. Basically there are large numbers of negative results that are easy to find and/or generate that have been ignored for decades. There are also some new mathematical insights I’ve developed over the last 20 years with help from one of my mentors. The main one of these is just that anytime there is a closed streamline, the problem will be ill-conditioned because there you have only viscosity to set the total pressure. Then it gets very complex as eddy viscosity from the turbulence model is usually vastly larger than the true fluid viscosity. In short, even steady RANS is a tremendously mathematically difficult problem.
Why does per review need to be a secret process anyway? We now are publishing covid related papers online pre-peer review due to time being of the essence. But when isn’t it? Why can’t articles be published online and have open review and then the authors have a final draft and the journal decides which are the ones to print or stamp some endorsement on?
In this way David could publish his Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) problem and solution and at least have it see the light of day. No tree needs to be harmed.
If those who disagree with the standard model of climate science disagree with it, they can succeed only by advancing an alternative model that better explains the observations, not by trying to dissect the psychologies and alleged biases of scientists, as if they don’t have biases of their own. So far they haven’t done that, and posts like this reveal a desperation.
No, DA,
The originators are required to make their case. This includes consideration of objections, but does not necessarily include a whole new counter argument. You know as well as the rest of us how hard it is to get a contra paper accepted, so why deny it? Geoff S.
If you want to get a “contra” paper published, do the work and convince the editors it’s good science. That doesn’t mean rolling out of bed one morning with an idea and finishing a spreadsheet by 10 am. If you can’t meet the scientific standards of the day then you don’t deserve to have you claims taken seriously, let alone have them published in an actual journal. And nothing, for example, that I’ve ever seen on WUWT comes close to meeting the standards of the day or being aware of the work that’s already transpired. It’s amateur hour over there.
By all means, submit your paper to a journal. Editors are professionals and will consider it. But stop whining as if you have a right to publish there. Chances are far higher your work doesn’t cut it.
“By all means, submit your paper to a journal. Editors are professionals and will consider it. But stop whining as if you have a right to publish there. Chances are far higher your work doesn’t cut it.” – Appell
Avi Loeb, a distinguished Israeli-American theoretical physicist talks splendidly about the problem of groupthink in science, the peer-review process and the inability for current scientists to use their own intuition.
Skip to 10:45
https://youtu.be/hTHDCD4MnqY
Calling something which cannot even explain natural variability a “standard model” is maybe the biggest hubris I’ve read so far. In physics measurement data has to be within 5 sigma to it’s mathemetical models to be considered into it’s “standard model”. And even there are many surprises down the road which shake on it’s foundations. On top of that physics is a strongly empirical science where you have to have falsifiable experiments for each hypothesis you create. In climate science you only have one experiment with a multitude of variables, various unknowns and and a lot of politics mixed with some modellated nostradamus. Pretending a BIAS cannot exists in this environment is quite the stretch.
Oh and btw. Consensus is the death of science. Science doesn’t advance through “democracy”, but through dissent and discussion. It was always a few people who pushed science into a new direction, never a group.
Climate science is not physics, and expecting 5 sigma in a nonlinear, complex science of many factors is ridiculous and shows you don’t understand science.
knalldi
Science doesn’t advance through “democracy”, but through dissent and discussion.
So dissent! Bitching about it on a blog doesn’t do anything. Go out and get involved in the scientific arena, if you have the courage for it.
“Succeed? Gee, I thought the objective was to try and find the truth. Obviously not. The objective is money and power, which is more-or-less as has always been the underlying driver. Seems to me what is needed are counter balancing forces to establish a line of inquiry more likely to find the truth. Healthy disagreement is a pretty good catalyst in that process.
“I thought the objective was to try and find the truth.” MK
Yes, I too thought science and research were about chipping away at unknowns and not constantly supporting falsehoods via more falsehoods because they conform to the religion of the moment which is what Mr Appell seems to consider meritorious. Mavericks have been more responsible for discovery than ever has been a consensus about anything.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Eisenhower’s famous speech also talked about this:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
“In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
“It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
“Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow”
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp
Eisenhower’s famous speech also talked about this:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
“In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
“Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
“It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
“Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow”
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/eisenhower001.asp
> Consensus is viewed as a proxy for truth in many discussions of science.
Actually, that happens rarely. Consensus is often viewed as a factor one can use when weighing probabilities. Rarely do people say that a consensus is foolproof, or “truth.” Looks like a strawman argument to me – ironically a reflection of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.
We all use “consensus” thinking all the time. We all rely on a consensus of experts to help guide us in making decisions, even if we don’t place blind trust in consensus views. Reviews on Amazon are an important feature that makes it so popular. Why? Because it’s a natural process of reasoning to help use the reasoning of others as a guide/ heuristic when making decisions in the face of uncertainty.
> The IPCC’s consensus-building process arguably promotes groupthink.
This likely gets the direction of causality backwards. Groupthink, and consensus-thinking might in some situations be a function of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias – but it doesn’t likely often work the other way around. Groupthink and consensus-thinking doesn’t cause confirmation bias and motivated reasoning.
The point being, confirmation bias and motivated reasoning aren’t likely distributed in association with the opinions people have on issues like climate change. The literature suggests much more strongly that confirmation bias and motivated reasoning are underlying, biased processes, not attributes of a particular group of people who are aligned in a particular way on particular issues.
The ironic aspect of this is that motivated reasoning and confirmation bias predict that people will point the finger and say that…
“they” are subject to motivated reasoning and confirmation bias (putatively because of consensus-thinking or other weakly reasoned causality) where as “we” aren’t.
And sure enough, we find that over and over in these discussions at Climate Etc. with nary a moment of self-reflection made evident.
“Consensus is viewed as a proxy for truth in many discussions of science.”
Consensus was the proxy for truth BEFORE science. This is why heresy was a crime. Human sociological evolution demanded social order and consensus beliefs. Science put an abrupt change in the rate of gain of human knowledge and in doing so also changed many aspect of society. One thing that has remained is our natural evolved desire for confirmation and building of consensus. This is entwined with personal empowerment. Unfortunately, consensus must still be relied upon in science due to the need for the establishment on the validity (or rejection) of scientific results. But once investigators are stepping away from specific agreement on objective mathematical results they start slipping back to the evolutionary Id of human nature. It’s easy to forget scientists are humans and humans are animals.
Consensus on Ebay and Amazon reviews works due to principals that are absent in the IPCC:
1) No monetary interest, only desire to pass on personal experience.
2) First-hand knowledge of the precise product being reviewed.
3) No liability.
When you are interested in a subject, you review the literature to see what’s out there, what previous researchers have found.
You consider as many views as you can, and at some point – especially of you don’t have the background to handle all the technical aspects – you start to look at what the general consensus is. You may not just accept it if you have some analytical reason not to, but of course you weigh the probabilities that a large majority of shared opinion has some inherent higher probability of being correct.
This is just basic human nature, backed by logic, and probably a form of evolutionary psychology that left a legacy on a common reasoning heuristic.
You rely on that kind of heuristic all the freakin’ time, even though you don’t consider it foolproof. Even people prone towards conspiracy ideation still rely on that heuristic, even if less so than others.
Scientists weigh probabilities and plausibilities when they evaluate competing hypotheses. This is essentially like risk assessment, in the face of uncertainty.
What’s funny is to see “skeptics” like Judith rely on that very same heuristic, when they say things like “no one listens to Sky Dragons,” or “almost all “skeptics” accept that emissions cause some measure of warming,” or “Roy Spencer is part of the consensus” or “X paper published in Nature supports the view of” skeptics,” and then turn around and say “consensus has nothing to do with science” or some such nonsense which is obviously a manifestation of the kind of contradiction that arises from biaaes like motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. And it gets even funnier when the then point the finger and say “they are affected by motivated training and confirmation bias but we aren’t – were only interested in the “Truth” and pure science.
Look at the “covid skeptics” where there’s a lot of overlap with climate skeptics.
Who do they refer to in their arguments? Atlas and Bhutawhatever and Martin what’shisbname, and Gupta, and Ioannidis. And why? Because they’re affiliated with the very same institutions those very same people disparage if they’re the workplaces of people whose views DON’T align with their preferred perspective.
The funniest is Alex Berenson. Big time “covid skeptic” who gets *skeptic” cred because he’s…wait for it… they say it every time they introduce him on Fox News…a former NY Tmes reporter.
Perfect.
Joshua, I don’t think you have any qualifications or background to talk about scientists and their reasoning. You simply have no first hand knowledge so its all speculation on your part. Oh and its a waste of your time to type long comments that could be distilled into a couple of sentences.
I actually think what a lot of people do has nothing to do with logic and experience. They pick what fits their narrative and what their corrupt press sources tell them. Even in science there are strong cultural narratives such as that when we resolve all the physics and have a big enough computer the answers will be right. Flawed but very common among scientists.
That’s beautiful, David.
Your comment is an appeal to authority, and appeal to self-authority, which are forms of consensus seeking.
Not to mention the ad homenim.
Play the ball, David. Not the man.
Joshua, You are typing without thinking and it shows. You need to try to form coherent ideas with specific meanings before commenting. Rhetorical caviling about skeptics and denizens may be the most rigorous thing you can come up with as stream of consciousness, but please try to do better. Your stream of consciousness is quite chaotic and does not show you in a good light.
“consensus has nothing to do with science” or some such nonsense which is obviously a manifestation of the kind of contradiction that arises from biaaes like motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.
I think you are badly misrepresenting what Judith said. She said consensus seeking is not a good process to use. What you said she said is just a lie.
David –
Here, again, I demonstrate the problem when people don’t pay attention to scientific errors just because they think the scientists who produce those errors are “lions”
dpy6629 | June 28, 2020 at 2:55 pm |
…That number [deaths before “herd immunity” is reached] will likely not be dramatically different between Sweden and its neighbors…. If Nic is correct that the ultimate population fatality rate will be 0.06%, that’s much much less than expected annual mortality,…
dpy6629 | June 29, 2020 at 12:42 am |
IFR for people under 70 is lower than the flu and even Sweden will probably have a PFR of 0.06%.
dpy6629 | June 28, 2020 at 4:48 pm |
…You should know that fully effective virus vaccines are usually not possible. For most viruses there is no vaccine at all. The flu vaccine is only partially effective. Counting on that for covid19 is grasping at straws.
dpy6629 | June 30, 2020 at 9:59 pm |
On this post Josh does a classic rendition. Refusing to accept the good news that Sweden hospitalizations and deaths are way way down from the peak and that fatality rates will end up under 0.1%, he wants to focus on how much “better” neighboring countries did (while ignoring that they will do worse in the future while Sweden has herd immunity) and then whines that comparisons between countries don’t mean much.
Note the date here:
dpy6629 | July 4, 2020 at 11:06 pm |
Don is right of course. This is why cases are rising strongly in the US but deaths are on a downtrend. Similarly in Sweden where the trend is much more striking. Cases doubled over the last 3 weeks where new hospitalizations are down under 10 per day from a high of around 40.
dpy6629 | July 4, 2020 at 1:11 pm |
frank, “Cases” are surging but I’m not worried by that….
[…]
If you look at the Wikipaeda page for the Swedish epidemic you will see that cases have surged in the last 3 weeks too, while new hospitalizations continue to decline and are now in single digits and deaths also continue to decline. Surging cases is in my view a phony statistic because its an strongly related to how extensive testing is.
py6629 | July 5, 2020 at 10:53 pm |
…My own hypothesis is that the vulnerable population has already mostly been exposed, leading to an early high IFR which will decline as time goes on.
dpy6629 | July 10, 2020 at 12:08 am |
Frank, Check the Sweden covid19 wikipedia page. While cases have surged from about 4 weeks ago, deaths and hospitalizations have continued to decline.
[…]
If indeed a lot of younger people are getting infected, that’s not a bad thing because very few will die and they will recover and help us ultimately get to herd immunity.
Quote mining is a classic propagandists tool. What does that say about you?
No one will read it anyway. You are totally unqualified to say anything on the process of science. But I guess since you didn’t say anything substantiate everything maybe that’s ok.
David –
Your appeal to authority is a form of consensus-seeking, a fallacious form as you’re using it as some kind of binary metric.
I posted the long list of (just some of) your totally wrong views on COVID as a way of making it clear that your scientific credentials don’t guarantee that your opinions have merit.
I happen to value scientific credentials, as they are indeed informative about probabilities.
But well let the example you set serve to show that they are no guarantee -and that indeed, some people in fact use credentialiam, or consensus-seeking, or appeala to authority, in facile and fallacious ways.
Joshua, If these are the worst prognostications you could find of dpy that is quite a compliment. Compared to Fauci he was aces.
The underlying point to the covid debate was whether the trade of individual liberty in otherwise grossly unconstitutional and unprecedented amounts to the government and suffering the imposed economic and health decline was a necessary evil to mitigate the virus spread and its harm. Or, were certain politicians using the crisis as a power grab aimed at a goal of permanent government expansion without regard to America’s founding principles of freedom through limited government.
There are a lot of numbers to crunch here but my gut tells me that dpy was more wise than Fauci. The debate of whether governors Newsom, Whitmer and Cuomo did a better job than DeSantis and Kemp is one the left is not relishing.
David –
> No one will read it anyway.
That, of course, is yet another close relative to a fallacious consensus-seeking; argument ad populum. It’s another form of fallacy.
There’s certainly some merit to saying that what some people write isn’t interesting or valid enough for many people to read. But to dismiss what someone says merely because no one reads it would be fallacious. It’s like fallacious consensus-seeking, where someone might reject any particular view because it doesn’t fit with the consensus. Or the appeal to authority fallacy, where someone might reject a particular view because the person presenting it doesn’t have certain credentials.
But what’s interesting about your use of the ad populum fallacy is that despite claiming otherwise, you clearly read my comments and often respond. The logic of your claim that “no one” will read my comment, or my comments more generally, implies that you consider yourself a nobody..
Anyway, FWIW David, I don’t consider you a nobody
Josh, I take Ron’s point. Basically of thousands of comments you can rip a few out of context. That’s a propagandists tool. It’s what slimey politicians do and their lying campaign managers do. You have not proven anything wrong. You have just asserted it. That’s an appeal to authority and your authority carries no weight.
At the least it’s a very childish tactic.
The first statements I made about cases and deaths were probably true at the time or arguably true. You are just lying about them;
Joshua, I don’t know what your excerpts are discussing, but I’m sure you and all the other commenters on the COVID topic are experts. Why aren’t you writing for JAMA? That’s where it matters. You’re wasting your time here.
Ron –
Whether or not other people made errors has no direct relevance to whether or not David made a series of errors that were obviously based on shallow reasoning at the time that he made them.
> The underlying point to the covid debate was whether the trade of individual liberty in otherwise grossly unconstitutional and unprecedented amounts to the government and suffering the imposed economic and health decline was a necessary evil to mitigate the virus spread and its harm.
You are in a minority in that view. Majorities wanted government to take a stronger stand, in what they saw as a stronger defense of their freedoms to live safe and happy lives.
You’re entitled to have your views. If you think being required to wear a mask, for example, is some kind of severe limitations on your “freedom,” that’s your prerogative. I think it’s a rather snowflakey and whiny position to take, and that wearing a mask is a minor inconvenience and people hould just suck it up for the sake of their community and stop thinking of themselves as some kind of modern Paul Revere ’cause they whine about wearing masks. So that’s my prerogative to have that view.
The point being, imo, you might benefit from some humility, and realize that you don’t get to dictate what “freedoms” should and shouldn’t be protected just because of your own personal views. You live in a society, and gain benefits from doing so, and as such, you have accept at some level what the society decides. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t express your views, but that it’s your decision to accept the outcomes or reject the benefits and make alternative arrangements. You can whine also – but at least be aware that as you whine you enjoy freedoms and agency far beyond 99% of humans who have ever lived, the vast majority of people alive in the planet today, the vast majority of Americans who have ever lived, and even the vast majority of Americans living today.
I’d just suggest that when you feel you’re suffering some great injustice, you try to consider your circumstances from within that contextualization.
David –
> Josh, I take Ron’s point. Basically of thousands of comments you can rip a few out of context.
I excerpted a few comments, if the many obvosuly wrong comments you made, but they were comments that you repeated often.
They show fundamental errors in reasoning, and were obviously wrong at the times thst you made them, as was punted out to you at the time.
They showed basic flaws in reasoning, such as conflating correlation with cauation. They showwd a consistent pattern of not respecting uncertainty, as when you said numerous times with total confidence that Sweden would benefit relative to their neighbors in per capita mortality because they’d reach “herd immunity” more quickly. The flaws in your reasoning were explained to you at thst time.
Its unfortunate that you’re not taking this opportunity to learn lessons about the flawed in your analytical process. Doing so might help you to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. Hopefully you’ll rethink your approach. Diminishing the significance of your erroneous thinking, or claiming that direct quotes such as the ones where you said (with total certainty) that population fatality in Sweden wouldn’t exceed 0.06% (and insulted others because they tried to explain to you that you weren’t treating rhe uncertainties properly) are so how invalidated by some putative missing “context” won’t help you a bit. Nor will insulting me because I’m showing you a path for how to be more accountable for flaws in your thinking.
David –
> The first statements I made about cases and deaths were probably true at the time or arguably true. You are just lying about them;
So again, I’m “lying” by quoting you. I love it.
The point about those quotes is thar you diminished concerns about the spike in cases last summer because in spite of obvious signs that a spike in morbidity and mortality would follow, you disrespected uncertainty and instead wrongly argued with great confidence that rhe pandemic would end or some such nonsense.
They were only “right at the time” in the sense that at the time you disrespected uncertainty, and such drew hard conclusions that turned out to be unambiguously wrong.
They weren’t “right at that the time” if you consider that at the time there were trends and uncertainties that were well known and that you were ignoring. You were told so at the time.
David –
> IFR for people under 70 is lower than the flu and even Sweden will probably have a PFR of 0.06%.
I await the context that makes that statement “right at the time.”
Joshua, I don’t know what IFR is, and I’m not here to debate COVID, and I’m not going to believe a thing you or anyone else here says about it anyway. I look at the experts and the reporters who report on them.
Joshua, You really do lack mental acuity. Despite thousands of words you still have not offered data to show that any of what I said was wrong. You are simply lying about it and seem to have no evidence. You should look up the evidence on the IFR for people under 70. I think that was from one of the many papers on the subject perhaps analyzing Italian data. You are lazy as well. Slimey politicians and their even slimier campaign managers do what you are doing here.
David –
The COVID IFR for “people under 70” is not lower than with the seasonal flu (although it is below maybe 15 or so), and when you said yhe population fatality in Sweden would probably be 0.06% or lower you were obviously wrong as you were when you said thst per capita mortality there would be lower than nigh boring countries.
Its not a “lie” to point out how wrong you were, nor is there anything about the “context” of those statements you repeated many times that makes them less wrong.
It’s fascinating to see how difficult it is for you to just say that you were spouting opinions w/o having a sufficient understanding to support your conclusions. Just say you underestimated the uncertainties and move on. There’s no shame in that. In fact, being accountable for your errors will probably come as a relief.
David Apell –
None of my comments have been directed towards you or anything you have said.
I was addressing “dpy6629, “who is David Young.
No data or facts. Relying on your own worthless authority Josh.
The study I referred to was a Danish blood donor study that found an IFR of 0.07 or so and was included in Ionaddis’ first paper on IFR.
I said “probably”. That means that the probability would be greater than 50%. Less likely outcomes can happen too and don’t mean I was wrong.
I just showed that you are lying about these statements. They were not wrong at the time they were made.
This is really getting pretty close to slander or even libel. You are just baselessly saying I was wrong.
David –
> I said “probably”. That means that the probability would be greater than 50%. Less likely outcomes can happen too and don’t mean I was wrong.
You were wrong and ignoring uncertainties when you said probably. And there were other times when you made the same prediction with no qualifiers. It was part and parcel with your likewise wrong claims that Sweden would have lower mortality than the neighboring countries. You were told you were wrong at the time. And you were insulting towards others because they didn’t share your wrong assessment if the probabilities.
And you were wrong about the seasonal flu lethality versus COVID lethality.
David, being wrong because you ignore uncertainties is being wrong. Trying to say “I was right at the time” when you ignored uncertainties at the time is also wrong. You were wrong at the time. You ignored uncertainties at the time and unsuited others for pointing them out. You’d likely be less insult-filled and a generally happier person if you just accepted your errors, say “I was wrong to underestimate the uncertainties” and move on.
> This is really getting pretty close to slander or even libel..
David – it isn’t libelous to point out to you that you were wrong. Certainly not since you were wrong and it was obvious at the time. Just as it’s obvious that you’re just flailing because for some odd reason you just can’t admit it. But even if you weren’t obvosuly wrong it wouldn’t be libelous. Nor is it slander to tell someone that they’re wrong.
So you’re even wrong about the ramifications of me telling you that you’re wrong. That’s quite a feat.
David –
Here are more examples of when you were obviously wrong and it was pointed out to you. Are you going to try to sue me for pointing out how you were obviously wrong, and it was pointed out to you?
dpy6629 | July 27, 2020 at 9:34 pm |
Bear in mind that total cases in Florida and Texas are still vastly lower than in New York. Deaths per capita are also 5-10 times lower. But Florida did such a terrible job compared to saint Andrew according to the corrupt media. Florida dnd Texas have more uninfected people left. I have also hard the speculation about hot weather and air conditioning.
Joshua | July 27, 2020 at 10:39 pm |
> Bear in mind that total cases in Florida and Texas are still vastly lower than in New York.
LOL. Yeah. Bear that in mind: vastly lower
Worldometers:
New York 440,472
Florida 432,747
Texas 404,179
Check back in two days for Florida, maybe two weeks for Texas.
dpy6629 | July 28, 2020 at 11:44 am |
Of course testing in Florida and Texas testing is vastly more extensive than in New York. Actual infections would track deaths meaning that by any meaningful measure New York is 5 – 10 times worse per capita. Joshua typically can’t acknowledge any truth but nitpicks with largely meaningless statistics. He never sees the point so why would anyone expect him to behave like an adult.
Joshua | July 28, 2020 at 11:53 am |
> Of course testing in Florida and Texas testing is vastly more extensive than in New York.
LOL.
Tests per million:
NY: 289,000
Florida: 162,000
Texas: 128,000
This is classic. I prove you were lying about the first 2 statements you mentioned. You then come up with some more largely irrelevant statements about cases in Florida. Fact of the matter was that deaths were 5 times larger in New York so it was reasonable to infer that cases or infections were 5 times higher. What I said was essentially correct. You are lying and being a legalistic doofus.
You are doing what slimey politicians do. Doesn’t that make you feel even a little uncomfortable? If not it says your dog has made a very poor choice.
The beautifulest aspect of that exchange is that you were referring to cases as a meaningful metric.
David –
> I prove you were lying about the first 2 statements you mentioned.
You were wrong about the relative lethality of the seasonal flu vs. COVID. You were wrong about what the outcome in Sweden would “probably” be. It was pointed out to you at the time.
You were wrong about the cases in NY real rife to the other states.
You were wrong about the testing on NY relative to the other states.
You were wrong that my pointing out your errors might be libelous.
BTW, the journal removed Ioannidis bizarre personal attack in his paper. Apparently they agreed it was inappropriate. Sad.
Joshua, are you writing to me, “David,” about COVID and errors?
I haven’t said a thing about COVID. Read more closely, and apologize.
> What I said was essentially correct
Lol. Is that a Poe? You were not even close in your statement re testing in NY relative to the other states. You weren’t even close to being right. You followed up by being totally wrong on the relative rates of testing.
There was nothing remotely “essentialy correct” about it.
All you would have needed to have done was a 30 second Google search before making an incorrect statement.
> Joshua, are you writing to me, “David,” about COVID and errors?
Lol. No. I’m writing to David Young (dpy)
https://judithcurry.com/2021/04/10/how-we-fool-ourselves-part-ii-scientific-consensus-building/#comment-947076
The other David is right Joshie, you need to apologize. I proved that you have lied many many times. You also misrepresent the context of most things. Just apologize for your lies. You will really feel better and have more time for actual productive activities. Your activities here are a waste of your valueless time.
Yeah –
The “other David” is right, and I should apologize to that person for not writing comments to whoever that is.
And you were “essentially right” when you were obviously wrong and I should apologize to you for “lying” about what you said by quoting you.
Lol.
Unlike you Josh who is a nitpicking legalistic liar, Ioannidis is a class act and a great scientist.
“Note added by the author in proof: An earlier pre-proof version of the paper contained an additional supplementary appendix that I have asked the journal to remove. The appendix was an earnest effort to explore in more depth whether technical competence issues or confirmation biases could explain why two overviews had strong, unidirectional biases that differentiated them from the other 4 overviews. I am grateful to commentators who suggested that this effort might be misinterpreted here. Dispassionate discussion of these technical and bias issues may be pursued in other fora. The notion that other people’s feelings may be hurt causes me more regret than the vilification that I have suffered, because my priority as a physician and epidemiologist has always been to care for other people, even more so in a time of major crisis. Commotion shifts the discussion away from the scientific essence of the main paper, effectively silencing scientific debate. I particularly applaud students who have offered me their wisdom and critique in this occasion, as I consider myself the least knowledgeable student of all.”
The truth is that Sanakan and Meyerowitz-Katz deserve to be publicly humiliated for their reckless advocacy based on clearly biased work. Hopefully someone else will provide it.
Ron Graf wrote: “Consensus on Ebay and Amazon reviews works due to principals that are absent in the IPCC:
1) No monetary interest, only desire to pass on personal experience.
2) First-hand knowledge of the precise product being reviewed.
3) No liability.”
—————————————————————————————————-
1) Fake Amazon reviews ‘being sold in bulk’ online
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56069472
Walmart, eBay and Amazon flooded with fake reviews – don’t get scammed
https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/how-to-spot-fake-reviews/752866/
I recommend you use Fakespot if you believe what you wrote: https://www.fakespot.com/
–
2) Reviews that are not marked “Amazon Verified Purchase” are valuable as well, but we either can’t confirm that the product was purchased at Amazon or the customer did not pay a price available to most Amazon shoppers.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202076110
As with the science of Global Warming, you can do all the checks you like, to make sure you are getting the correct information (from people who actually know about the product and are giving genuine feedback) – usually a confirmation of the information provided by Amazon, Ebay, etc.
https://www.wikihow.com/Spot-Fake-Reviews-Manufactured-by-an-Amazon-Seller
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3) It’s not clear whether you think “no liability” is a good or bad thing!
1) No monetary interest, only desire to pass on personal experience.
2) First-hand knowledge of the precise product being reviewed.
3) No liability.
I am not advocating for any one particular feedback site but of the idea of knowledge passed on without a conflict of interest. Fake reviews and fraud and spam are not good reasons to give up trying to the enterprise, they just require that we never give up our critical thinking and BS antennae. Feedback from certified purchasers is the only feedback I would pay attention to. Liability for fraudulent reviews from sellers would be a good thing. Liability for buyers to express their evaluations would be a bad thing. Liability to acts of a good Samaritan would tend to deter such acts and then one would be left with a higher proportion of disingenuous or wrongly motivated reviews.
Peer review is supposed to follow these same 3 principles but like Amazon reviews are subject to corruption. This is why I would propose posting journal submissions and reviews publicly so that science consumers could have the benefit of scrutinizing them both, whether the journal decides to endorse and print publish the submission or not.
Here a an example in practice. Dissident virus scientists posted a paper claiming that SARS2 was a CCP bioweapon in development that either escaped or was released. They laid out all their investigation for all to see. Li Meng Yan, et al https://zenodo.org/record/4073131
Then critics at large, including Dr. Robert Gallo, the co-discover of HIV, answered with their own reviews, which people can read. Then Yan et al published a follow up paper, and also recently a point by point rebuttal of the the critical reviews. https://zenodo.org/record/4650821
The site zenodo is based in Switzerland and is associated with CERN.
Good find, Ron!
It’d be nice if AMZN implemented something like this:
https://zenodo.org/record/4073131
Perhaps WordPress too could do something like this.
What do you think?
Willard, the world is amidst a truth crisis in that the information that carries a warning label is many more times likely to be authentic than anything put out by the World Health Organization.
Two weeks ago the former head of the CDC, Robert Redfield, stated publicly that he believes the SARS CoV2 escaped from a lab in Wuhan. This week CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta concurs. He said it’s simply a matter of Occam’s razor, the simplest explanation for the facts.
I see Joshua giving dpy the Spanish inquisition for only being correct, but not correct be a factor of 5 as claimed at certain points. If only the WHO and CDC could have been as wrong as dpy we would all have been much better off.
This is from today’s Washington Times:
“Remember when a doctor — early in the pandemic — put out a viral video telling Americans they just needed to wash their hands a lot to keep from catching or spreading COVID? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) jumped on board, as did the World Health Organization (WHO).
But that turned out to be not at all true.
Just last week, the CDC put out new guidance. “It is possible for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites), but the risk is generally considered to be low,” the guidance says. The CDC added that the chance of contracting the coronavirus through surface transmission is lower than 1 in 10,000. Those are some pretty slim odds. While the WHO in March 2020 asserted the coronavirus was not airborne but instead transmitted mostly through “respiratory droplets and contact routes” — picked up by touch — that turned out to be all wrong.
Still, every place you go nowadays, someone is wiping down this or disinfecting that. Somehow, a writer at the Atlantic magazine knew it was all phony way back in July, writing a piece headlined, “Hygiene Theater Is a Huge Waste of Time.”
“The fact that surface areas — or ‘fomites,’ in medical jargon — are less likely to convey the virus might seem counterintuitive to people who have internalized certain notions of grimy germs, or who read many news articles in March about the danger of COVID-19-contaminated food,” wrote Derek Thompson. “Backing up those scary stories were several U.S.
studies that found that COVID-19 particles could survive on surfaces for many hours and even days.”
Ah, “studies.”
Then there were the masks.
Back in March 2020, when the WHO was telling everyone it was mostly surface transmission, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, declared, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”
“When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is,” the doctor said on CBS News.
In February, Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who served on former President Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force and is now President Biden’s chief medical adviser on COVID-19, said that wearing two masks is likely more effective than wearing one.
“If you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on it, just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective,” Dr. Fauci told NBC News.
Then there’s former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who said last month that the six-foot social distancing mandate put in place across much of the U.S. “wasn’t based on clear science.”
“This six-foot distancing requirement has probably been the single costliest mitigation tactic that we’ve employed in response to COVID … and it really wasn’t based on clear science … We should have re-adjudicated this much earlier,” he said in an interview with CNBC.”
I think that almost be definition consensus seeking is trying to establish a type of group think. The former has generally positive connotations and the latter has negative connotations at least with most people.
It’s quite hard to argue that consensus seeking will not narrow the range of opinion in a group of people. When they sign off each one will feel some need to defend that concensus.
dpy, you and almost everyone here do not understand why “consensus” is sought and important in climate science. Of course it’s not ideal in any science, and you don’t see it in any other science (though it exists). But climate science is unique because the rapidity at which warming and change proceeds means action is necessary before the science can attain the N-sigma certainty of other scientific fields (pick your N). So expert judgement is necessary, majority opinion matters, there isn’t time to convince every last denier, most of whom won’t be convinced anyway for reasons that have nothing to do with politics. We needed action a few decades ago; by now we’re facing real consequences; in a couple of decades climate change will be serious. By the end of this century it could well be catastrophic.
This is the need for consensus in climate science. Get it now?
Well, some things take time to get actionable information. We have seen the fiasco of ignorance about viral epidemiology over the last year. There have been tremendously costly “mitigations” for which the quantified evidence is simply nonexistent. There has been no concensus seeking even though there is an acute and serious problem. Opinions are all over the place and that’s a good thing. What we have seen instead is the disturbing use of social media to slander scientists. It’s often by anonymous ignoramuses.
David Appell just admitted Climate Science isn’t yet good enough to use for policy guidance. It’s about time someone said it.
> We have seen the fiasco of ignorance about viral epidemiology over the last year.
Indeed we did:
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-flaws-in-stanford-study-of-coronavirus-prevalence/
Gelman’s blog post is quite old at this point and out of date. Ioannidis and many collaborators have a paper from November where they apply more sophisticated statistics to the Santa Clara test used. The result is pretty much the same as before.
So you cited an outdated blog post and a tweet consisting entirely of 2 errors of fact easily checked.
And more recently:
https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1381155019395756032
Willard, What you are doing here is biased and obvious advocacy and narrative promotion. You are only citing blog posts and Twitter twattle. The peer reviewed literature generally shows that the Santa Clara paper while not perfect had a result that was within the range of lots of other studies.
Bergstrom appears to be a completely unreliable source typical of Twitter activists. The journal removed nothing. Yet you post an obviously wrong tweet that 5 minutes of research would have shown was wrong. Bergstrom seems to have a strong track record in this regard.
“Note added by the author in proof: An earlier pre-proof version of the paper contained an additional supplementary appendix that I have asked the journal to remove. The appendix was an earnest effort to explore in more depth whether technical competence issues or confirmation biases could explain why two overviews had strong, unidirectional biases that differentiated them from the other 4 overviews. I am grateful to commentators who suggested that this effort might be misinterpreted here. Dispassionate discussion of these technical and bias issues may be pursued in other fora. The notion that other people’s feelings may be hurt causes me more regret than the vilification that I have suffered, because my priority as a physician and epidemiologist has always been to care for other people, even more so in a time of major crisis. Commotion shifts the discussion away from the scientific essence of the main paper, effectively silencing scientific debate. I particularly applaud students who have offered me their wisdom and critique in this occasion, as I consider myself the least knowledgeable student of all. “
David from The Boeing Company,
I thought you’d have liked to know that John finally deleted the personal attacks from his paper, in contradistinction to your insinuations that this part was necessary to evaluate “the science.”
Your “peer review literature generally” is mealy mouthed and empty.
David from The Military Company that Shall Not Be Named,
I thought you’d have liked to know that John finally deleted the personal attacks from his paper, in contradistinction to your insinuations that this part was necessary to evaluate “the science.”
Your “peer review literature generally” is mealy mouthed and empty.
And to top it off Willard cites a wrong tweet from Bergstrom, a well known advocate. The journal removed nothing. Willard relies on sources that often spread disinformation. Tats why his remarks are unreliable.
> cites a wrong tweet from Bergstrom
You have no idea how Twitter works, David, do you?
Look at the quoted tweet.
Wee Willard.
“We wasted time and effort discussing…”
Speaking of wasting time (and money and anxiety and belief in expert consensus) the CDC now says all that time and money we spent obsessively cleaning, wearing gloves, hiring people to wash doors and carts continuously was all a big waste of time- a giant “oops.”
https://consumer.healthday.com/cdc-low-risk-of-catching-coronavirus-from-surfaces-2652264315.html
Given that news, I guess it’s time for someone to attack the governor of Florida again for something manufactured. Or is it Texas’ turn? I can’t keep the disinformation machine straight. More “wasted time”? They’re locking kids in dorms because of COVID. The survival rate for those 18-29 with COVID is 99.96% or better (that’s just the rate off of known cases and doesn’t include the asymptomatic who never got tested.) It’s statistically safer to go to parties at college than it is to drive to college
dpy
“The journal removed nothing.”
Journal Publisher
“changes were made”… …”(incl. those changes you’ve noted)”
https://twitter.com/wileyinresearch/status/1381614597896032257
Who to believe? Tough choice.
> They’re locking kids in dorms because of COVID. The survival rate for those 18-29 with COVID is 99.96%
Isolating spreaders is meant to protect the vulnerable, dummy.
I think you have a reading comprehension problem VTG. The author (not the journal) removed it and there was a lengthy explanation given. Bergstrom’s tweet contained two error of fact that a moment’s research would have dispelled. That’s called misinformation.
> Bergstrom’s tweet contained two error of fact
Easier said than established, David, unless you are conflating “published” and “version of record.”
For some reason this long quote seems to trigger moderation. I’ve tried several times. This proves conclusively that Bergstrom’s tweet contained two critical falsehoods.
“Note added by the author in proof: An earlier pre-proof version of the paper contained an additional supplementary appendix that I have asked the journal to remove. The appendix was an earnest effort to explore in more depth whether technical competence issues or confirmation biases could explain why two overviews had strong, unidirectional biases that differentiated them from the other 4 overviews. I am grateful to commentators who suggested that this effort might be misinterpreted here. Dispassionate discussion of these technical and bias issues may be pursued in other fora. The notion that other people’s feelings may be hurt causes me more regret than the vilification that I have suffered, because my priority as a physician and epidemiologist has always been to care for other people, even more so in a time of major crisis. Commotion shifts the discussion away from the scientific essence of the main paper, effectively silencing scientific debate. I particularly applaud students who have offered me their wisdom and critique in this occasion, as I consider myself the least knowledgeable student of all. “
“Isolating spreaders is meant to protect the vulnerable, dummy.”
Wait, that’s your “argument?” We have to lock 20-year-olds in buildings on the off chance that one of them might show up at the 4 p.m. dinner special at the Golden Sunset Village? 60 Minutes just got done claiming it was evil for Florida to prioritize old people for vaccination, yet here you are praising Michigan for quarantining the young instead of vaccinating the vulnerable.
Arguing from incredulity carries no weight, JeffN.
See slide 10.
Groupthink is a motivated reasoning, and consensus-thinking is a confirmation bias. Cultural consensuses are emergent, a property of the whole system. The literature suggests we are all equally equipped to take part, but it is indeed the membership of particular groups with specific group outlooks that enables the behavioural participation aligned to same: so, cultural identity. Per Kahan membership of 2 cultural groups matters a lot for public attitudes on climate-change within the US: Rep/Con and Dem/Lib supporters. But it’s likely that 4 matter enough to determine the full attitudes, the others being religion, and catastrophic climate culture in its own right. However, for other nations and at the national level, the latter 2 alone determine attitudes. This is measurable in *publics* (so not in the enterprise of climate science or for domain bloggers, who are not in the surveys as demographics and who also have a literacy essentially absent in publics).
Josh:
>> Consensus is viewed as a proxy for truth in many discussions of science.
>Actually, that happens rarely.
Does the number 97% ring a bell?
The consensus is > 99%.
Thank you for the reassuring subject matter Dr. Judith. Prince Philip was a strong climate change skeptic and tried to invite Professor Plimer to an official talk but the Royal Palace intervened, saying that they were supposed to take sides in politically hot subject matter. Wow, now take a look at Prince Charles and even Prince William talking the consensus manmade emissions rhetoric.
It’s summed up brilliantly here:
https://youtu.be/2wcMNwaZHg8
Wasn’t he rather a doddering fool who, after doing his duty in the war after courting a child, lead a life of luxury off taxpayer’s dollars, accomplishing nothing, with no scientific expertise whatsoever, prone to racist gaffes?
David
No he wasn’t. Have you never heard of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme set up in 1956 to help young people achieve their potential and now the worlds leading youth achievement award, having helped millions of disadvantaged children and operated in 140 countries?
Are you not aware of his decades long work in helping to set up and guide the World Wildlife fund for nature?
“In 1970, WWF established its highest conservation award, eponymously named the Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Award, to recognize and encourage significant achievement in the global environmental field. The Prince was also the first president of WWF-UK, from its establishment in 1961 through 1982.”
He was also patron of many other charities and carried out thousands of public engagements
tonyb
Tony, he had his staff set up awards? Wow, impressive. Why does that make him qualified to opine on the science of climate change?
Appell, Why do you find it necessary to personally attack the man? Seems to me he quietly tried to do his best, which is a pretty good approach to life. Like the rest of us, somethings worked, others, not so much.
Someone cited his opinions on climate change. They don’t matter one iota. Let’s not pretend they do.
David Appell wrote something I agree with. The opinions of Prince Phillip on a question of science carry as little weight a Meghan Markle’s or anyone’s unless they are versed on the particulars of the question under investigation. And authority in one area does not translate to authority in another. Feynman pointed out in his famous 1974 Cal Tech speech how science was impeded by years for the respect of Millikan’s stature, failing to correct his erroneous calculation for the charge of an electron but by increment at a time.
The ideal of science is for the results to speak for themselves and only after repeated scrutiny by skeptical expert challengers.
> The ideal of science is for the results to speak for themselves and only after repeated scrutiny
Which is after all why contrarians quote Richard’s hawt takes.
Prince Philip: A life worth honouring; his duty discharged. Douglas Murray
At the coronation service in 1953 the first person to swear allegiance to the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II was her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. In that vow, made kneeling before the new sovereign, he swore: “To become your liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folks.”
The language may sound archaic now, as it did then, and the principles and duties the oath speaks to may sound more archaic still. And yet it is a testimony to the character of the duke that it was an oath he held to, honoured and otherwise discharged over the course of a life of public service, which only ended with his death on Friday.
There is, of course, no special surprise when a person dies at the age of 99. But there is perhaps some surprise at the outpouring of feeling that has greeted the duke’s death. Though the royal family asked people not to leave flowers outside the palaces, a steady stream of people has been queuing at COVID-safe distances outside the palaces in Britain to pay respects. And, in truth, this should not be a surprise. The duke was admired in his life, and is perhaps openly admired still more now, for a number of reasons.
Some of these are to do with his most obvious accomplishments. In recent days he has been praised once more for his service in World War II and for his bravery at sea, which saw him mentioned in dispatches. Elsewhere the heads of charities into which he poured his energies have praised his foresight as an environmentalist, his passion as a motivator of young people through his awards scheme, and for many other facets of his public life. Elsewhere, people have noted the challenges of his early life. But, in fact, outpouring of feeling has two main sources.
The first is the knowledge that for 73 years of marriage, and almost seven decades while his wife was on the throne, Prince Philip fulfilled his duty to the Queen just as she fulfilled her duty to the publics of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. It was on her 21st birthday that the Queen made her first great oath of allegiance to the people. On that occasion she said, “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service.” For her whole life she has fulfilled that oath through unrelenting, faultless public service.
She has seen her country through the end of empire and the beginning of the Commonwealth, through massive societal and political change, all of which would have seemed more worrying than they were had one figure not always been there to provide continuity and assurance. Whether the Queen would have been able to do this without such a man as Philip at her side is theoretical. Because he always was by her side, and remained so until the end. Many people feel deep gratitude for a life of such devotion.
But the other reason the duke’s death has provoked such feeling is perhaps simply because of the sort of man he was, added with a fear that they don’t make them like that anymore.
It was always easy to parody the sort of man he was. For instance, he was regularly chewed over in the media for his alleged gaffes. In fact, most of these alleged missteps were very funny at their best and never anything worse than an expression of plain speaking. Walking ramrod straight of back even into his 10th decade it was easy also to dismiss him as an exemplar of an “unfeeling” older generation. When Tony Abbott nominated the duke for a Knighthood of the Order of Australia in the last decade, such criticisms of the duke poured out. “Anachronistic” was one of the words critics used most about the duke and the knighthood. And yet now we have had a few years to observe what comes after such “anachronisms” we may well miss them.
Is it better to have the attitudes of the Duke of Edinburgh, with his uncomplaining, keep-buggering-on attitude toward life? Or is it better to have the emotional resilience of certain other people who have married into the royal family of late?
Last year, even before her disgraceful interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan Markle told an interviewer: “I really tried to adopt this British sensibility of a stiff upper lip. I tried. I really tried. But I think what that does internally is probably really damaging. I’ve said for a long time to ‘H’ — that’s what I call (Harry) — it’s not enough to just survive something, right? Like, that’s not the point of life.”
According to that particular branch of the royal family the point of life is to move to California, cash in your connections, make podcasts and do voice-overs for Netflix series. The Duchess of Sussex was 38 years old when she expounded that world view. An age by which Prince Philip had survived the revolutions of his childhood, the battles of World War II and years of public service. At the same age Meghan had survived seven seasons of Suits.
Was it fun, all that unveiling of plaques, making endless small talk with strangers and otherwise seeing through the relative drudgery of actual royal life? Almost certainly not, though it clearly had its moments. But Prince Philip never complained. He never announced that he needed more “me time”, or wished to “thrive” more, or any of the other emotional incontinence that has flooded through our societies in recent decades. He recognised that in life there are things more important than your personal ease and that one of those things is public service. Especially in the service of one of the greatest and oldest institutions.
So it is right that people pay tribute to the departed prince. But it is also a good time to wonder whether the qualities he embodied might be better recognised, remembered and perhaps even emulated now that the liege man has gone.
Douglas Murray is associate editor of The Spectator and author of The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity, among other books.
The way to build consensus is very simple:
1. Declare the incursion of an unruly crowd into the Capitol a deadly riot.
2. To support the “deadly”, declare that they killed Officer Brian Sicknick.
3. Make it official by including it in the Article of Impeachment.
4. When the NYT, the WaPo, and the CNN don’t laugh, declare the event an armed insurrection.
5. When the only firearm found happens to be a fire extinguisher, quietly declare the event an (unarmed) insurrection.
6. Never publish a coroner’s report on the officer’s cause of death.
To prevent a repetition, surround the Capitol by impenetrable fences, barbed wire, and several thousand troops. This will show everybody that even the best organized attempt to overthrow the government has no chance to succeed.
To summarize, it is not about the consensus as such. It is about the control of mass media, as perfected by Dr. Joseph Goebbels. We now have the Ministry of Truth.
“So far, at least three people have been charged in federal court in the District of Columbia with gun crimes related to the Capitol riot, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.”
USA Today, 3/4/21
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/03/04/fact-check-fbi-says-bureau-didnt-recover-guns-capitol-riot/4578286001/
No guns were used, except by one policeman who acted with excessive force.
No other guns were confiscated or seized that day.
So how many folks are killed routinely in DC and large cities in a year? How much damage is routinely inflicted on US cities by violent mobs?
On a relative scale, the protest in DC was pretty benign, but is being used by the Left to justify further suppression of anybody that objects to the Left’s control of the nation. Their is absolutely no justification for keeping the US capital under control by the military, unless the Democrats are afraid of the nation’s citizens.
As far as mob violence is concerned, folks need a reason to be optimistic for a better life. Throwing folks out of work and shutting down the economy does not lead to a better life for anybody, except those attempting to use chaos to better their own wealth. That would be the Left for those unable to grasp the obvious.
On a relative scale, the protest in DC was pretty benign
Benign? Ransacking the Capital building, hunting Congressman and women, attacking the police (“Blue lives matter,” sure), symbols of anti-Semitism and white supremacy, a Confederate flag marched through the building, bear spray in the face of policeman, 140 officers injured, 2 so traumatized they committed suicide after, people with zip ties looking to kidnap politicians, people mauling their way into the building like it’s World War Z…. and you have the nerve to call this “benign?” How dare you. You’re no American, that’s for sure.
“Benign? Ransacking the Capital building [there was relatively little damage as angry riots go] hunting Congressman and women [Like AOC claimed], attacking the police (“Blue lives matter,” sure) [Violence was only so far as to gain entry. No anger was taken out on police as a mob.This mob misguidedly wanted to stop the election certification not attack police as in the Minneapolis and Seattle riots], symbols of anti-Semitism and white supremacy, a Confederate flag marched through the building, bear spray in the face of policeman, [Everything to the left is a symbol of white supremacy] 140 officers injured, 2 so traumatized they committed suicide [this according to the same reports of the fire extinguisher bludgeoning and guessed at trampling deaths] after, people with zip ties looking to kidnap politicians, [There is enough real crimes not to prosecute thought crimes. Zip ties are not a violent weapon and were not used in any case] people mauling their way into the building like it’s World War Z…. [You really don’t appreciate the true combat some of them had been through along with millions of others to give you the liberty to voice your opinion freely. The minute you disagree with how extreme the left has gone and try to voice your caution watch out. You could be canceled in a second, maybe by your own children informing on you.] and you have the nerve to call this “benign?” [Mostly peaceful..] How dare you. {OK Greta] You’re no American, [OK Joseph McCarthy] that’s for sure.
You won’t win that one, Ron:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/730/the-empty-chair
Ron Graf wrote:
Violence was only so far as to gain entry. No anger was taken out on police as a mob
That’s a lie. We all saw the officer’s head get jammed between doors as the mob tried to crush their way in, and someone spraying something directly in his face as he screamed.
Out of thousands of hours of video footage from the most videoed event in history if the worst attacks are what we saw it means the event was 99% benign and likely 100% non-lethal except for the shooting of an unarmed Ashley Babbitt without warning, point blank, in the throat, by a likely never to be identified member of the security staff.
There’s about as much disinformation surrounding the DC riot as there is on climate. It turns out the 6 deaths are not what have been portrayed in the media, according to a new report by a DC medical examiner.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/7/medical-examiner-releases-cause-death-four-capitol/
There was another riot in DC where 6 police officers were injured; 217 protesters were arrested; there was looting and burning. When describing this to most of the radical Left the discussion usually fizzles; yet astonishingly some never heard of it, or worse, they deny it.
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/donald-trump-inauguration-six-policemen-injured-217-protesters-arrested-in-washington-4484679/
Here’s a really good analysis by a lefty. It’s very detailed.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-false-and-exaggerated-claims?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDk5ODQ2OSwicG9zdF9pZCI6MzI2MDcyMDIsIl8iOiJab3RrSCIsImlhdCI6MTYxMzU4MDU3MCwiZXhwIjoxNjEzNTg0MTcwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMTI4NjYyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.UF85OWLbhomrEiEKqv2xmkNlBWcVAICP-Eymq9T276s&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
“Results typically come within 90 days of a death, but Sicknick’s death remains under investigation.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/07/capitol-riot-deaths-cause-death-released-4-5-not-sicknick/7128040002/
Curious, all those troops and barbed wire around the Capitol were completely justified. After all, you saw with your own eyes the dangerous, armed mobs that attacked during the Inauguration and again on March 4th, just as predicted by the MSM. And don’t forget the hundreds of stores and government buildings that were looted and burned, to say nothing of the dozens of police that were attacked and their cars torched.
March 4 riots were predicted by intelligence services. Details are classified, most likely a jump in sales of fire extinguishers.
George’s claim was false. Let’s see him admit it.
David Appell, are you implying that any of the reporting of “deadly mob” conducting “armed insurrection” was legitimate? Was Sicknick bludgeoned to death by a fire extinguisher as reported, supposedly with independently confirmed sourcing? Or did he speak with his brother after the protest and tell him he was fine except for getting pepper spray in his eyes, as we learned a month later? Who made up the story about the bludgeoning? Why did it stand for weeks? Was anyone trampled to death as reported? Why was there so much mis-reporting in one direction? Do you ever ask these kind of questions? Do you ever consider what the answers imply about our press, the integrity of our national institutions, who is the check on state power? Is the American experiment imperiled? Would are children recognize dangers to liberty when we are gone? Do you ever wonder?
This illustrates the best method for reaching consensus: Silence your opponents.
George, admit your “facts” were wrong above. And by all means ignore the anti-Semitism in the insurrection, the Confederate flag paraded through the capital, the people with zip ties hunting Congressmen and women, bear spray in the face of officers, 140 officers injured, 2 suicides afterward, one officer mauled on the front steps.
Instead cherry pick a few little things you think trivialize one of the most shameful episodes in American history orchestrated by a lying, malicious president who will forever be known as the worst in history.
“And by all means ignore the anti-Semitism in the insurrection, the Confederate flag paraded through the capital, the people with zip ties hunting Congressmen and women…”
I saw the one confederate flag (that until recently flew over a state capital). And there also were some anti-Semites in the crowd, according to the Jewish Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism’s vice president, Oren Segal, whom also admitted that there is antisemitism on the left also [who would have remembered that?]. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-01-13/anti-semitism-seen-in-capitol-insurrection-raises-alarms
It is indeed ironic that the left has used the Jan 6 protest/riot in the same fashion that the burning of the German Reichstag by an unknown protester in 1933 was used to crack down on all political oppositions, culminating in the June 1933 declaration that the National Socialists Workers Party was the only legal political party in Germany. Headlines blared on June 22, 1933, of the “birth of German democracy.” A little over a year later came the “Night of Long Knives” purge and a year later the Nuremberg Laws, banning Jewish rights of citizenship and outlawing intermarriage or extra-marital relations with a Jew. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nuremberg-laws
Good point, Ron.
> … in the same fashion that the burning of the German Reichstag by an unknown protester in 1933 was used to crack down on all political oppositions,
Nazi Germany and 2021 in America =same, same.
I hear they’ve already started packing all non-libz into cattle cars and shipping them to exterminatiom camps.
Good point, Ron.
> … in the same fashion that the burning of the German Reichstag by an unknown protester in 1933 was used to crack down on all political oppositions,
N*zi Germany and 2021 in America =same, same.
I hear they’ve already started packing all non-libz into cattle cars and shipping them to exterminatiom camps.
“I hear they’ve already started packing all non-libz into cattle cars and shipping them to exterminatiom camps.”
So, Joshua, how far up the road before the cattle cars do you plan to object? How far is too far? What makes you think your objection will be the consensus opinion when that time comes? There may be millions of young people who were taught a different curriculum than you received.
China is shipping people to camps in freight cars in 2021. If the tools existed in 1941 to do “final solutions” they absolutely will exist in 2041.
I know its hard for people who are not interested in history to imagine the suffering that has occurred for almost all of history, punctuated by brief moments of peace chronicled in the form of the mythical Camelot. Even the American experiment or such that can easily get overwhelmed by the mob of despots constantly struggling for power. Heck, the Union could have lost at Gettysburg. Hitl@r could have gotten the A-bomb before the allies.
Would you want your worst enemy to have the power the Dems are consolidating now, planning to end minority rights in the senate and pack the Supreme Court? What makes you certain your worst nightmare may not take those reigns?
Reins, not reigns.
On Monday, 12 April, the BBC starts its new brainwashing series. Three one hour programmes about the greatest living scientist, Greta Thunberg.
:)
Rowan Dean gives his latest broadcast showing how the consensus climate model predictions are consistently incorrect:
https://youtu.be/9fRBdy-6nZ0
Who is David Appell?
Dr Hans Goetzsche
Lol.
Thank you. Best comment of the week. People have been wondering that for years. He will be along any minute to make sure we all know about his rare skills.
Mr. Appleman is a legend in his own mind.
Don’t be shy, Hans:
https://clintel.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/World-Climate-Declaration-Sept-2020.pdf
It’s never too early to go emeritus.
Climate emergency is an oxymoron.
Can a vested interest ever remain neutral where many livelihoods conspire together to prove they are all far too big to fail.
Earth’s atmosphere is very thin, and H2O and CO2 are trace gases.
The obvious – greenhouse gases CO2 and H2O are very rare in Earth’s the actually very thin atmosphere of 1 bar at sea level. The air density is some 1,23 kg/m3, and it is a very thin atmosphere…
In Earth’s very thin atmosphere there are on average 1% H2O and 0,04% CO2. Those two are trace gases in Earth’s very thin atmosphere.
H2O and CO2 very tiny contents in earth’s atmosphere are not capable to absorb the alleged huge “absorbed by atmosphere 70%-85% outgoing IR radiation” portion.
One may object, Earth’s atmosphere is not thin, Earth’s atmosphere is all right, since we live in it.
Yes, we live in Earth’s atmosphere because it is very thin. Yes atmosphere is dense enough for us to breathe, and for birds to fly – but that’s it.
Earth’s atmosphere is marginally dense. Only few kilometers in altitude there is not enough atmosphere to breathe, and there is not enough air for birds to fly.
So, this atmosphere – the our Earth’s atmosphere is not capable to absorb 70%-85% of outgoing IR radiation portion.
The common sense claims the obvious: there is not any significant Greenhouse warming effect on Earth’s surface!
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
MATTER doesn’t like energy – thus the Equilibrium Temperature occurs
It appears as a common knowledge, that when solar irradiated, the surface first gets warmed, and only then the surface IR emits.
It is an assumption, it is a mistaken assumption, and it is a wrongly stated assumption. They assume, when surface been irradiated it absorbs solar radiative energy, transforming it to heat, and then planet surface IR emits like the classical S-B blackbody surface (the hot iron rod).
It is not what actually happens. When solar irradiated, the surface at that very instant reflects (specularly and diffusely) and emits IR.
Surface gets rid from the incident radiative energy AS FAST AS IT CAN!
Please compare with the classical blackbody Type one S-B emission concept. The blackbody surface emits spontaneously Jemit = σΤe⁴ at fourth power of its temperature.
The blackbody has an infinite source of energy (sun, stars) to keep it going at the same exactly equilibrium temperature Te. The surface emits Jemit = σΤe⁴ W/m² and, by doing so, surface always remains at that equilibrium Te temperature, because the inner source of energy release is in a constant and already established balance with the by the surface emissive possibilities… which the S-B emission law describes.
inner energy out to the surface = outgoing radiative energy Jemit = σΤe⁴
So, when surface is solar irradiated, surface behaves exactly the same, the total amount of the incident radiative energy should be spontaneously got rid of at that very instant the solar beams “touch” every infinitesimal spot on the planet’s ground.
NATURE doesn’t keep energy for the future utilization “needs”. NATURE doesn’t accumulate in purpose – NATURE gets rid of energy, because energy destabilize the MATTER.
MATTER doesn’t like energy, so MATTER gets rid of ENERGY on the very instant and at the highest possible rates…
Jemit = σΤe⁴
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
The authors of the post are misinformed. They discuss the IPCC as if it was a scientific entity. It has never been one. The IPCC was formed by the UN to support the UNFCCC, which clearly have anti-capitalist, anti-growth and anti-American agendas.
Regards,
Bob
Exactly, Bob.
What we need is noble contrarian truth seekers. Take Roy:
https://www.drroyspencer.com/2021/02/a-tribute-to-rush-limbaugh/
Rush Limbaugh was a cancerous tumor on America who started millions on their path of hatred, division and conspiracy mongering. But he made himself a lot of money, didn’t he?
Too funny. You’re still so completely convinced of the righteousness of the left-wing media monopoly that you remain absolutely horrified that a conservative was actually permitted to talk on AM Radio. In broad daylight and everything! What do we give police officers firearms for if this is allowed, right?
I was talking about Roy, JeffN, but thank you for probing my mind.
The red baiting also provides a nice touch.
Roy Spencer:
Bob T, what about the IPCC is anti-capitalist anti-growth?
Capitalism has been in high ascendancy since the IPCC came into existence. It is been the golden age of capitalism. Do you want it to continue? Is that all you care about?
Appell, there are 43 million hits for “end capitalism climate change.”
The climate campaigner schtick is getting long in the tooth. Loudly proclaim something on Monday, on Tuesday deny they said anything the day before, on Wednesday claim Monday’s pronouncement was “spot on,” on Thursday go on CNN to say anyone who emphasizes Monday’s “aspirational” announcement is just engaging in Fox New “talking points” to delay “action,” on Friday visit the set of MSNBC to repeat Monday’s demand, repeat.
It’s like you’re unfamiliar with this thing called a search engine. At least it drives down the political momentum for the Swedish teen cult.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism
To be more specific, I believe the IPCC was formed to blame global warming on humans, and claim continued warming was dangerous.
The goal of that belief was to justify the UN as a world government of climate change and energy use.
Buy leaders of most western nations saw the predicted climate crisis as an opportunity for increasing the power of THEIR OWN governments, using the IPCC “science” in the same way as the United Nations intended to.
A leftist never lets a crisis go to waste — even an imaginary crisis, like the alleged climate emergency, works if enough people believe it, are scared by it, and demand that their government do something.
Leftists always want a reason to do something big and spend a lot of the taxpayers’ money. They can’t say that before an election, but they can say they are trying to save the planet for the children (complete nonsense, but it wins votes).
Truth is not a leftist value.
The IPCC summary for policymakers is a politically negotiated synthesis that isn’t worth cr@p. There is a myopic vision that involves narratives of moribund western economies governed by corrupt corporations collapsing under the weight of internal contradictions – leading to less growth, less material consumption, less CO2 emissions, less habitat destruction and a last late chance to stay within the safe limits of global ecosystems. And this is just in the ‘scholarly’ journals. Christiana Figueres has revealed explicitly a plan to recast societies and economies over the course of many COP’s. She may take as long as she likes.
Poor wee willie is waiting – like a poor man’s neo-Godot – for the economic AI overlord who is to relieve us of Hayek’s problem of knowledge. As poor wee willie said explicitly on this blog. David and Joshua might fill us in on their economic objectives. Not sure it matters. Neither is all that bright and both will lie about it. Mind you – I’ve found that crazy contrarians are less than economically literate. It’s a normal distribution with ignorant extremes on either end and the rest of us in the middle.
“Although it has failed to produce its intended impact nevertheless the Kyoto
Protocol has performed an important role. That role has been allegorical.
Kyoto has permitted different groups to tell different stories about
themselves to themselves and to others, often in superficially scientific
language. But, as we are increasingly coming to understand, it is often not
questions about science that are at stake in these discussions. The culturally
potent idiom of the dispassionate scientific narrative is being employed to
fight culture wars over competing social and ethical values.49 Nor is that to
be seen as a defect. Of course choices between competing values are not
made by relying upon scientific knowledge alone. What is wrong is to
pretend that they are.” Gwyn Prins & Steve Rayner, 2009, The Wrong Trousers: Radically Rethinking Climate Policy
There are both great climate science and great environmental policy choices. The problem is to tune out the noisy extremes.
RE: The objective of scientific research is to find out what is really true, ..
But it seems not to work very well! What about the word CLIMATE?
John Locke said: “The achievement of human knowledge is often hampered by the use of words without fixed signification” British philosopher, 1632-1704.
Scientist and sceptics in the climate change field are using the word CLIMATE in the same way, not recognizing that they use a word from the layman sphere since the ancient Greeks over 2000 years ago. The UNFCCC offers not any definition on climate at all. IPCC says “Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather” but does not say what weather is, and so on. For sure, John Locke would repeat this demand clearly again today.
In detail discussed in the post April 2019 at http://what-is-climate.com/ ,
“Is the climate change debate so aggressive because science abuse the layman’s term: climate? Has the climate debate turned into a horror scenario because climate means everything and nothing?”
In his excellent book, “Global Warming, a case study in groupthink”, the late Christopher Booker shows that the three rules of groupthink are illustrated by the global warming community.
Rule 1 is that a group of people come to share a common view or belief that in some way is not properly based on reality. They may believe they have all sorts of evidence that confirms that their opinion is right, but their belief cannot ultimately be tested in a way that confirms this beyond doubt. In essence, therefore, it is no more than a shared belief.
Rule 2 is that because their belief cannot be proven beyond doubt, they feel the need to elevate it to a consensus. To those who subscribe to the ‘consensus’, the common belief seems intellectually and morally so self-evident that all right-thinking people must agree with it. The one thing they cannot afford to allow is that anyone, either within their group or outside it, should question or challenge it. Once established, the essence of the belief system must be defended at all costs.
Rule three, in some ways the most revealing of all, is a consequence of that insistence that everyone must support the ‘consensus’. The views of anyone who fails to share it become wholly unacceptable. There cannot be any possibility of dialogue with them. They must be excluded from any further discussion. At best they may just be marginalised and ignored, at worst they must be openly attacked and discredited. Dissent cannot be tolerated.
I thoroughly recommend this book which is published by the GWPF.
I find it fascinating to reproduce Booker’s words within a discussion thread that richly illustrates the very points that he made. It is all here, the consensus, ridicule of anyone who challenges it, the sheer intolerance of dissent.
David Appell,
Earlier I mentioned peer review of a 2021 Australian Academy of Science paper “THE RISKS TO AUSTRALIA OF A 3°C WARMER WORLD”.
Elsewhere here you assert that “You can be sure everyone associated with that report is aware of the scientific literature, especially of the section for which they are experts”
Here are the basic qualifications of the 6 reviewers:
Ian Chubb, neurosciences
Peter Doherty, immunology
Jason Evans, physics, maths
Mike Kingsford, marine biology
Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, atmospheric sciences & meteorology, 2013 NSW
Young Tall Poppy
Martin Rice, zoology, comparative physiology.
David, you might like to advise us about which sections of the AAS report each of these is an expert.
Please note, I am not having a dig at the reviewers’ qualifications. One is a Nobel Laureate, some of the others have excelled in their field, which is not always climate science.
I am chastising you for making silly, unresearched statements about which you seem to know little. Why do you do you fool yourself? Is is because it is so easy? Geoff S.
Are names of reviewers published these days?
Geoff, their qualifications are they’re all enormously smarter than you are.
Dave
I always enjoy hearing what you and Greta have to say. The point of view of adolescents should never be ignored. Until, of course, when adults have to weigh in. And then who cares what the two of you say.
Great post. I found Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow helpful in exploring cognitive biases that fool us, and often the media. In the areas of extreme weather and flooding a pervasive availability bias and substitution bias canonize truths of a new normal that is really an old extreme – some examples: https://www.chijournal.org/C449
Fortunately we have had some success with Canada’s state broadcaster, through Ombudsman enforcement of standards for accuracy, to delete articles “confirming” more extreme rainfall that was not unsupported by any evidence (https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1752927/climate-change-rci-ombudsman-revision … Translation of the notice: “Climate change article deleted: Environment Canada confirms rain becomes more extreme … For editorial reasons, the management of RCInet.ca has decided to remove this article from its platforms. On November 19, 2020, the CBC ombudsman published a review noting numerous inaccuracies in the article Climate change: Environment Canada confirms rain becomes more extreme. After taking note of the ombudsman’s conclusions, the management of RCInet.ca chose to delete the article, originally published on June 3, 2020 …”). The Ombudsman review (based on my complaint) is quite scathing https://site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/media/5702/review-robert-muir-november-19-2020-sw.pdf
In this case Environment Canada’s research cited by the media confirmed only that daily and 5-day precipitation totals had increased in many regions, and that modeling was confirmed with observed data. But the state broadcaster erroneously confirmed extreme rainfall linked to flooding increased as well (despite the fact that the cited research did not do so and given that our Engineering Climate Datasets show no overall increase in extremes https://www.cityfloodmap.com/2020/07/how-have-rainfall-intensities-changed.html). Sometimes Groupthink is amplified by the media that fails to understand the limits of the research they are citing, leading them extrapolate to unsupported conclusions they have already accepted as undeniable truths.
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Robert Muir,
I did watch this ombusman story about bad climate reporting . First I am so grateful of your involment to have decent scientific reporting in our public network. In the French Network, the climate disinformation level is even higher, but I don’t have your courage and determination to fight it. Thank you.
You’re welcome François. The French Network Ombudsman has been consistent in calling out in accurate reporting, as he did in 2019 as well: https://www.rcinet.ca/en/2019/01/30/how-to-mitigate-the-effects-and-flood-damage-from-climate-change/ … obviously the reporter in question is a repeat offender of the CBC accuracy standards.
‘Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.’
You just have to look at the Sky News reports Alan Lowry posts – as excruciating as that is.
Some people are better at self reflection than others. The better you are at opening yourself up to vulnerability the more likely you are to be a person who is more open minded. Critical thinking is opening yourself up to the possibility that you are wrong. This is a vulnerable position for an individual and by extension a group to be in because when vulnerability is displayed, uncertainty gets a bigger foothold and questions about what is “true” arise. As a scientist, you have to constantly put yourself in that position. As long is one goes by evidence based analysis to evaluate where one is on the spectrum of “consensus”, the more likely one can conclude what “true” is.
How well do you self reflect?
Hey John,
Long time no “see.” Good to “see” you.
Do you think that evaluating where one is on the spectrum of “consensus” can be information that’s useful for weighing the probabilities, and opening yourself up to the possibility that you’re wrong?
If you think a certain analysis is true, and all the other people with similar expertise think you’re wrong, it doesn’t mean that therefore you’re wrong; but doesn’t it imply a greater likelihood that you’re wrong, and give you even more reason to be critical of your thinking, to double-check your analysis?
Hey Joshua,
Ya, been awhile.
To answer your question, yes of course. If you have contrarian ideas, then you have to substantiate your claims with very good evidence and not fall to emotional yearnings of what you want to be “true”. But the flip side is also true, if your ideas are strongly aligned with a consensus, you have to watch you are not getting overly confident and dismissing inconvenient evidence that may suggest a consensus has some flaws in what is believed to be “true”. Not letting your emotions tie you into a specific idea.
Both sides have to be careful of getting too strongly attached to their ideas. I think we scientists like to believe we are accounting for our emotional biases through rigorous evaluations of evidence and therefore making sound conclusions of what is true, but humans are emotional creatures who make often make decisions based on their emotions.
In reality, I don’t think it’s really that binary which is why I described it as being on a spectrum.
+1
This is all well and good but the problems Judith points to are structural and cultural.
1. Strong positive bias in the literature.
2. This is partially caused by the corruption of the soft money culture.
3. Another cause is naive cultural beliefs such as ‘if I include all the physics’ and have a big enough computer l’ll get the right answer.
4. Sarawetz point to a broad cultural belief that science is a long string of positive results.
5. Senior scientists subtle power over more junior researchers.
These things won’t change without structural reforms. Scattered Individuals ‘doing the right thing’ won’t make much difference.
> Strong positive bias
Looks like you invented a new concept, David.
What’s that?
dpy6629 wrote:
1. Strong positive bias in the literature.
Let’s discuss your bias, while noting you constantly ignore data and evidence.
2. This is partially caused by the corruption of the soft money culture.
I always assume people who claim this are themselves corrupted by money. So they assume everyone else is too.
This is flippant and attacking me personally. We actually have a paper on this that will be submitted soon. It contains some of the negative results that have been very easy to find but hidden for decades. I can send the manuscript if you want to really understand the issue.
The mechanism is easy to understand. I have used this rationalization too in the 1980’s before I really looked carefully at the theoretical lack of underpinnings for a lot of CFD. The codes are giant machines with hundreds of knobs. The team will often work for years on a new class of problem determining the “right” settings that give convincing results. Then a result if published and all the less convincing results filed in the desk drawer. The narrative is that “I just needed to find the right way to run the code.” The problem is that in most cases, the numerical errors and modeling errors are larger than the output quantities desired so the apparent skill results from cancellation of errors. As soon as a new class of problems is looked at, these settings no longer work.
> We actually have a paper on this that will be submitted soon.
It’s been a while now:
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/15/denizens-ii/#comment-674810
What is “wrong?” That atmo CO2 doesn’t cause warming? That’s correct. That with feedbacks climate sensitivity is >= 2 C. That’s true.
This is bad enough and all the reason we need to act urgently.
What do you all expect is going to happen to reverse this, and why do you care anyway if AGW is true? You might have to finally pay for your pollution and paying taxes makes you very very very angry?
“This is bad enough and all the reason we need to act urgently.”
David Appell, do you truly believe you are representing the climate debate correctly? If Lewis and Curry and dozens of other studies that put climate sensitivity <=2C are correct then you are incorrect that urgent action is required. It would mean there is no need to require the pain and suffering that urgent action would bring in order to prevent more pain and suffering that may arise as a result of an insignificant warming, for which there would also be known benefits as well.
"Urgent action" in government policies translate necessarily to loss of liberty. Many historically have artificially skewed problems as urgent as a pretext to usurp more power. Even for those that are honest brokers and good public servants can make a mistake by causing more harm than they mitigate. Don't we all agree on this?
John Carpenter wrote:
Both sides have to be careful of getting too strongly attached to their ideas.
John, should scientists be careful of getting attached to Planck’s Law?
What about the absorption spectra of CO2, CH4, N2O, and water vapor?
What about the laws of thermodynamics?
These are all we need to deduce anthropogenic global warming from anthropogenic emissions of GHGs.
Of course David there is science that is much more agreed upon than other science that is built off of the more agreed upon science. Absorption spectra of compounds aren’t really being challenged or basic laws of thermodynamics. Just because we have accepted first principles to describe different basic observations doesn’t mean they are always applied correctly to describe more complex problems. We have a good working theory for the universe and another for atomic interactions yet we still don’t have a good working theory that combines them all together in one elegant description. Some scientists think string theory will be the solution while others think quantum gravity might hold the answer. I would bet those scientists working in their respective fields of inquiry are attached to their ideas. It’s simple human nature.
The interesting thing about imagining and modeling new ideas is looking for the evidence to support the idea. Mathematically modeled ideas/systems have predictions of observables. It’s just a matter of time for those observables to be seen or not.
For me personally, I accept anthropogenic ghg’s will lead to warming. How much warming is a different issue and like I said, observables will be a matter of time. In the meantime, how do we manage the risk? I think there are a lot of scientists attached to certain ideas about that.
OK, good. How do we manage the risk? Which risks? Sea level rise? How are the X cities on coasts around the world to manage sea level rise? In Charleston SC over the last 20 years sea level is rising 1 inch every 34 months. What should they do? What about Key West, who is slowly being inundated? They’re thinking of spending a billion or two on raising roads (my money and your’s). Is that a good way to manage the risk of sea level rise? Esp since the sea will keep rising after 2100, 3 feet, 6 feet, etc until we stop the warming, which we will do by stopping emissions. It all comes back to emissions.
I’m interested in your thoughts.
Dave
No, the seas around Charleston will not stop rising until we stop the warming. The subsidence of Charleston, at a rate of 5” per century per NOAA, has occurred since Charleston’s founding in the 17th Century. The city has had flooding problems throughout its history. The water has been rising in Charleston long before AGW. It will continue to do so, regardless of CO2 emissions. Per NOAA, RSLR in Charleston has been rising 1.1 foot per Century since it tidal gauge record began in 1899.
We are coming out of the LIA and GMSLR has been evident since early 1800s. Two of the 3 causes of RSLR in the city are natural. Charleston has a problem, but it’s a problem that preceded CO2, and its problem will be there long after the CO2 issue goes away.
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One of the key issues in all this is if arguments were framed sufficiently long ago that a majority of the population have never read the original evidence because it was trotted out as true by authority figures (e.g. university undergraduates having been exposed to school teachers and then University Lecturers). Often, even gaining access to such evidence is very difficult for the majority (it is one of those things that shouldn’t be true any longer with e-libraries, but reality suggests to us all that it still is).
I well remember reading hundreds and hundreds of new research papers in the field of tumour virology back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, all of which stated that ‘xxxx causes yyyy tumours’. What those papers never said was the truth, which was that yes, a few rare cases of tumours occurred, but the most common outcome was nothing of the sort. It is an exact mirror to the truth about SARS-CoV2 today (where infection of the vast majority causes precisely nothing at all to happen). It was only by going back to read either textbooks written by medical professionals rather than research scientists, who going back 20-80 years to read seminal original papers, that I actually discovered what the truth was.
So any thinking person’s default point of view when listening to modern biologists should be: ‘are these people just regurgitating the mantras they learned in the PhDs or is that actually the true reality?’
In modern climate science the absolute elephant in the room is quite simple: the world has simply not collected high quality global-wide data for enough years to know more than how the global climate has evolved in the odd Gleissberg Cycle or two.
People can lie until the cows come home, but data before 1950 was rudimentary and fragmented, and until 1980 and satellites came along, even with the Radiosonde balloons and the land-based temperature networks, things were still only reasonable.
I view all this from afar as being akin to convening the most learned bunch of Harvard Professors to select their 2036 intake in 2021 from a bunch of 3 year olds.
Of course, it would be an interesting scientific experiment to carry out, to see quite how well you could select out the best of the best at the age of 3.
But common sense and historical evidence does suggest that many great talents emerge rather more slowly, some only emerge when unfavourable parental environments are overcome by enlightened school teachers and some are only triggered toward academic excellence by some event yet to have occurred in their lives.
rtj1211 wrote:
One of the key issues in all this is if arguments were framed sufficiently long ago that a majority of the population have never read the original evidence because it was trotted out as true by authority figures (e.g. university undergraduates having been exposed to school teachers and then University Lecturers).
The Warming Papers: The Scientific Foundation for the Climate Change Forecast 1st Edition
by David Archer (Editor), Raymond Pierrehumbert (Editor)
“The Warming Papers is a compendium of the classic scientific papers that constitute the foundation of the global warming forecast. The paper trail ranges from Fourier and Arrhenius in the 19th Century to Manabe and Hansen in modern times. Archer and Pierrehumbert provide introductions and commentary which places the papers in their context and provide students with tools to develop and extend their understanding of the subject.”
https://www.amazon.com/Warming-Papers-Scientific-Foundation-Forecast/dp/1405196165
rtj:
Does the Earth’s surface emit infrared radiation?
Does CO2 absorb it?
Does your body emit IR radiation?
Does a cotton blanket absorb it?
If you are in a bed with 500 wool blankets interleaved with 10 cotton blankets, and the last cotton blanket is on top, how much warmer would you be if there were 20 cotton blankets, with the last two of them on top?
Jay
David Appell’s comments raise some questions.
He speaks of a 99+% consensus. Given that the publications that purported to show even a 97% consensus have all been shown to have been beset with serious methodological issues, I wonder about the source of his number. In any event, the overwhelming consensus among classical physicists in 1895 should put to rest any notions of the ultimate worth of consensus.
Another problem I have with his reliance on CO2 as the predominate climate driver is that paleoclimatologists have conclusively shown that over the extended period of the earth’s history, there is no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. Unless the laws of physics have changed in the last 150 years, CO2 cannot be the main driver. There must be other factors involved.
The IPCC has described climate science as being “non-linear, coupled, and chaotic”. In other words, it is far from simple and, given our lack of knowledge about chaotic/complex systems, certainly not settled. The nature of complex systems also raises serious problems as to whether a focus on a small portion of climate change, i.e., human based production of CO2 over a very short time frame, can yield meaningful results.
The consensus is 99.94% of scientists, this study found:
“The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming Matters,” James Lawrence Powell, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, May 24, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/0270467617707079
The consensus is 99.94% of scientists, this study found:
“The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming Matters,” James Lawrence Powell, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, May 24, 2017.
On moderation for speaking the truth.
Can’t post a citation
99.94%
“The Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming Matters,” James Lawrence Powell, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, May 24, 2017.
Physicists in 1895 had no evidence of a quantum world.
99.94%
James Lawrence Powell, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, May 24, 2017.
99.94%
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, May 24, 2017
Unbelievable how much I had to pare that citation down to get it past the moderator. Almost to where it’s useless.
Another problem I have with his reliance on CO2 as the predominate climate driver is that paleoclimatologists have conclusively shown that over the extended period of the earth’s history, there is no correlation between CO2 levels and temperature.
Nope, sorry, that’s wrong. The surface emits IR, and CO2 absorbs it. Basic physics.
David Appell, I see this comment has not gotten slapped down and it’s been two days. I guess nobody thought is was worth the time to tell you why you are wrong since I bet they have told you a dozen times before.
The surface emitting IR and CO2 absorbing I agree is the basis for the global warming hypothesis. But is is the reason for the guess it is not even close to a proof of anything. The reasons for that are known to all here:
1) How much warming matters.
2) As the CO2 absorbing 12 micron band approaches saturation its power to absorb diminishes. The more CO2 the less fresh additions have an effect.
3) CO2 is not the only variable affecting climate change.
4) The best ice core records and other temperature proxy data show no evidence that CO2 had ever been a driver of climate change. On the contrary, it’s always a follower, not a cause, at least as far back as the good proxies go, 1/2 million years last I saw. Al Gore’s movie was a falsification of this by highlighting correlation to infer CO2 causation instead of explaining the known true causation, ocean uptake of CO2 during the cold cycles.
5) The physics show it highly likely that CO2 drives some warming. But there is also evidence of warming in the pre-industrial times when CO2 levels were known to be static.
6) The warming since pre-industrial times does not correlate very well with the CO2 concentration curve (Keeling).
7) The radiative physics, CO2’s warming power only accounts for a rise in global temperature of 1.1C per doubling over hundred years plus. This is only half of the 2C you posted in a comment that you say “we know” it causes. But even the 2C could be benign. Alarmists and IPCC realize they need much more warming than that.
8) The claims of severe weather are baseless so far based on statistical history (science).
9) Sea level rise is a problem with or without CO2. It’s a product of the last 10,000 years of glacial decline, (which is a good thing.) We should focus on direct solutions for it. Extracting CO2 from the atmosphere is about the least effective idea to combat sea level rise.
10) If you agree that CO2 emission needs to be zero within a couple decades and you don’t want nuclear power plants James Hansen thinks you’re crazy.
The woke left are building a new consensus:
….
47 Scientists: World Should Go 100% Renewable Electricity By 2030
….
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/04/10/47-scientists-world-should-go-100-renewable-electricity-by-2030/
/ I’ve woken up in a hotel room, my worries as big as the moon
..
I won’t take the easy road
The easy road, the easy road
I won’t take the easy road
The easy road, the easy road
Show me my silver lining, I try to keep on keeping on /
https://youtu.be/sNNYtm2XJGc
Why is it “woke” to want to prevent worsening consequences of global warming?
Do you prefer those consequences? Why would you — I’m curious.
We’ve had global warming since the mid-1970s, and it has been good news.
Mild warming, mainly affecting colder climates in the Northern Hemisphere, mainly during the colder months of the year, and mainly at night.
Warmer winter nights in Siberia and Alaska are good news, not bad news.
I’m talking about ACTUAL warming, not the always wrong, wild guess predictions of a coming climate crisis, that started with Roger Revelle in 1957.
You green zealots have claimed a climate crisis is coming for 64 years so far, since 1957.
Yet the actual climate in 2021 is the best since the 1600s, for humans, animals and plants.
And more CO2 in the atmosphere is greening the planet — even NASA reluctantly admits that.
So our ACTUAL global warming is wonderful, and your imaginary coming climate crisis is just a figment of over-active leftist imaginations.
People who assume CO2 increases caused the warming since the 1970s, by asserting that natural causes of climate change are “noise”, claim the same rate of CO2 growth will cause MUCH FASTER warming in the future.
The SAME CO2 inputs will cause VERY DIFFERENT global average temperature outputs (mild past warming vs. future rapid warming) ? ?
That belief meets a common definition of insanity.
But I’m sure Mr. Appleman will claim rapid warming HAS to happen, because it was predicted in a papers that passed peer review, and even got published. In his world, that’s all you need to create “truth”.
Never mind 64 years of wrong coming climate crisis predictions.
Never mind climate computer games whose average prediction is for 100%+ more warming than actually happens.
We’ve got to trust the latest coming climate crisis predictions, because they were made by government bureaucrat scientists, who are big shots — they have had papers published.
So how could they be wrong ?
Periods of warm global climate used to be called, “optimums” before that term was ruled politically incorrect.
The renewable solution-
As everyone knows, Texas / ERCOT lost 30-40% of electric generation from natural gas for 18 hours on Feb 15, 2021 , and continued with a loss of electric generation from natural gas of approx 20-25% for another 36 hours. (2 1/2 days)
Electric generation from wind and solar lost 70-95% electric generation for a period of 9 days starting in Feb 12th. This loss of power was not only in Texas but across the entire north American continent for those 9 Days. The greens claim that Wind & solar did not fail because they “performed equal to or better than expected”. The weather forecast 2 days ahead predicted wind would produce less than 10% of capacity, but since wind produced up to 20% of capacity intermittently for several hours over those 9 days, wind “performed better than expected.
Therefore renewables are the solution – at least among the green advocates.
As I have said, If someone cant grasp some basic engineering concepts, how can they grasp the complexities of climate science.
If Texas had been smart enough to connect to the national grid, they could have avoided all their problems, and gotten wind and solar power from elsewhere.
David Appell | April 11, 2021 at 4:31 pm |
“If Texas had been smart enough to connect to the national grid, they could have avoided all their problems, and gotten wind and solar power from elsewhere.”
David – I am going to repeat the statement –
Electric generation from wind and solar lost 70-95% electric generation for a period of 9 days starting in Feb 12th. This loss of power was not only in Texas but across the entire north American continent for those 9 Days.
Summary – electric power generation from Wind & solar lost 70% – 90% over a 9 DAY PERIOD ACROSS THE ENTIRE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT – That was from Feb 12 through Feb 19
Where would ERCOT get the wind and power electric generation from ? Europe?
As I said – If someone cant grasp some basic engineering concepts, how can they possibly grasp the complexities of climate science.
Contemporary generating systems all require excess capacity and multiple redundancies. It is a basic engineering reality at odds with contrarian memes.
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_article_width/public/2020/04/f74/2019_Capacity%20Factor%20by%20Source_horz.png
Robert
Your graph is useless for any generation source except nuclear, wind, solar, and maybe hydro. These sources generally produce power whenever they are capable of producing power. The capacity factor for the others reflects when they are needed. There used to be another metric used called ‘capability factor’ which addressed that difference. I don’t see it used anymore though…no idea why.
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I might be able to help with David Appell from my days in Oregon and following climate, starting in 2008.. He basically lives and breathes to troll on any ‘realist’ site. At the time his claim of credentials were highly questioned. In any event, he became a joke to the realist community and it was pretty easy to address his claims. However, he was always brilliant and ducking and dodging and throwing out side issues. He will definitely attempt to provoke and in fact has it down to a fine art. You may find, as other sites have, that the best success is to totally ignore him. Act like he’s not even in the room. Don’t address him, as it’s just putting logs on the fire. As you can see above, it’s fruitless. Correct him and he’ll come back with another tidbit, egging you to get into a never-ending spiral.
What you mean is Chuck Wiese repeatedly lied about my credentials. Now you’re doing it too.
Dear David,
You are an activist journalist, with climate politics your avocation.
To be a scientist, you have to think like a scientist. That means being interested in and pursuing objective reality, not political themes and associated climate nonsense.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA
Appell: I don’t lie about anything that I have discussed with you or others about the climate, including your credentials.
When I first engaged you over the climate, I questioned your credentials because of the rudimentary mistakes you made in discussing atmospheric science as related to the climate.
Frankly, Appel, you don’t write or speak about this subject like other scientists I have communicated with which demonstrate a mastery or command of their subject matter of their discipline such as in physics, from which you hold a PhD.
Then and like now on this blog, you politically posture rather than use science as you should to make your points and ignore what others point out to you that show you are in error. It is impossible to have a scientific discussion with someone like this who seems hopelessly lost in political blather over scientific substance.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Dear Gordon J. Fulks, PhD,
When I click on your name, I get:
http://co2coalition.org/
Glass and stones, pot and kettle, etc.
Chuck.
Thank you for shining your medal. It helps to find testimonies like this one:
https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2018R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/145657
Many thanks!
‘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.’ https://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709
Neither the IPPC reports or anything at WUWT – or the wild contrarian theories found here – are science. The IPCC reports are summaries of science. The summary for policy makers in IPCC reports emerges as a negotiated political consensus. Contrarians are all over the place with po-faced memes interminably repeated – as long as it is not CO2. Confusing that with the products of science is ignorance.
The best of science is difficult, fruitful and inspiring. I’d suggest ignoring the IPCC and WUWT and drilling down to the dominant scientific paradigm mentioned in passing above. The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is driven by anthropogenic emissions. This results in – inter alia – changes in radiative properties in the atmosphere that are calculable with some precision based on extensive observation over going on 200 years. The planet exhibits perpetual change in regimes and tipping points with small changes in control variables projecting into large changes in the system state. Then one has to understand the limitations of science. Ask Judith if she believes in the dominant climate paradigm.
The essential response is energy innovation and returning carbon to soils and ecosystems. Alarmists continue to focus on energy taxes. Politically a failed strategy and conceptually of very limited value. Contrarians purport to prove the thesis that CO2 is good or that it doesn’t change climate – inevitably based on ignorance, confusion and scientific incompetence. Both sides are simplistic, dogmatic and condemn the other. These are outliers on the spectrum of beliefs on climate science – noisy but not influential.
https://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709
I’d like to add this from Alan Savory.
Robert,
A sincere thank you for this. Credible, uplifting and illuminating.
Also highly relevant to the topic of groupthink.
“…still being dismissed out of hand by establishment thinking.”
“…50 years of struggling against official opposition.”
I smiled at that. Savory recommended as a biologist to culling 40,000 elephants. Based on an old idea of fixed carrying capacity. The idea evolved from wanting a better way of doing things.
The fundamental ideas relevant to increasing soil organic content are not in doubt – other than perhaps whether natural grazing patterns can be mimicked with mob grazing.
Huge progress is being made in agronomy as elsewhere.
‘Policy scientist’. Oh for God’s sake Judith.
Daniel Sarewitz has a Ph.D from Cornell in Geological Sciences. Don’t be too dismissive – many of his views co-incide with your own.
A policy wonk is not any kind of a natural scientist. I may agree with the policy – but it goes well beyond science as such.
Substituting confirmation and disconfirmation biases underlie the motivated reasoning of modern academia, torching logic and the scientific method like a bad witch.
Given that southern Australia is typically drier during a centennial solar minimum due to increase in El Nino conditions, I would predict that recent maximum temperatures would be very similar to those in the late 1870’s to 1890’s.
Sorry I replied to the wrong comment.
DA,
You cannot compare smartness this way. For example, some of these peer reviewers are quite young compared to my 80 years.They still have many years to make big mistakes, while I have avoided them.
Sarah P-K has written about heat waves in Australia. Sarah went to Uni in 2002, I started in 1959. She repeats a long-held myth, recently asserted again in that AAS paper page 11, “Heatwaves on land and sea are increasing in length, frequency and intensity.” About 2002, I went back to original observations from the historic record and wrote an essay, later updated, demonstrating that this was not the case for most of the 6 Australian capital cities, which have the longest records and the homes of more than 75% of our population.
Some years back, I sent my findings as an essay to the Bureau of Meteorology, who refused to consider them because they had not been peer-reviewed and accepted. Even a cursory look at the essay would have shown that BOM had a problem that needed fixing before this particular heatwave myth took off and became entrenched in the consensus. (As it now has.)
I am a scientist who believes that publication and peer review should be judiciously related to new findings in science at a somewhat fundamental advance level. My essay on city heatwaves involves no more computation than adding up and taking away simple numbers. It is clearly bad advice by BOM to submit this work to them only as an accepted scientific paper when it so lacks this fundamental advance of science element. Too many authors submit junk science for formal publication and I am not among the culprits.
……………………
This little capsule tale has many elements that illustrate problems discussed in the head post here on this blog. Geoff S
‘In the last 200 years, severe and extreme heatwaves have cost more lives than any other natural hazard in Australia1. Heatwaves affect healthcare, transport, emergency services, energy, agriculture and many other sectors.’
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/knowledge-centre/blogs.shtml
Heatwaves in Australia In a hotter world will be longer, more severe and more frequent. There is vigorous natural variability and some 0.3 degrees C anthropogenic warming in the past 40 years. The latter may be marginal but it adds up.
Geoff’s methodology isn’t nearly technically competent and I am not surprised it got short shift. And they all ignore him because they have groupthink. Is there a contrarian pattern emerging?
Nairn, J. and Fawcett, R. 2013.
Defining heatwaves: heatwave defined as a heat-impact event servicing all community and business sectors in Australia
CAWCR Technical Report No. 060
RIE, show me a single error in my work, or plain shut up.
All I did was to graph how heat waves of various lengths of days in 6 capital cities do NOT show everywhere the claimed longer, hotter, more frequent heat wave myth.
You have to explain the simple, basic objections, before you rely on authors like Nairn who has to invent special definitions to suit his theories, while failing to mention the simple patterns I show. Geoff S
It is not a ‘special definition’ – it is based on WMO definitions – that I have introduced you to – together with some simple math. But the odds of you having the patience and humility to acquis some expertise in the field are very long. Peer review is largely a quality control check – real review occurs in the wild following publication. You haven’t cleared the first hurdle – and like contrarians do whine that you are being discriminated against.
160 year old physics says that the world should be warmer because of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions – and at even half the warming of the past 40 years – it is. This has implication for heatwaves. So I would pretty much discount your ‘results’ on first principles. Nor is your simplistic analysis of any great interest or significance. There is far better science to be getting on with. You should review your assumptions – something diagnostically difficult for groupthinkers. Your nonsense posted in the context of motivated reasoning is risible.
Robert Ellison says: “160 year old physics says that the world should be warmer because of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions – and at even half the warming of the past 40 years – it is. This has implication for heatwaves.”
This is nonsense and shows that you ignored or are not aware of the radiative physics of water vapor and the earth’s hydrological cycle that dwarf the effects of CO2 as later showed by those like Elsasser whose work superseded the isolated examples of the radiative effects of CO2 from Arrhenius and Tyndall.
The hydrodynamics of the atmosphere show us that radiative equilibrium is an impossible concept to maintain with water vapor because its spectral absorption and emission are so powerful. The result is a transformation to convective equilibrium which involves cloud production and loss of solar insolation to the surface. That is a negative feedback to increasing atmospheric CO2 because Co2’s radiation is not thermalized out of bandwidth, it is re-radiated by molecular collision of excited inert molecules back to the IR active ones like CO2. The atmosphere loses, not gains heat energy from this transfer of energy through the atmosphere by the GHG’s and the warming effect is realized as a slowing of the cooling rate at the surface.
Every time I ask someone like yourself where the measurements of the change in earth optical depth are as INTEGRATED OVER ALL IR WAVELENGTHS, not just CO2, I get radio silence. Do you have these measurements or are you going to continue to speculate with superseded concepts that CO2 is responsible for the heatwaves you speak of by using failed climate models ?
Recently and over the last few years, I could show you new all time record low temperatures that were set around the world, some that were new records that broke the old by over 100 years when atmospheric CO2 was 33% lower. How can this be if CO2 is successfully blocking IR radiation from the surface such that it is controlling on the earths’ temperature?
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Climate perpetually changes in regimes and tipping points. Discovered in hundreds of geophysical series since hydrologist Harold Hurst analysed nearly a 1000 year of Nile River level data in the first half of the last century. As a hydrologist who has investigated natural variability over 40 years – your points are misguided, simplistic and without merit.
Climate is a nonlinear, coupled, chaotic system. Not predictable with today’s science. Radiative forcing by diverse gases is much more precisely quantified.
“The simultaneous developments of high-resolution laboratory instrumentation (such as the Fourier transform spectrometer), the digital computer and storage, and sensitive detectors and the means to carry them on board high-altitude balloons and space craft provided the stimulus to create a machine-readable archive of the fundamental properties of molecular transitions. It was then possible to simulate transmission and radiance in the terrestrial atmosphere by applying known radiative-transfer equations. Thus was born the original HITRAN molecular absorption line parameters database.
The initial HITRAN was limited to the seven main telluric atmospheric absorbers in the infrared: H2O, CO2, O3, N2O, CO, CH4, and O2. The most significant of the isotopologues of these molecular species was also included. The initial HITRAN database included only the basic parameters necessary to solve the Lambert-Beers law of transmission, namely the line center of a transition, the intensity of the transition, and the lower-state energy. In addition, the air-broadened Lorentz width was included as well as the unique quantum identifications of the upper and lower states of each transition.
Before long, the objectives of HITRAN greatly expanded. The spectral range of applicability soon covered the microwave through visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In terms of physics, that meant transitions of pure rotation as well as ro-vibration (and even some transitions between different electronic states). The applications also went beyond the simple atmosphere, and many molecules were added that represented trace species in the atmosphere and pollutants in the troposphere. More recently, HITRAN has served the planetary atmospheres community. As a result, the transitions in the database have incorporated more basic parameters, especially those that allow simulation of collisional broadening of spectral lines.
The current and planned remote-sensing satellite missions had also put new demands on HITRAN for precision and accuracy. The line positions and intensities are being acquired at unprecedented accuracy.” https://hitran.org/about/
RIE,
That AAS quote includes alleged heat waves over sea. There is abundant T observation that SST above 30C is rare. The capacity for heat waves to be longer, hotter and more often cannot be assumed. The raw data from land near seas support this contention in the cases I studied back when. Since SST can influence land T, why do you dream up mechanisms that conflict with simple observation? Is it purely from indoctrination in your earlier years that leads you to go on quoting the selected work of others, or have you done original research that supports your preferences? If so, please let us know what it was.
The mechanisms that motivate these AAS authors and reviewers, as well as your good self, have been puzzling and unexplained to me from my start with climate change in 1992. Big problems would be resolved if we could comprehend and cure this rush of the lemmings. Geoff S
I quote authoritative sources and published science – or succinctly expressed ideas I agree with gleaned from my broad, reading compulsively memory palaced. . The quote was in fact from the BOM heatwave page. This is what scientists do – when not testing hypotheses.
Before testing hypotheses effort is needed in broad reading of sufficient science to form a synthesis across a field. Enough at least to understand the massively dominant climate paradigm. 10,000 hours they say. I suspect that Geoff is a 10 minute internet expert. This is something – btw – fundamentally not consensus on lowest common denominators. It usually comes before proposing revolution.
Leaving aside Geoff’s other tendentious arguments – and his typically gratuitous calumny – what I have done for 40 years is examine the evidence on atmospheric radiative physics and – mostly – the mechanisms of natural variability. One does not negate the other.
The policy response is all too clear. Not to see it by now is a terminal confusion emerging from motivated reasoning in the context of narcissistic personalities . The wonder to me is that crazy contrarians keep digging.
“So what’s not to like about Climate Pragmatism? The no regrets aspect of this implies that nothing is lost and there are still benefits if the threat doesn’t materialize.” https://judithcurry.com/2011/07/31/climate-pragmatism/
Such as Geoff are politically, scientifically and socially marginal. They hold out the hope that things will change to favor their indisputable and different truths all based on some empirical evidence – and that the world will see the error of its ways. Utterly policy irrelevant but they persist in imagining that they are modern day Galileos bringing light to a benighted world.
Robert Ellison: Instead of answering my question, you, like every other climate hysteric I come across, rambles on about nothing of significance to address my question, and proceeds to lecture a person who studied IR radiative transfer and knows more about it than your post reveals that you do.
The fact that HITRAN and other code was developed to give more precise answers about energy absorption and transmission at every particular IR wavenumber is irrelevant. The central question goes to how these IR active gases behave in the earth’s atmosphere when coupled with the earth’s hydrological cycle that includes development and destruction of cloud cover and precipitation which affects IR transfer through the system profoundly IN ADDITION to shortwave solar insolation received by the sun at the surface. ALL of this radiation affects the climate system, not just IR absorption and emission from atmospheric CO2, which is insignificant as a single absorber.
You claim my points are “without merit” and yet, the founding principles from atmospheric science regarding the behavior of water vapor and clouds in the system were identified as a negative feedback, not positive in the system, and because of this and earth hydrostatics, the optical depth of the earth is expected to remain remarkably stable regardless of what atmospheric CO2 is doing.
And that goes back to my question to you. Where are the all sky measurements of earth optical depth, meaning integrated over all wavelengths that shows the tau value of total earth optical depth has increased over time with atmospheric CO2? That is needed to validate climate model projections. I know you can’t provide it because cloud cover and water vapor concentration in time and spatial coordinates is always changing, is illusive, and would be an extremely cumbersome task to calculate.
So someone like you will settle for climate model projections, which are, in essence, expensive overrated heaps of junk that cannot predict water vapor transport and transformation to cloud accurately in space time coordinates, and yet, we are to believe these projections of harmful earth warming from rising atmospheric CO2 is due to its radiative forcing, even when the absorption and emission of water vapor and clouds surround and totally dominate CO2 over the entire IR spectrum, and further, that the expectation from moist hydrostatics reveals that the feedbacks from the hydrological cycle if CO2 is increasing would be negative. meaning CO2 is not controlling on temperature.
These concepts superseded Arrhenius and Tyndall, yet you further claim that my points are “simplistic, misguided and without merit.” My take on your response is (like other climate hysterics present that I encounter) that you gave a non answering, evasive and nonsensical rambling to attempt to deflect your answer into a rolled up and convoluted ball of poppycock that makes a sorry attempt to dissemble and distort so as to hope to evade detection that you can’t answer the question and therefore have no scientific merit to claim that atmospheric CO2 is causing any temperature changes, let alone the earth’s climate, and further, the expectations from the founding principles in atmospheric science derived 70 years ago revealed that atmospheric CO2 is a GHG of only secondary significance in the atmosphere and has no controlling effect on the the earths greenhouse effect. Your “without merit” claim goes against the very fact that these concepts in atmospheric science were peer reviewed, accepted and taught at every major university offering degrees in atmospheric science for 40 years and to date have not been disproven , but merely supplanted with failed climate models.
This after 30 years of this public money pimping fraud, whose “solutions’ to this fake climate crisis are to waste even more money on “green energy” projects which will accomplish NOTHING with respect to the earth’s climate or atmospheric CO2 levels along with the insanity of carbon taxes and other “green regulations” falsely claiming they accomplish “carbon neutrality”.
This whole convoluted story about how atmospheric CO2 is changing the climate is one of the worst abuses of science I have ever seen, IMO, and I don’t know how the perpetrators of this crap in academia can sleep at night. We know who the biggest offenders are.
Are you part of this, Ellison? Your posts contain loads of unprovable blather that tend to want to support this racket.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Your problem seemed to be that we don’t have a clue as the absorption of radiatively active molecules there are dozens – other than CO2 in the atmosphere. We do. HITRAN is a high resolution molecular absorption database. It emerged from US Air Force research in the 1960’s. It provides an observational basis for line by line solution of Schwarzschild’s equation for radiative transfer.
The Earth system – including its hydrology – is dynamically complex. Do you have a clue what that means? Ultimately only observation can provide a solid scientific foundation for analysis. Anything else is not science at all.
What does this tell you?
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/ceres_ebaf-toa_ed4.0_anom_toa_shortwave_flux-all-sky_march-2000todecember-2018-1.png
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/ceres_ebaf-toa_ed4.1_anom_toa_longwave_flux-all-sky_march-2000tojune-2019.png
Instead we get from from crazy contrarian contrarian memes that you deem concepts – replete with all the usual inconsequential whines.
Robert Ellison
engineer-hydrologist-scientist
Robert Ellison: What do your graphs tell me? Absolutely NOTHING concerning what I asked you. Showing plots of these graphs reveals you know little about IR radiative transfer through an atmosphere or computing the change in optical depth which these graphs do not do.
Even attempting to calculate an “all sky” LW flux from the surface is fraught with uncertainty as instructed from the CERES people who explain the limitations of that alone here:
KEY LIMITATIONS:
Clear-sky fluxes in EBAF are determined only when the satellite observes a cloud-free region. Most climate models compute clear-sky fluxes for every gridbox by removing clouds in the computation. This can result in substantial regional differences.
There is some noise in EBAF clear-sky TOA fluxes due to use of limited number of MODIS channels.
See full list of strengths and weaknesses in the discussions below. The link is from the UCAR NCAR climate data guide.
For someone who just said there is nothing science based at all without observation, you just demonstrated you don’t understand optical depth and its significance to downwelling IR radiation or somehow might think because YOU don’t understand the concept that your graphs are showing what I asked you to provide, which they don’t. Do you get that or do you even remotely comprehend the limitations of data you present and what it means?
So I’ll ask, do YOU have a clue as to what you could expect to derive from these graphs as displayed and what significance they have to anything with their narrow time constraints? They are NOT computations of totally integrated earth optical depth. Further, where are the uncertainty bars in the methods used which again use modeling construct to massage and calculate the results? You didn’t provide any so it is not even clear the flux values are anywhere close to an accurate assessment of something that is not even an optical depth calculation.
I again ask you, which you continue to fail to provide, where are the tau values for totally integrated optical depth and its change thru time that proves it matches the CO2 flux?
You didn’t provide them and you can’t provide them because they don’t exist, and yet you persist with your climate hysteria claims that are unfounded using the correct physics and pepper blogs like this with a lot of unsupported blather and data that is not anywhere close to providing the proof that is necessary to show your assertions about CO2 and climate are correct.
And I duly note that along with this comes the usual arrogance from those like you that promote climate hysteria that like to assert only you know what is happening and any other opinions are invalid even though you fail to prove this. That is synonymous with the description of a fool, not a scientist.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
It was of course precise all-sky measurements in an observing system.
Causes?
https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/6/3/62
Models?
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL086705
You are hilarious – but I will now definitively conclude.
Robert I. Ellison
hydrologist-engineer-scientist
… observing system purpose designed…
No, you are hilarious, Robert.
TOA flux changes are not optical depths. And these TOA fluxes are fraught with assumptions that are not actual measurements but made from modeling assumptions about the surface conditions that the CERES people admit contain large differences when computing between cloudy and clear regions. Why did you show them? What are you trying to assert?
In this world, GCM’s ( the overrated heaps of junk) are accepted as complex enough to accurately describe the behavior of the earth’s climate system thru time, when in reality, the predictions are failures as any competent meteorologist could tell you who knows about atmospheric models and their limitations.
To make things worse, those that promote climate hysteria like yourself would actually assert that modeling output is more correct than direct empirical observation, which “climate scientists” have done or used to substitute for real observations.
You didn’t answer the question about earth optical depth fully integrated across the IR spectrum because you never provided it and you failed to prove your assertions about atmospheric CO2 and climate because of this and you also falsely claim that peer reviewed, published and taught literature about atmospheric CO2 and the hydrological cycle are false only because you don’t like the message.
Your credibility is zero at this point, but I’ll admit you are a great climate hysteria salesman, although akin to the used car salesman whose job it is to sell the lemons off of the lot disguised as new cars.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
The power flux changes reflect changes in cloud. A reduction in low level cloud over the record predominantly in the eastern Pacific ocean. From Norman Loeb and the NASA CERES that I linked to earlier. Cloud is a positive feedback to global warming.
https://www.mdpi.com/climate/climate-06-00062/article_deploy/html/images/climate-06-00062-g002-550.jpg
His style of repeating abusive and aggressive crazy contrarian rants is not worth a serious response. And despite the transient hand waving at ‘published science’ – he has nothing tangible to show for it.
Robert I Ellison
engineer-hydrologist-scientist
… NASA CERES (team)…
Robert Ellison: You again are blathering nonsense. Except for high clouds which only act to warm higher latitudes, the rest of the cloud fractions are without question, a cooling feedback on earth temperature. The atmospheric warming comes only from the release of latent heat back to the troposphere by condensation, but which is more effectively radiated away to space from a more efficient radiating altitude within a thinner optical depth. Why are you so ignorant of cloud climatology? See:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/13/1/1520-0442_2000_013_0264_reoctv_2.0.co_2.xml
I repeat, power fluxes ARE NOT optical depths. Period. You need optical depth, fully integrated over all IR wavelengths that cover the earth’s surface and calculated thru many years to see the true change in IR flux optical depth to validate whether the failed climate models made any working predictions of earth temperature that are based upon rising atmospheric CO2, and these failed models have no way of providing these calculations with their inbred mathematical limitations and grossly simplified hydrodynamics that are incorporated. They are overrated heaps of junk.
You falsely claim I have nothing to back up my assertions with. Try looking up “Dynamical and Physical Meteorology” by Haltiner and Martin, also “Introduction to Theoretical Meteorology” by Seymour Hess.
Chop! Chop! Better get to reading to correct the many faulty assertions you have made on this blog, including the insulting and condescending demeanor you use on others, including me, but merely reveals your arguments are weak at best, especially your assertions about “tipping points” you claim are being reached with the climate. That is pure nonsense if I’ve ever seen a good example of it.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Marine boundary layer cloud is cooling. They are formed by Rayleigh-Bénard convection over oceans and persist in a bistable closed or open cell state. Closed cells persist for longer over cooler water before raining out to leave open cells. MBL stratocumulus cloud over warmer oceans has fewer closed cells and a lower domain albedo. Power flux – SW and IR – measures the effect directly. As NASA’s Norman Loeb demonstrated.
https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/87000/87456/pacificocean_tmo_2016032.jpg
As for models – I have run numerical hydrodynamic models for decades. Climate models have their limitations – that have been well known since their origins.
e.g. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsta.2011.0161
Let me quote Ed Lorenz.
“‘Perhaps we can visualize the day when all of the relevant physical principles will be perfectly known. It may then still not be possible to express these principles as mathematical equations which can be solved by digital computers. We may believe, for example, that the motion of the unsaturated portion of the atmosphere is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations, but to use these equations properly we should have to describe each turbulent eddy—a task far beyond the capacity of the largest computer. We must therefore express the pertinent statistical properties of turbulent eddies as functions of the larger-scale motions. We do not yet know how to do this, nor have we proven that the desired functions exist.”
50 years later the functions still do not exist – and we still require 1000’s of times more computing power to model the Earth at cloud resolving scale. Simple and and with startling clarity aye? You on the other hand are full of unintelligible gobbledegook.
You hand wave at a couple of texts – a pointlessly uninformative exercise. You are decades behind the curve on coupled nonlinear chaotic systems – such as Earth’s climate – and their behaviours. You start with attacks and abuse – and then whine about something or other. Utter hypocrisy. And sorry – I forget that I was going to ignore your ill-informed and nasty little rants as a complete waste of time.
Given that southern Australia is typically drier during a centennial solar minimum due to increase in El Nino conditions, I would predict that recent maximum temperatures would be very similar to those in the late 1870’s to 1890’s.
More salt in the Law Dome ice core is La Nina and is clearly associated with low solar activity in the past few hundred years.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/vance2012-antartica-law-dome-ice-core-salt-content-e1540939103404.jpg
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/26/3/jcli-d-12-00003.1.xml
Nor is Australian rainfall variability caused only by ENSO.
http://www.climatekelpie.com.au/index.php/climatedogs/
How do we fool ourselves?
Let me count the ways.
We know that the MWP was dominated by La Nina conditions, and that El Nino episodes typically double in frequency during centennial solar minima.
No – we don’t.
Yes we do know that El Nino conditions increase during centennial solar minima Robert.
I can see increases in the LD salt index during every centennial solar minimum of the LIA. From 1315, 1425, 1550, 1670, 1795, 1875, and lower salt index values during all the warmer periods for Europe.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/26/3/full-jcli-d-12-00003.1-f6.jpg
Drill down to confirm your bias? I am duly skeptical. The Australia wet period between 1260 and 1860 ad is a La Nina dominated epoch on a 6 to 7 year ENSO beat. The cosmogenic isotope record shows lower solar activity over the epoch.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/isotopes.png
“Drill down to confirm your bias? I am duly skeptical”
You are self projecting there, and unwilling to accept the facts.
Southern Australian drought certainly increases during centennial solar minima due to an increase in El Nino conditions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia
Rainfall in Australia results from circulation patterns of atmosphere and the waters of the Pacific, Indian and Great Southern oceans. Much of it is seemingly random. The latest Pacific Ocean climate shift in 1998/2001 is linked to increased flow in the north (Di Lorenzo et al, 2008) and the south (Roemmich et al, 2007, Qiu, Bo et al 2006)Pacific Ocean gyres. Roemmich et al (2007) suggest that mid-latitude gyres in all of the oceans are influenced by decadal variability in the Southern and Northern Annular Modes (SAM and NAM respectively) as wind driven currents in baroclinic oceans (Sverdrup, 1947).
The hiatus is the latest epoch of enhanced La Nina like conditions on a 2 to 5 year (since around 1900 ad) ENSO beat – associated with a decline in solar activity. The suggestion of causality is via the polar annular modes. Cloud feedback occurs in marine boundary layer stratocumulus (Loeb et al 2019, Clements et al 2009) over the upwelling regions of oceans – that are the major source of global cloud cover variability. A positive – reduced cloud cover over warmer oceans – contrary to contrarian groupthink narratives – feedback to SST.
https://www.mdpi.com/climate/climate-06-00062/article_deploy/html/images/climate-06-00062-g002-550.jpg
https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/6/3/62/htm
Not that we can accuse Ulric of groupthink – he is indisputably a one off. But really if you are complaining about science – you are reading the wrong stuff.
“La Nina like conditions […] – associated with a decline in solar activity”
Drivel, that’s antiscience. Weaker solar wind states = negative NAM = slower trade winds = El Nino conditions.
There is nothing random about the shift from El Nino to La Nina 1998-2001, it’s an inverse response to changes in the solar wind speed.
https://snipboard.io/n9IuHy.jpg
A more positive SAM => stronger zonal wind in the Southern Ocean => more salt in the Law Dome ice core => increased flow in the Peruvian Current => more upwelling in the region of the Humboldt Current => enhanced Bjerknes feedback in the near equatorial region => stronger trade winds
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/styles/node_key_figures_display/public/key_figures/climate_data_set/Marshall-SAM-F2.png
And if you were not so impolite in your fixation on scientifically incompetent and misguided explanations and silly prophecies – I wouldn’t call you an utter w@nker.
“And if you were not so impolite in your fixation on scientifically incompetent and misguided explanations and silly prophecies – I wouldn’t call you an utter w@nker.”
All self projections, and you need to take your own medicine.
SAM anomalies are regularly the inverse of NAM anomalies.
Does Ulric imagine that his projection piffle is a cutting edge argument? Wouldn’t surprise me.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/nam.png
SAM and NAM vary over days to weeks. There is no one to one correspondence between the polar annular modes – or to solar winds. The polar modes drive much global climate variability – but the connections and the patterns are far from easy to discern.
“Climate is ultimately complex. Complexity begs for reductionism. With reductionism, a puzzle is studied by way of its pieces. While this approach illuminates the climate system’s components, climate’s full picture remains elusive. Understanding the pieces does not ensure understanding the collection of pieces. This conundrum motivates our study.” Marcia Wyatt
Ulric’s reductionism is to cartoon simplicity. How Ulric fools himself is by eyeballing these graphs and discerning patterns consistent with his preconceptions. Everything else – including all the hard won knowledge of physical oceanography – is swept aside as ‘drivel’. The dogmatism can be contrasted to the tentative conclusions of real science.
On the contrary, you are fooling yourself with preconceptions of cartoon simplicity.
There is good correspondence between NAM variability and changes in the solar wind temperature/pressure.
And without doubt southern Australia is typically drier during centennial solar minima due to increased El Nino conditions.
“A smoothed input series derived from IMF By values [(0.5*1d + 2d + 3d + 0.5*4d); 1056 days of coincident values] analogous to that presented for ΔE, can explain 2.3% of the Δp variations.” https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2006JD007246
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/lam-2013-geopotential-at-polaes.png
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014GL061421
Solar winds explain very little of the variability of SAM – but it is there and may bias the system to one state or another. La Nina during in the centuries before 1900 of lower solar activity – La Nina states increase cyclone frequency in Northern Australia by some 100%.
“The last major phase of Holocene valley sediment removal likely occurred sometime between approximately 1200 and 250 years ago and was possibly associated with a phase of heightened tropical cyclone activity and consequent riverine flooding that occurred between AD1400 and 1800. Since then relative tropical cyclone quiescence may be the cause of a phase of valley aggradation that has been occurring over the past two centuries. The results of this investigation suggest that in this catchment there have been alternating phases of Holocene valley floodplain stripping and subsequent aggradation, with the latter being the current dominant mode. This suggests that at least here, in this relatively confined valley, sediment delivery to the Great Barrier Reef may be relatively low compared to other periods over the past millennium and this may be due to low levels of tropical cyclone activity over the past 200 years.”
A major influence on South Australian rainfall is the sub-tropical ridge. It’s position is influenced by ENSO, the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) and the southern annular mode (SAM). With the Madden-Julian oscillation as a wild card. La Nina may enhance blocking patterns over Southern Australia – not El Nino. There is strong evidence of various kinds. La Nina was more prevalent before 1900 ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqHbpgzBQLA&t=7s
Ulric waves away internal variability and appoints – without rhyme or reason and on the basis of flimsy and qualitative pattern identification – the NAM as the driver of global climate. He places no reliance on published sciences – which he waves away offhandedly as the product of misguided knobs.
“La Nina during in the centuries before 1900 of lower solar activity”
Garbage, lower solar activity increases El Nino conditions.
SAM is at times strongly affected by other teleconnections and does not follow changes in the solar wind anything like as well as NAM does.
I have been predicting NAM anomalies for years by predicting weekly solar wind variability. The correlation also applies to summer:
“Effects on winter circulation of short and long term solar wind changes”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0273117713005802
Most major Australian droughts have been associated with El Niño:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a008-el-nino-and-australia.shtml
You get the top prize for getting everything ass backwards. And that could explain your tourettes issue too.
N:o Ulric – you are projecting. And you can take your eyeballing and narratives to another level – LOL. Tourette’s? Rank hypocrisy aimed at stifling objections to your quite silly ideas.
How we fool ourselves?
The human caused global calamity business is an entirely new branch of science with its own unique structure built on a foundation of the precautionary principle where the issue is not whether they are right but whether we can afford to take the chance that they are right.
This is the new science and calamity is an essential element of this science because it needs calamity to invoke the precautionary principle.
https://wp.me/pTN8Y-5Uq
The science originated in the 1850’s. Tipping points are inevitable and the objective is to take pragmatic, no-regrets actions just in case they are severe.
We fool ourselves when science is performed within the arena of influential spectators.
Murdering science is easy when performed in a colosseum that marshals public consensus as political sport; the Left is thumbs down, harboring gleeful blood lust in the murder of fossil fuels, the Right is thumbs up in protection of livelihoods and economic viability.
Science is better done quietly with no spectators where outcomes are matter of fact, irrespective of political desire. Fallible models represent consensus, that’s the essential problem, thus why so many thumbs up.
If there were more facts, there would be less arena.
Pingback: How We Fool Ourselves? Part II: Scientific Consensus Building – Ciung Wanara
“Psychologists Richard Simmons et al. find that researcher bias can have a profound influence on the outcome of a study.” Some years ago while working for Australia’s Economic Planning and Advisory Council, the government wanted modelling on an important issue undertaken by three different econometricians. Two were generally very highly regarded, the other tended to be treated sceptically by professionals (rightly in my view), but was favoured by the ALP.
Given the same task, the three teams came up with very different results. On examination, it became evident that this was almost entirely due to the different assumptions used by each modeller. In short, each had a prior view on the importance of particular variables and weighted their models accordingly. We might have done better (not my call) to spend a day with all three together before they began modelling and ascertain and query their views; we might not have needed to do the modelling. If we had proceeded post-talk, we’d probably have had more useful outputs.
Brava! Judith, that is a superb discussion of the current sentimentalities in science. Appell and Ellison – does that sound like a menu item? – should read it and absorb it and repent.
The facts are clear and well-attested:
CO2, at this time, at these levels, is not in control of climate – we know that from history, ancient and modern. And we are not in control of CO2. Both were demonstrated in the unsteady rise(mostly) and fall in global temp from 1840 to 1941*, through the 30% decrease in human CO2 production in 1929-1931 which did not change the languid rise of global CO2 in the slightest. And then of course the decline in temperature during WWII and postwar reconstruction CO2 production, leading to the early 70s warnings about “The coming Ice Age”.
And there is no ancient evidence, since in 550 million years there has never been a temperature reversal preceded by CO2 change, including the current Ice Age, and the three previous, not to mention the eight glaciations and interval warmings including the current, in the last million years. The Eemian, 120,000 years ago was 2C warmer, with CO2 at 280 ppm.
Nor is there theoretical evidence for CO2 control – CONTROL – of climate at this time, at these levels, since 50% of its GHG effect is in the first 20ppm and it declines exponentially after that. We are in the fifth half-life of that decline so the next doubling to 800 ppm will increase its GHG effect by less than 2%. And the beneficial effect is linear, with 30% of agricultural increase since 1950 attributed to CO2 increase.
Freeman Dyson suggested that the best way to control CO2, if that was what we wanted to do, was with agriculture.
It is, in my view, wrong to spend resources on CO2 mitigation that we could devote to clean air, clean water, sanitation, malaria control, public health (including vaccine production and distribution) and keeping plastics out of the rivers and oceans. And it’s not just wrong, it’s a mistake.
* Interestingly, the rise in temperature after 1840 lasted till 1880, declining then until 1910 despite the human production of CO2 taking off in 1880, and CO2 not altering its gentle rise.
If CO2 emissions by humans are only a bit more than 4% of total, and if CO2 shows no history of control of climate change, and if climate “scientists” can only claim survival of their predictions by increasing the error bars… Why are we even discussing this?
“..and if climate “scientists” can only claim survival of their predictions by increasing the error bars… Why are we even discussing this?” – jimmww
Because their is no other explanation for abrupt climate change.
“Because their is no other explanation for abrupt climate change.”
We have granular decadal data to analyze climate over the last 100 plus years; it doesn’t capture enough time to accurately project climate over the next 100 years. The multi-millennial data we have is averaged out. If it were possible to provide similar granular decadal climate data going back, say 40k years, I suspect it would reveal many “no explanations” based on our current understandings. As it is, the current models are bent to fit new knowledge. There’s maybe centuries more rejigging of these same models to come.
Decadal data surely has value, but there’s little to corroborate contemporary patterns with to verify claims of cause and effect. Unfortunately “big picture climate” doesn’t move at the pace of a single life; certainly not at the speed of light as represented by the spectator media whom cover the many egos and biases that define CAGW.
You must of course be referring to the temp rise from 1680-1710, the most rapid in the historical record (Armagh and CET).
No?
But this is an example of the Argumentum ad Ignorantium, an elementary logical fallacy.
That would be “We can’t think of anything else, so it must be….”
And actually, there are eight other forcings which together with CO2 influence climate, none of them except the sun actually in control but acting as a vector sum.
“That would be “We can’t think of anything else, so it must be….” – jimmww
I was being sarcastic. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m advocating new physics gravitational forcing for abrupt climate change.
“You must of course be referring to the temp rise from 1680-1710, the most rapid in the historical record (Armagh and CET).”
Jim, my post was focused more around pragmatist “what if” questions, tangential from your post, touching on unknowns surrounding the sparse climate data before humans began recording it. I used 40k years as a marker, but could have used the paleo record in general. Though science does have information that describes broad stroke climate trends over expansive timescales, but the data is far from granular. So the question; how many decadal “hockey sticks” are buried in between the massive gaps in the paleo record up to when humans first began recording climatic events? Multi thousands probably; contemporary science likely would be befuddled describing much of it. Even if there were granular paleo datasets certain facts still couldn’t be known, such as the evolution of clouds, as one example. It’s all conjecture, I doubt we’ll ever know that much; but it defies credulity that science can confidently predict CAGW with gapping holes in the data record to corroborate against what we think is happening today.
Have you ever looked at a 1-minute chart for a successful public company? It makes wild, dizzying gyrations at times, creating formations that could convince someone only looking at the 1-minute chart that the company is facing imminent doom, judging from technical analysis of the chart pattern; yet when panning back and comparing it to a granular weekly chart, removing the 1-minute noise, it no longer looks threatening. A 1-minute chart is only useful to a day trader. The last 100+ years of climate data is the 1-minute chart of climate data gathering, it essentially captures some number of hours of data relative to the large evolutionary scale of climate.
Climate modelers are using the comparable 1-minute chart of climate to day trade their wares; politicians are playing it for profit.
Yourself, Tonyb, and others have been very good at pointing out the inconsistencies in the near-term historic record, within the last couple thousand years in particular. I appreciate these vignettes that serve to demonstrate that we don’t know what some claim we know. I don’t believe CO2 is the control knob, it hasn’t been proven it is. To your point about other forces that influence climate; I agree, we had a recent post about clouds. Water vapor is the strongest GHG, yet we know so little about clouds, its interactions with aerosols, and so much more.
Sorry, Alan, I missed the /sarc/. I guess there is a reason for emojis.
jungletrunks, you might want to take a look at Willis Eschenbach’s masterful discussion of water vapor, clouds, and storms, if you haven’t seen it before.
Jimmy has of course marginal views buttressed entirely by tendentious and technically simplistic argumentation. Why am I talking about it? He provides an object lesson in how extremely misguided this motivated madness is.
Oh my! Elly should favor us with a detailed rebuttal. The ad hom is tiresome and maybe thought to define his thinking. Oh my!
I am motivated by devotion to the historical record and physical theory.
He is motivated by…hmmm…faith…
The fact(?) that my views may be considered marginal is a comment on the current status of climate science.
A rebuttal of jiminy’s extreme – even by crazy contrarian standards – ideas on climate science is not something he can contemplate equitably. And you may note how tiresome that is. Nor is it ad hom to say so.
“Nor is it ad hom to say so.” But Elly has no response to unpleasant evidence except ad hom. At least, I’ve seen nothing else. Anyone? Never a datum, never a reference except to “authority”, nothing historical, nothing theoretical, just blather. Perhaps a climate bacha-bazi?
His defense of his ad hom is thrilling. Absolutely emblematic of a devout confronted by a skeptic. And skepticism is one of the foundations of science.
I have provided hundreds of references to studies of this or that aspect of climate science – from models to the state of the Arctic to decadal to millennial variability. I follow a few dozen eminent thinkers and scientists. Others are lightweights and there are a dozen or so I simply ignore. My goal is knowledge and has been for a very long time. jiminy appeals solely to his own scant authority – and I am duly skeptical.
From knowledge scientists develop paradigms – and a dominant paradigm emerges as knowledge grows. A paradigm that may be overthrown if inconsistent new data surfaces. It is the scientific method as defined by Isaac Newton.
“Abrupt climate changes were especially common when the climate system was being forced to change most rapidly. Thus, greenhouse warming and other human alterations of the earth system may increase the possibility of large, abrupt, and unwelcome regional or global climatic events. The abrupt changes of the past are not fully explained yet, and climate models typically underestimate the size, speed, and extent of those changes. Hence, future abrupt changes cannot be predicted with confidence, and climate surprises are to be expected.
The new paradigm of an abruptly changing climatic system has been well established by research over the last decade, but this new thinking is little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of natural and social scientists and policy-makers.” NAS, 2002, Abrupt climate change: inevitable surprises
There is a wealth of information in this 2 decades old report – but this passage from the Executive Summary explicitly covers what has come to be the dominant climate science paradigm. It is what most climate scientists – including Judith Curry – believe for good reason. I have stated it more succinctly a couple of times recently. Perhaps jiminy has simply missed it. More probably – it is simply beyond his intellectual grasp or is cognitively dissonant.
Climate change is the result of anthropogenic forcing superimposed on natural variability in a system characterised by regimes and tipping points. Linear sensitivity and attribution are impossible numbers. Sensitivity is nonlinear and unpredictable. Attribution cannot be reliably estimated unless we understand natural variability. We don’t. That would seem an obvious proposition. Some scientists – including Judith Curry – guess that anthropogenic warming is some 50% of warming in the past 40 years.
The fundamental mode of the Earth system is Hurst-Kolmogorov stochastic dynamics. Harold Hurst analysed nearly a 1000 years of recorded Nile River levels. Andrey Kolmogorov studied fluid turbulence. It is not a coincidence that the same behaviours are found in both.
jimiiny’s lies, hypocrisy and cant know no bounds. Bacha-bazi is sexual exploitation of boys by men – I had to look it up. It’s offensively gratuitous and I have no idea what it is meant to convey in a climate context. Then there is his scientific illiteracy and incompetence. He is an embarrassment to the contrarian ’cause’.
Elly seems to be having trouble responding. May I suggest the Cathy Newman technique of recasting the offending text in terms and syntax which allow for rebuttal. It’s so restricting to be pedantically confined to the original words.
You are wasting everyone’s time jiminy.
What a pity that that was what Elly had to look up.
He might try the other 17 declarative sentences that he isn’t able to deal with.
He must be aware of how offensive his ad hom of cant, lies, etc is, and he glories in the freedom of not having to document anything he blurts.
I imagine he may not have much to do down there. Shouldn’t that leave time for some research?
Jungletrunks is right.
A pattern emerged long ago with jiminy. He says nothing of any consequence and defends it with calumny. The pedophile inference was especially endearing. He then whines about being offended. Do crazy contrarians need safe spaces?
How did I miss this?
“Climate change is the result of anthropogenic forcing superimposed on natural variability in a system characterised by regimes and tipping points.”
So… climate change has been going on for the last 600 million years and now it’s anthropogenic? Jeez. Is there any more dramatic way to demonstrate the idiocy of the current consensus, ingested and regurgitated?
Three Ice Ages prior to the current one?
Eight glaciations in the last million years, with interglacials including the present?
This is more than simple stupidity, this is devotion, a faith without bounds. Prepare the auto-da-fe!
It is of course what most scientists – including Judith Curry – understand to be so.
Elly? This is really too much!
“jimiiny’s lies, hypocrisy and cant know no bounds.” Shame on him! Without a single reference to anything resembling lie, hypocrisy, or cant! But he can’t, can he… He must resort to lies to castigate those he can neither agree with nor refute. How uncomfortable! Oh wait! Maybe jiminy is someone else?
Moderator?
And he’s not a stupid man so I must blame faith and the blinkered devotion to the faith.
Perhaps he’ll join the climate panel at the Economist on Apr 22 where he’s sure to get a nice massage.
He referenced sexual abuse of boys by men in a response that was typically entirely personal and derisive.
“A rebuttal of jiminy’s extreme – even by crazy contrarian standards – ideas on climate science is not something he can contemplate equitably.” That’s really intriguing. There has not been any attempt to refute my statements, certainly not by Elly, who chews up the scenery without saying anything coherent.
I would *love* to be graced with a detailed rebuttal that I could deal with. Even by Elly, the scoundrel. I’m always willing to learn.
But I do object to being bludgeoned with vituperation without content. Well, maybe that is all that that mind can produce.
I have been down that rabbit hole. He should try reading and rebutting my authoritatively referenced, detailed and well argued points rather than handwaving it away derisively waving waving it away as blather, quasi religious belief or whatever. He has fixed ideas that he defends solely with calumny and derision. He then whine about being insulted. Of course it is hypocrisy. If he would like to ditch the attempts at cancelling I will happily ignore him.
“He then whine about being insulted. ”
No, I no whine.
“He has fixed ideas that he defends”
No, I have no idees fixes. I have data.
” He referenced sexual abuse of boys”
No no no. I compared you to the bacha bazi dancers because that’s what your performance reminded me of. Ah, those days in Kabul! But, I must say, the bacha bazi were very polite!
Bacha bazi – I had to look it up – involves young male prostitutes dressed as woman. It is gratuitously majorly offensive. He then whines about being insulted and wastes more of our time with this unctuous misdirection. What is it if not a lie?
Elly is upset at having to look it up:
” What is it if not a lie? ”
I understand. Elly is unable to identify a metaphor as opposed to a statement.
That’s OK. I’ll explain very slowly.
The bacha bazi were dancers. Like Elly, doing a performance for the entertainment of the audience. If he were able to mount anything substantive, I expect he would have. I do believe he could have.
If he can’t do anything better than that, objecting to a metaphor, when he’s accused me of lies, hypocrisy, and cant, I think we’re doomed to never communicate. You should excuse the split infinitive.
Even the boy prostitute ‘metaphor’ is a crude insult – one of many from jiminy. But I am not the one whining about it. And all he has is cease with the cancel culture cr@p.
“Even the boy prostitute ‘metaphor’ is a crude insult”
But I thought it was rather subtle. After all, he did have to look it up. If Elly can’t take a joke, we’re never going to get anywhere. He has so little to offer besides jokes and soil conservation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I just wish he’d leave climate science aside, as he has no gift for historical data or theory.
“So… climate change has been going on for the last 600 million years and now it’s anthropogenic? Jeez. Is there any more dramatic way to demonstrate the idiocy of the current consensus, ingested and regurgitated?”
Not subtle just obscure. Natural variability does not negate the fundamental radiative physics of greenhouse gases. Calculable with some precision based on millions of observations over 50 years. The anthropogenic changes are of course restricted to the modern era.
“Since “panta rhei” was pronounced by Heraclitus, hydrology and the objects it studies, such as rivers and lakes, have offered grounds to observe and understand change and flux. Change occurs on all time scales, from minute to geological, but our limited senses and life span, as well as the short time window of instrumental
observations, restrict our perception to the most apparent daily to yearly variations. As a result, our typical modelling practices assume that natural changes are just a short-term “noise” superimposed on the daily and annual cycles in a scene that is static and invariant in the long run. According to this perception, only an exceptional
and extraordinary forcing can produce a long-term change. The hydrologist H.E. Hurst, studying the long flow records of the Nile and other geophysical time series, was the first to observe a natural behaviour, named after him, related to multi-scale change, as well as its implications in engineering designs. Essentially, this behaviour manifests that long-term changes are much more frequent and intense than commonly perceived and, simultaneously, that the future states are much more uncertain and unpredictable on long time horizons than implied by standard approaches. Surprisingly, however, the implications of multi-scale change have not been assimilated in geophysical sciences. A change of perspective is thus needed, in which change and uncertainty are essential parts.” tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02626667.2013.804626
Yet the divergence of surface temperature from linear responses to greenhouse gas forcing at whatever scale – 3 years ridiculously in one claim – is evidence based on ‘data’ that refutes the radiative properties of greenhouse gas.
The Hurst-Kolmogorov stochastic dynamics reveal the nature of the coupled, nonlinear chaotic Earth system and the potential for abrupt change in cloud and ice – to hot or cold states – triggered by small changes in system control variables. The data seems quite irrefutable.
https://history.aip.org/climate/rapid.htm
I gave been investigating hydrological variability for 40 years. jiminy confesses to have spent the time admiring the bacha-bazi boys in Kabul. His purpose is far less open discourse than stifling views he doesn’t understand or appreciate in the service of an absurd culture war. Ignorance and arrogance is absurd.
Restoring soils and ecosystems is proceeding simultaneously on many fronts – as is energy innovation – and – as an engineer who has build sea defenses – hardening infrastructure and developing emergency responses is second nature. It is a matter of assimilating lessons from the extreme past events to secure the future. Leave it to real engineers.
I try to add value to discussions – but much of this is just tedious distraction. Full of the usual accusations and denunciations. Lately including the accusation of having irrational faith based beliefs as a convenient cover for their bad science and poor arguments. Utter nonsense.
It is an assumption – planet emitting as a blackbody
There is also another thing in the Greenhouse warming theory which is not proper referenced – it is the assumption planet emitting as a blackbody. Where does it come from? Who said that first? The entire greenhouse warming theory is a not valid theory. It doesn’t withstand the scientific method requirements.
Here is an illustrative example on how wrongly the Earth’s IR emission is estimated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_Transmission.png
“Summary
This figure shows the absorption bands in the Earth’s atmosphere (middle panel) and the effect that this has on both solar radiation and upgoing thermal radiation (top panel). Individual absorption spectrum for major greenhouse gases plus Rayleigh scattering are shown in the lower panel.
Both the Earth and the Sun emit electromagnetic radiation (e.g. light) that closely follows a blackbody spectrum, and which can be predicted based solely on their respective temperatures. For the Sun, these emissions peak in the visible region and correspond to a temperature of ~5500 K. Emissions from the Earth vary following variations in temperature across different locations and altitudes, but always peak in the infrared. The position and number of absorption bands are determined by the chemical properties of the gases present. In the present atmosphere, water vapor is the most significant of these greenhouse gases, followed by carbon dioxide and various other minor greenhouse gases. In addition, Rayleigh scattering, the physical process that makes the sky blue, also disperses some incoming sunlight. Collectively these processes capture and redistribute 25-30% of the energy in direct sunlight passing through the atmosphere. By contrast, the greenhouse gases capture 70-85% of the energy in upgoing thermal radiation emitted from the Earth surface.”
“By contrast, the greenhouse gases capture 70-85% of the energy in upgoing thermal radiation emitted from the Earth surface.”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/CO2_H2O_absorption_atmospheric_gases_unique_pattern_energy_wavelengths_of_energy_transparent_to_others.png
“Atmospheric gases only absorb some wavelengths of energy but are transparent to others. The absorption patterns of water vapor (blue peaks) and carbon dioxide (pink peaks) overlap in some wavelengths. Carbon dioxide is not as strong a greenhouse gas as water vapor, but it absorbs energy in longer wavelengths (12–15 micrometers) that water vapor does not, partially closing the “window” through which heat radiated by the surface would normally escape to space. (Illustration NASA, Robert Rohde)[25]”
Our comment:
Planet has not a uniform surface temperature.
Nevertheless, in the Greenhouse warming IR emission theory planet is considered as a perfect blackbody uniform temperature emission surface – so it is concluded planet surface IR emission frequency bands should fit to the Stefan-Boltzmann emission curve.
The frequencies not detected (measured) in the planet IR emission pattern are considered being absorbed by the atmosphere…
It is a common knowledge though, no planet has a uniform surface temperature.
How it is possible, how can anyone expect from a planet surface to emit in a perfect blackbody curve pattern? Since planet has not even the most basic requirement for the perfect blackbody curve – planet has not a uniform surface temperature!
” Both the Earth and the Sun emit electromagnetic radiation (e.g. light) that closely follows a blackbody spectrum, and which can be predicted based solely on their respective temperatures.”
“…which can be predicted based solely on their respective temperatures.”
It is an assumption, and it is a very mistaken assumption! Because a planet doesn’t have a uniform surface temperature! Planet surface doesn’t emit as a disk, because planet is a sphere…
Earth doesn’t emit IR radiative energy at the uniform Te = 288 K. Each infinitesimal spot emits at its own respected temperature…
They measure earth’s IR emission, but those measured data cannot be compared with the Te = 288 K S-B emission curve bands…
So they are not justified to conclude “…the greenhouse gases capture 70-85% of the energy in upgoing thermal radiation emitted from the Earth surface.”
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
That’s easy. There is no assumption that the planet is a blackbody. This is an odd and incompetent Christos claim he repeats endlessly. I’ve always thought that what this site needs is more scientific quality control.
RIE,
Is it also easy to explain the physics of heat wave formation over oceans where the Tmax SST is uncommonly above 30C? If so, we await your answer as to how it happens.
Geoff S
From the above summary:
“Both the Earth and the Sun emit electromagnetic radiation (e.g. light) that closely follows a blackbody spectrum, and which can be predicted based solely on their respective temperatures.”
Robert:
“There is no assumption that the planet is a blackbody.”
It is an assumption, and it is a very mistaken assumption! Because a planet doesn’t have a uniform surface temperature! Planet surface doesn’t emit as a disk, because planet is a sphere…
Earth doesn’t emit IR radiative energy at the uniform Te = 288 K. Each infinitesimal spot emits at its own respective temperature…
They measure earth’s IR emission, but those measured data cannot be compared with the Te = 288 K S-B emission curve bands…
So they are not justified to conclude “…the greenhouse gases capture 70-85% of the energy in upgoing thermal radiation emitted from the Earth surface.”
The “missing” (the allegedly absorbed by the atmosphere) IR frequencies bands were never emitted from the Earth’s surface.
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Does Sherrington believe Christos’s planet rotisserie theory of surface heat? It wouldn’t surprise me.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/argo-to-dec-2018-1.jpg
How hot can the oceans get. They have been a lot warmer – including to the north of Australia. At the PETM it caused mass marine extinction. Energy from oceans warms the atmosphere before being re-emitted to space.
e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0498-0
Or is that just another ‘selective reference’.
1. Earth’s Without-Atmosphere Mean Surface Temperature calculation
Tmean.earth
So = 1.361 W/m² (So is the Solar constant)
S (W/m²) is the planet’s solar flux. For Earth S = So
Earth’s albedo: aearth = 0,306
Earth is a smooth rocky planet, Earth’s surface solar irradiation accepting factor Φearth = 0,47
(Accepted by a Smooth Hemisphere with radius r sunlight is S*Φ*π*r²(1-a), where Φ = 0,47)
β = 150 days*gr*oC/rotation*cal – is a Rotating Planet Surface Solar Irradiation Absorbing-Emitting Universal Law constant
N = 1 rotation /per day, is Earth’s axial spin
cp.earth = 1 cal/gr*oC, it is because Earth has a vast ocean.
Generally speaking almost the whole Earth’s surface is wet. We can call Earth a Planet Ocean.
σ = 5,67*10⁻⁸ W/m²K⁴, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant
Earth’s Without-Atmosphere Mean Surface Temperature Equation Tmean.earth is:
Tmean.earth= [ Φ (1-a) So (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴
Τmean.earth = [ 0,47(1-0,306)1.361 W/m²(150 days*gr*oC/rotation*cal *1rotations/day*1 cal/gr*oC)¹∕ ⁴ /4*5,67*10⁻⁸ W/m²K⁴ ]¹∕ ⁴ =
Τmean.earth = [ 0,47(1-0,306)1.361 W/m²(150*1*1)¹∕ ⁴ /4*5,67*10⁻⁸ W/m²K⁴ ]¹∕ ⁴ =
Τmean.earth = ( 6.854.905.906,50 )¹∕ ⁴ = 287,74 K
Tmean.earth = 287,74 Κ
And we compare it with the Tsat.mean.earth = 288 K, measured by satellites.
These two temperatures, the calculated one, and the measured by satellites are almost identical.
Conclusions:
The mean surface temperature equation
Tmean = [ Φ (1-a) S (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴ produces remarkable results.
The calculated planets temperatures are almost identical with the measured by satellites.
Planet………..Te…………Tmean….Tsat.mean
Mercury….439,6 K…….325,83 K…..340 K
Earth………255 K………287,74 K…..288 K
Moon……..270,4 Κ……..223,35 Κ…..220 Κ
Mars……209,91 K……..213,21 K…..210 K
The 288 K – 255 K = 33 oC difference does not exist in the real world.
There are only traces of greenhouse gasses. The Earth’s atmosphere is very thin. There is not any measurable Greenhouse Gasses Warming effect on the Earth’s surface.
There is NO +33°C greenhouse enhancement on the Earth’s mean surface temperature. Both the calculated by equation and the satellite measured Earth’s mean surface temperatures are almost identical:
Tmean.earth = 287,74K = 288 K
………………………………………………….
So they measure earth’s IR emission, but those measured data cannot be compared with the blackbody Te = 288 K S-B emission curve bands…
The “missing” (the allegedly absorbed by the atmosphere) IR frequencies bands were never emitted from the Earth’s surface.
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Have you convinced anyone at all Christos?
… other than Sherrington.
The Planet’s Mean Surface Temperature Equation:
Tmean = [Φ (1-a) S (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ /4σ]¹∕ ⁴ (1)
We have moved further from the incomplete effective temperature equation
(which is in common use right now, but actually it is an incomplete planet Te equation and that is why it gives very confusing results)
Te = [ (1-a) S / 4 σ ]¹∕ ⁴
a – is the planet’s surface average albedo
S – is the solar flux, W/m²
σ = 5,67*10⁻⁸ W/m²K⁴, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant
We have discovered the Planet Without-Atmosphere Mean Surface Temperature Equation
Tmean = [ Φ (1-a) S (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴ (1)
The Equation is being completed by adding to the incomplete Te equation the new parameters Φ, N, cp and the constant β.
Φ – is the dimensionless Solar Irradiation accepting factor
N – rotations /day, is the planet’s axial spin
cp – cal /gr*oC, is the planet’s surface specific heat
β = 150 days*gr*oC/rotation*cal – is the Rotating Planet Surface Solar Irradiation Absorbing-Emitting Universal Law constant.
The Planet Without-Atmosphere Mean Surface Temperature Equation is also based on the radiative equilibrium and on the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. But the New Equation doesn’t consider planet behaving as a blackbody, and the New Equation doesn’t state planet having a uniform surface temperature.
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
1361 is the ‘solar constant’. 0.31 is albedo. The rest is the Stefan-Boltzmann law and geometry. Christos adds constants and concepts not found in the canon of physical sciences. They are used in his equation to tune it the average surface temperature of the Earth as found on Wikipedia.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/surface-temp.png
Moon, compared to Earth, receives almost 30 % more solar energy.
We know that there is the Planet ROTATIONAL Warming Phenomenon. And it is described by the (N*cp) product.
The higher the N*cp, the warmer is the planet.
Earth’s and Moon’s temperatures comparison.
The Earth’s higher than Moon’s both N (rotational spin) and cp (average surface specific heat), do not let at the day-time the Earth’s surface get warm enough to emit IR as intensively as Moon’s surface does. As a result, on the Earth’s surface, during the solar irradiance hours there is much more solar energy left to be accumulated.
And this accumulated energy accounts for the much higher Earth’s than Moon’s night-time temperatures, with the resulting consequence of the much higher than Moon’s the Earth’s mean surface temperature.
Also we should take in consideration,
Earth’s albedo is a.earth = 0,306 and (1 – 0,306) = 0,694
Moon’s Albedo a.moon = 0,11 and (1 – 0,11) = 0,89
So, Moon’s /Earth’s = 0,89 /0,694 = 1,28
or, in other words, Moon, compared to Earth, receives almost 30 % more solar energy, which should then be emitted as IR outgoing radiation to remain energetically balanced.
Nevertheless, Earth, with much lesser (- 30%) “absorbed” than Moon solar energy, is a warmer than Moon planet. And this happens because during the solar irradiance hours Earth’s IR emission intensity is much weaker than Moon’s, so Earth saves energy (accumulates solar energy) much more efficiently.
There is no need for any supplementary source of energy for the Earth’s surface in order to become on average warmer than Moon. There is no need for Greenhouse Warming enhancement on the Earth’s surface to make Earth a warmer than Moon planet.
It is the Planet Rotational Warming which does the job.
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
The moon is intensely hot and bitterly cold because it doesn’t have an atmosphere. NASA says that the equivalent black body temperature of the moon is 270 degrees C. There is of course no atmosphere. If you have a better number from a reputable source – by all means. But perhaps it is the planet rotisserie effect that is not required.
Mars and Moon the very close satellite measured mean surface temperatures comparison: 210 K and 220 K
Very interesting !
Mars and Moon satellite measured mean surface temperatures comparison:
210 K and 220 K
Let’s see what we have here:
Planet or……..Tsat.mean
moon………….measured
Mercury………..340 K
Earth……………288 K
Moon……………220 Κ
Mars…………….210 K
Let’s compare then:
Moon:
Tsat.moon = 220K
Moon’s albedo is amoon = 0,11
What is left to absorb is (1 – amoon) = (1- 0,11) = 0,89
Mars:
Tsat.mars = 210 K
Mars’ albedo is amars = 0,25
What is left to absorb is (1 – amars) = (1 – 0,25) = 0,75
Mars /Moon satellite measured temperatures comparison:
Tsat.mars /Tsat.moon = 210 K /220 K = 0,9545
Mars /Moon what is left to absorb (which relates in ¼ powers) comparison, or in other words the Mars /Moon albedo determined solar irradiation absorption ability:
( 0,75 /0,89 )¹∕ ⁴ = ( 0,8427 )¹∕ ⁴ = 0,9581
Conclusions:
1. Mars /Moon satellite measured temperatures comparison
( 0,9545 ) is almost identical with the
Mars /Moon albedo determined solar irradiation absorption ability
( 0,9581 )
2. If Mars and Moon had the same exactly albedo, their satellite measured mean surface temperatures would have been exactly the same.
And this is very interesting !
Mars rotates N = 0,9747 rotation /day
Moon rotates N= 1 /29,5 rotation day
Mars solar flux S = 586 W/m²
Moon S = 1361 W/m²
Mars is at 1,53 AU distance from the sun, Moon is at 1 AU from the sun. That is why Mars receives much weaker (586 W/m²) vs (1361 W/m²
) than Moon solar flux.
Nevertheless, Mars’ surface develops almost the same average surface temperature ( 210 K ) as the Moon ( 220 K ).
Both Mars and Moon do not have atmosphere.
It is the Solar Irradiated Planet Surface ROTATIONAL Warming Phenomenon which does the job.
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
Reputable sources for the moons average temp? It is not 270 K as NASA says? We have been here before.
This is of course an out there idea from a single person – not the we he keeps mentioning. And I keep asking if no crazy contrarian has a problem with the planetary rotisserie effect? What would that mean? Do you imagine that the world will suddenly embrace a fringe contrarian idea even if repeated endlessly on CE? And there are a few of them. Mostly quite odd. Extraordinary claims – and this is completely novel at best – require extraordinary proof.
The Planet Corrected Effective Temperature.
Moon’s Te = 270 K is a mistakenly calculated Moon’s theoretical uniform surface temperature by the old equation. The Te.moon = 270 K is a mistaken number, it is a wrongly calculated result (270 K) which leads to very mistaken conclusions.
Te – planet effective temperature
Te = [ (1-a) S /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴
This outdated equation considers Moon as a disk, and also it considers Moon not having specular reflection.
But Moon is a sphere, and Moon reflects both ways – diffusely and specularly.
Te.correct – the planet corrected effective temperature
Te.correct = [ Φ (1-a) S /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴
Φ – is the solar irradiation accepting factor (it is the planet surface spherical shape, and planet surface roughess coefficient)
Φ = 0,47 – for smooth surface planets without atmosphere
Φ = 1 – for heavy cratered without atmosphere planets
Φ = 1 – for gases planets
…………………………………
Thus we have the corrected effective temperature for Earth
Te.correct.earth = 210 K, instead of Te.earth = 255 K
For Moon we have
Te.correct.moon = 224 K, instead of Te.moon = 270 K
……………………………….
Also, notice that:
Te.correct = [ Φ (1-a) S /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴
Tmean = [ Φ (1-a) So (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ /4σ ]¹∕ ⁴
Or
Tmean = Te.correct * [ (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ ]¹∕ ⁴
https://www.cristos-vournas.com/446375350
Repeating it a 1000 times doesn’t help.
Thus we have the corrected effective temperature for Earth Te.correct.earth = 210 K, instead of the mistaken Te.earth = 255 K.
……………………………………………
For Moon we have Te.correct.moon = 224 K, instead of the mistaken Te.moon = 270 K.
…………………………………………..
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
but is this measured?
Robert:
“but is this measured?”
What you are asking if it is measured?
It is an assumption – planet emitting as a blackbody.
Robert:
“1361 is the ‘solar constant’. 0.31 is albedo. The rest is the Stefan-Boltzmann law and geometry. Christos adds constants and concepts not found in the canon of physical sciences. They are used in his equation to tune it the average surface temperature of the Earth as found on Wikipedia.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/surface-temp.png?w=397&zoom=2
”
Here is the New equation:
The Planet’s Mean Surface Temperature Equation:
Tmean = [Φ (1-a) S (β*N*cp)¹∕ ⁴ /4σ]¹∕ ⁴ (1)
It is a very good New equation. This equation theoretically calculates planets’ mean surface temperatures closely matching the satellite measured planets’ mean surface temperatures.
Τmean.earth = [ 0,47(1-0,306)1.361 W/m²(150 days*gr*oC/rotation*cal *1rotations/day*1 cal/gr*oC)¹∕ ⁴ /4*5,67*10⁻⁸ W/m²K⁴ ]¹∕ ⁴ = 287,74 K
So, everything is all right…
https://www.cristos-vournas.com
This article misleads. Not that it’s wrong! It misleads in the context it’s published: Judith Curry’s blog. The hidden implication is that the bias above maps to climate science, and describes the malaise. Bias may well be a big problem in climate science but the elephant in the room is political interference, and scientists condoning such politics. From 1988, when IPCC began, there was clear political bias mandating scientific bias. For example: 1) Chris Essex’s comments on his first climate modelling job where he was told carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases run the climate. 2) In the early ’90s, in USA for example, only researchers happy to attribute climate change to humanity were funded. 3) Santer’s key 1995 study which conjured a fingerprint for man-made climate change from noise, and broke IPCC publishing guidelines.
It’s always been politics with climate; yet the author, above, never said ‘politics’. The errors of modern climate science are similar to those of Lysenkoism; at least a degree worse than Eugenics, and most other wrong ideas in modern science.
Still a good article; just not especially applicable to the woes of climate science.
* Essex & McKitrick, ‘Taken By Storm’, 2002.
* Lewin, ‘Searching for the Catastrophe Signal’, 2017.
The examples of false consensus in history are legion and have affected all
areas of knowledge from medicine to plate tectonics. However, with climate
science we have a perfect storm of two other factors missing from most other
fields:
* The belief that the problem stems from the collective guilt of all
mankind, a kind of “original sin”. Look no further than the world’s major
religions to understand how susceptible humans are to this kind of
fundamental belief.
* Climate science is funded almost exclusively by governments,
mostly run by those who want more power to “do good”.
So we have a mix religion and politics, the perfect conditions for the rise
of self righteous redeemers like Al Gore.
Bravo!
To those who are pleased with the decline in membership in organized religions (they neglect Islam!) there is considerable discomfort in noting the increase in belief in other ideas without evidence: that capitalism is, on balance, bad for humanity, that socialism in some definition is good for humanity, that poverty is the cause of crime, that subsidies of money will cure poverty, that America instituted slavery, that Mother Gaia is more important than the welfare of human beings, that CO2 is in control of climate change, that we are in control of CO2, that a warming planet is worse than a cooling one… I could pause now and look up more, but that should do.
I despair for the children.
Excellent paper… It seems crazy to me. Our young people are all getting brain washed, it is now starting as young as grade one. I am shocked when I see the Society of Exploration Geophysicists state “SEG joins nearly 200 other scientific societies worldwide and the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in agreement with the IPCC that significant action should be taken as soon as possible to begin reducing GHG emissions” Do they not talk to geologists!
That issue (the Executive of various learned societies publicising statements without polling their members) is one which has been copied and repeated for over 20 years now, ad nauseum. It’s a propaganda tactic which deliberately dishonours the paying membership in order to hijack the perceived prestige of these various societies. Most societies that have had this inflicted on them have experienced high-level resignations as a reaction.
“ collective rationalization”
In the next 2 to 3 decades, assuming AMO follows expectations, temperatures will have a flat to insignificant warming or even slightly cooling trend. How will the establishment react? How will they rationalize the greater divergence between models and temperatures?
They will embrace natural variability. Models will begin to show that had it not been for well known oscillations, there would have been more warming. All of a sudden natural variability will be their friend.
It is in our future. The only question is how quickly it will happen.
True. And it wouldn’t stretch their credulity to claim that any advances in alternatives to fossil fuels might be responsible. AGW is truly the gift that keeps on giving.
Where is the thumbs down button on this blog?
“Plants need more than food to flourish”
And animals need more than oxygen to survive, so your point is?
Some requirements are critical to survival, for plants it is carbon dioxide.
I notice that posts about the coronavirus have stopped for a while.
Is there a reason for this?
Thank you Dr. Curry for your insightful post
re. some of David Appell’s postings:
First, I know of greenhouse operators firing up heaters to spread CO2 to their plants. Believe me, if it had no growth effects they would not spend hard currency in a very low profit margin business.
Then, re. nuclear waste – I always promote Thorium based nuclear energy, since its waste output is benign relative to uranium derived reactors. In fact you can burn up this kind of waste in Thorium molten salt types. I wish folks had more awareness of what is on its way with Thorcon and the Indonesian reactor program.
re. some of David Appell’s postings:
First, I know of greenhouse operators firing up heaters to spread CO2 to their plants. Believe me, if it had no growth effects they would not spend hard currency in a very low profit margin business.
just maybe – empirical evidence is not relevant to climate science!
Greenhouses require water and nutrient inputs to maintain plant production. Outside of greenhouses there is a complex plant, nutrient, water and soil dynamic. The modest increase in plant biomass as a result of atmospheric CO2 is swamped by the productivity gains possible when carbon is returned to soils as organic matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag
Or ask a farmer.
Or you could just use your bleeding eyes and take a look
http://www.awaken-consciousness.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Greenhouse_Gases.jpg
and
http://jo.nova.s3.amazonaws.com/graph/plants/plant-growth/plant-growth-co2-carbon-yield-increase.gif
That’s the reason greenhouses keep the CO2 from 1000-1800 ppm
Elly might listen to them.
No one doubts that carbon is the fundamental building block of organisms. no one thinks it is as simple as jiminy.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0498-0
https://phys.org/news/2013-03-ocean-plankton-sponge-carbon-assumed.html
RIE says “Greenhouses require water and nutrient inputs to maintain plant production”.
Why is carbon in soil any different to N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Mo, Cu and many other substances that plants use as part of their growth?
If you want to make richer soils by adding carbon, you have to accept that increased yields will come at the expense of depletion of soil carbon.
You then have a cycle where you add more carbon, you lose more carbon to the product you harvest and you pay more money for the gain in yield. Where are the economic analyses to show that this can be a profitable approach, more profitable than others like CO2 added to glasshouses for example, ratrher than just another green dream that it is axiomatically good for the environment?
You quote with approval Allan Savory, known for a questionable plan that led to the killing of thousands of elephants, but now with a reformed mind inventing environmental bliss?
Geoff S
Some of the answer is under our feet. Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement production – from 1750 to 2011 – was about 365 billion metric tonnes as carbon (GtC), with another 180 GtC from deforestation and agriculture. Soil scientist Rattan Lal – a scientific treasure – estimates that some 500 Gigatonne (GtC) carbon has been lost from terrestrial systems since the beginning of agriculture. ‘Soil is like a bank account – we must replace what we have removed.’
This soil carbon store can be renewed by restoring land. Holding back water in sand dams, terraces and swales, replanting, changing grazing management, encouraging perennial vegetation cover, precise applications of chemicals and adoption of other management practices that create positive carbon and nutrient budgets and optimal soil temperature and moisture. Atmospheric carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to soil carbon stores through plant photosynthesis and subsequent formation of secondary carbonates. The rate of soil carbon sequestration ranges from about 100 to 1000 kg per hectare per year as humus and 5 to 15 kg per hectare per year inorganic carbon. Professor Lal estimates that as much as 157 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Rattan Lal speaks here.
http://regenerativeagriculturepodcast.com/the-role-of-carbon-in-the-soil-with-rattan-lal
It involves farmers adopting practices that enhance retention of carbon in soils. I have read many case studies and seen many videos. Large productivity gains are possible – including putting many more animals on grazing lands. As in the Allan Savory video I posted above. In practice there are simple methods that very quickly generate economic returns and improved soil health.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBTINtTcBbE&t=76s
Carbon sequestration in soils has major benefits in addition to offsetting anthropogenic emissions from fossil fuel combustion, land use conversion, soil cultivation, continuous grazing and cement and steel manufacturing. Restoring soil carbon stores increases agronomic productivity and enhances global food security. Increasing the soil organic content enhances water holding capacity and creates a more drought tolerant agriculture – with less downstream flooding. There is a critical level of soil carbon that is essential to maximising the effectiveness of water and nutrient inputs. Global food security, especially for countries with fragile soils and harsh climate such as in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, cannot be achieved without improving soil quality through an increase in soil organic content. Wildlife flourishes on restored grazing land helping to halt biodiversity loss. Reversing soil carbon loss is a new green revolution where conventional agriculture is hitting a productivity barrier with exhausted soils and increasingly expensive inputs.
Increased agricultural productivity, increased downstream processing and access to markets build local economies and global wealth. Economic growth provides resources for solving problems – conserving and restoring ecosystems, better sanitation and safer water, better health and education, updating the diesel fleet and other productive assets to emit less black carbon and reduce the health and environmental impacts, developing better and cheaper ways of producing electricity, replacing cooking with wood and dung with better ways of preparing food thus avoiding respiratory disease and again reducing black carbon emissions. A global program of agricultural soils restoration is the foundation for balancing the human ecology.
I post hundreds of scientific references and nearly as many videos on this.
e.g. https://judithcurry.com/2013/06/07/soil-carbon-permanent-pasture-as-an-approach-to-co2-sequestration/
There is no evidence of even a glancing consideration. There is no depth of knowledge, no expertise, not a glimmer of understanding from these cognitively dissonant contrarians. Others have a more nuanced view. Instead we have a weird monomania where burning fossil fuels saves the world. It is totally nuts.
Elly says “No one doubts that carbon is the fundamental building block of organisms.”
That’s certainly true on this planet, and is the reason that 30% of the increase in agriculture since 1950 is attributed to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s where plants get it. CO2 is gooooood. It’s not pollution.
We can return Carbon to the earth when we die. And then it is metabolized and returned to the atmosphere as CO2.
Submarines don’t mitigate CO2 until it gets to 8,000ppm.
Unless jiminy can point to a silicon based lifeform – we are stuck with carbon based lifeforms. Nor are his simplistic carbon peregrinations remotely realistic.
A brief reality check – http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/004-038/004-038a.html
But the problem here is not carbon dioxide in the atmosphere but the loss of carbo from the terrestrial system since the advent of slash and burn agriculture and the plough some 10,000 years ago. The loss continues to this day and this without doubt is an existential threat. Atmospheric CO2 is a resource to be used wisely sequestered in soils by photosynthesis and held there with the most modern agricultural practices. Wise is not something I would expect of jiminy. Or even a marginally less specious or more thoughtful narrative.
Did I not add this schematic of the soil carbon deficit concept – https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/soil-carbon.png
http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/004-038/004-038a.html
That’s a very good paper even with the speculative stuff much overemphasized. The innumerable mays and mights and woulds and coulds and shoulds and likelys and possibles detract quite a bit from its impact. A little historical correlation would have been nice.
And THIS detracts quite a bit more “However, under a 2 x CO2 climate that may be 4 deg.C warmer than at present, crop losses to disease may increase to 15 per cent.” Theory says 3.7 W/m2 for a doubling of CO2, in the absence of other forcings, a rise of 1.6, 0.7 or 0.6 °C, variously reported, for surface (land) temperatures, without regard for negative feedbacks.
I don’t see acknowledgement of the increase in outgoing LWR to the fourth power of the land temperature, producing a 1.3% increase in outgoing LWR for a 0.3% increase in temperature.
Droughts and crop failures and famines were much more common in the LIA than in the Medieval Warm. Human morbidity and mortality is much greater at lower temperatures than at higher, historically.
A warmer earth will evaporate more water producing more clouds (albedo) and more rain. More thunderstorms will distribute local temperatures more widely. And more evaporative cooling as well as the increased albedo will slow the rise.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/08/how-thunderstorms-beat-the-heat/
and https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/11/evaporation-redux/
Disregarding the other forcings, theory says that warming due to GHG will be:
more at night
more at the poles and
more in winter.
Not too bad, so far, eh?
I wonder when/if someone is going to write similar speculations about the effect of 1 or 2°C decrease in global temperature.
Your welcome.
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Australia’s proximity to the threatening expansion of China, allows them to spell out the illogical pursuit of ‘net zero’:
https://youtu.be/KMbFbn0pwaM
Australia is busily opening up gas fields across the country. We don’t have huge amounts – but while it lasts we deserve cheap gas.
How we fooled ourselves (again)
A Critical Analysis of the Covid Response
https://www.pandata.org/a-critical-analysis-of-the-covid-response/?fbclid=IwAR0B73qAvTYtbI-o_a9t5CdgYkd-86qS0h8Lbwfi4MIWoVHYwiz7vFU6M_k
One of many papers which calls for serious science rather than ‘experts’ jumping to conclusions because they choose to fit the narrative of the moment. We have badly screwed up in eighteen months of real time evidence with SARS-CoV-2. Just how long have we been screwing up on many other fronts simply because we are not inclined to support real science and real research and how many more mistakes will it take before a real leader says ‘enough is enough’?
Not a paper, an article on a website.
What has previously been discovered about Pandata?
—————————————————————————————————-
-On 5 May the Financial Mail quoted the group [Pandata] as saying that the then six-week-old lockdown would result in 29 times more deaths (worked out in “years lost”) than Covid-19 itself. The group also stated that, based on its calculations, it seemed “unlikely that more than a million will die worldwide.”
Two weeks later, on another platform, the faction wrote it was “left wondering why anybody in their right minds would be talking up a story that involves anything more than 10 000 deaths for South Africa.”
(Should you at this point be wondering, global Covid-19 deaths are currently estimated at more than 1.6-million people; South Africa has had more than 23 000 official deaths — unofficial tallies, using excess mortality data, suggest that this figure is much higher. Pandata subsequently, quietly, updated its local estimates.)
https://mg.co.za/health/2020-12-18-infodemic-to-infowar-the-circus-of-disinformation-will-spin-on/
Now the number of deaths in the world are just under 3 million, and those in South Africa are over 53,000.
Great forecast but nothing new from those who make claims and then either try to hide them or just ignore them and don’t have to worry about being held to account.
JMurphy, there are no “COVID-19 deaths”, only deaths with positive tests. People died before with the same symptoms. The excess mortality (if any, in some countries there’s no excess) is caused by the fear (mass psychosis, nocebo, aggressive therapies…). People get panic attacks when they’re told they’re positive! Then they’re put on ventilatora and killed.
“Not a paper, an article on a website.” JMurphy
And no more or less valid than Hon. Prof. Boris Johnson claiming it was lockdown that reduced infection rates, deaths, hospital admissions et al, and absolutely nothing to do with what he called ‘the game changer – vaccinations’. If he can misinform or continually talk out of the wrong orifice with the apparent backing of his ‘experts’ then why not anyone else?
“If he [Boris Johnson] can misinform or continually talk out of the wrong orifice with the apparent backing of his ‘experts’ then why not anyone else?”
He can certainly say what he likes but if he goes too much against the advice of his hundreds of experts (funny how some people like to hear from the minority they call ‘experts’, and don’t like to hear from the majority of experts – how we fool ourselves, indeed!), even he would have to have a pretty good explanation as to why.
You can see the list of all his experts here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response-membership/list-of-participants-of-sage-and-related-sub-groups
edimbukvarevic wrote: “The excess mortality (if any, in some countries there’s no excess) is caused by the fear (mass psychosis, nocebo, aggressive therapies…).”
Yeah, whatever.
Funny, though (as in ‘whatsupwiththat’!), how Sweden’s -2% excess was not as good as the -8% of Norway or -7% of Finland.
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
The article looks to me to be well supported by the references to scientific literature provided. The board of the organization is mostly top epidemiologists. It’s not very cool to try to portray them as not qualified to comment. Further, most experts have been way off in their early guesses. Ioannidis is an exception with his March estimate of the IFR.
… if he goes too much against the advice of his hundreds of experts …
JMurphy
Since when has it been desirable to have ‘hundreds of experts’ to deal with a bad ‘flu epidemic? Prior to 2012 the UK had a solid public health structure. It was disbanded in favour of a centralised PHE and the kind of consensus committee style expertise we see in the UN etc. Unhealthy for them since consensus ensues survival; unhealthy for citizens since the truth will never out.
We need to get back to proper structures to deal with epidemics where those involved have relevant everyday experience on notifiable diseases and are not alarmist by nature. IMO.
Looks like the issues raised are all carefully documented. The panda group also has impressive credentials.
As Murphy notes, all the experts have been wrong in their guesses about the future early in the epidemic. That’s always the case. Ioannidis seems to be the only one to guess an IFR that a year later is looking rather prescient.
Do you have any further information on that prescience? I thought he guessed 0.02 to 0.5%. Is that correct or not?
I’m refering to Ioannidis’ analysis of the Diamond Princess data, the first large serological test result. He did a video in late March. My recolleciton is that he said “taking a mid range estimate based on the DP data of 0.3% for the US”). But you are right, his analysis had a pretty large uncertainty. Should be easy to find if youtube hasn’t banned the video because it presents real science as opposed to their pseudo-science.
Well ‘shy’? No, I’m not shy; but I don’t seek public exposure for fun. Anyone can ‘gogle’ me, as Willard did at Clintel; where I passed the vetting for the list of signatories partly, I suppose, because I know my Physics – apart from my work on language and philosophy. I retired at 72 but I’m still doing research, among other things into the language (use) of people who disagree, or get mad at each other. But I don’t spend all my time following so-called blogs, only when there is something relevant. And there is very often at Judith Currie’s blog. About David Appell: he never answered my question? If we ignore his invective language what are, then, his arguments and his professional credentials? It might be nice to know for us to be able to assess his claims in different contexts. That’s all for now.
Hans
In spite of all the false starts, election fraud is still a legal topic. Here is one of the more serious developments.
Michigan attorney Matthew DePerno filed a lawsuit, challenging voter fraud and electronic meddling with 2020 elections in his state.
“Our states give access to people to the qualified voter rolls,” DePerno explained. “We believe that the state of Michigan has given over 32 groups access to the qualified voter roll.”
The lawsuit, filed last week, is based off several forensic reports. These reports revealed thousands of ballots were illegally cast for Joe Biden and there was electronic manipulation of votes.
DePerno found more than 66,000 unregistered ballots were counted in nine Michigan counties.
https://www.oann.com/mich-lawsuit-shows-evidence-of-election-fraud-electronic-vote-tampering/
The loudest people have enforced a “consensus” that fraud didn’t occur and have suppressed anyone who dissents from that view. Who is fooling whom here?
Aretha was on to “em decades ago. I ask the question almost every day.
Willard;
The “Reply” button is not available to me on your post for some reason, so I am responding here. I don’t see any of those papers saying or implying that CO2 is bad for agriculture. Claims that they do appear to be based on one or more of the following assumptions, all of which are false and in fact the opposite of objective physical reality:
1. Atmospheric CO2 governs global temperature.
2. Agricultural productivity is directly related to latitude.
3. Warmer global climate impedes the hydrological cycle, reducing precipitation.
4. Reduced production of cool-climate crops in a warmer climate is not accompanied by increased production of warm-climate crops.
5. Cool-climate crops tend to be more valuable than warm-climate crops.
6. A decline of n% in the nutrient content of a crop while production of that crop increases 2n% represents a decline in nutrient production.
7. An increase in agricultural productivity that is less than that assumed in a model is actually a decrease.
8. Models are truer than objective physical reality.
Greenhouse farmers pump CO2 into their greenhouses at over 1,000 ppm, it works for them.
Bravo, Roy. I wonder if Willard will be able to respond.
Will it be…Hey! we got models! We don’t need no stinking reality!
I took a PhD in chemistry just under 50 years ago. Since then my feeling is that science has simply gone into retreat. The age of real science has been replaced by science-based political campaigning.
I notice that several commentators have tied the ‘Climate Change’ debate to COVID. I also see a connection. In both areas, scientists feel cowed if they so much as cast doubt on the official dogma. Unfortunately that isn’t science.
Too true & great post
The world is returning to the pre-Enlightenment era
You have that right. I can think of a lot of great thinkers who are turning over in their graves, wondering why they used all that brainpower.
If the word dopes was in their vocabulary, they would be saying “What a bunch of dopes.”
Kid, I think the word they would be using is “schmucks”.
“This is the big problem in science that no one is talking about: even an honest person is a master of self-deception. In today’s environment, our talent for jumping to conclusions makes it all too easy to find false patterns in randomness, to ignore alternative explanations for a result or to accept ‘reasonable’ outcomes without question — that is, to ceaselessly lead ourselves astray without realizing it.”
They found a false randomness and named it ‘internal climate variability’, and accepted it without question and without evidence. And from that position, it’s dead easy to postulate that warming the climate will make it gurgle up more frequent and intense deadly heatwaves. While with finding the patterns of how the Sun discretely drives lovely heatwaves and deadly cold-waves, it is well apparent that they are a cause and not a product of climate change. Modeling the global climate system without the daily-weekly scale solar influence on NAM anomalies is a joke. But the cardinal sin is in overlooking how ENSO and the AMO act as negative feedbacks to indirect solar variability. It’s a wonderful climate stabilising mechanism, and the concept is highly cathartic for those freaked out by silly notions of runaway warming and climate tipping points.
Dr. Copernicus, we have a consensus, the science is settled, we took a vote!
Dr. Galileo, we have a consensus, the science is settled, we took a vote!
Dr. Semmelweiss, we have a consensus, the science is settled, we took a vote!
Imagine being part of a paleolithic tribe.
There is a schism – one group wants to migrate to the mountains and the others want to migrate to the valley.
The mountain people speak of plentiful game and refuge from marauders.
The valley people speak of water, roots and berries to eat.
Maybe a better answer is to stay on the plains.
But staying there alone is sure death.
So in evolution, staying with a group is more important than being right.
We do seem to have capacity for reason, which can only take place in an individual mind, but those lacking group adherence traits were strongly weeded out by evolution.
GWPF Press Release, 13 April 2021:
https://mailchi.mp/8ad32f917d46/the-gwpf-newsletter-ruw81cwknq-181222
The Climate Blame Game
Are we really causing extreme weather?
“London, 13 April: A paper published today shows that attempts to blame extreme weather on human-caused global warming are “overconfident and probably wrong”.
The paper, by statistician and philosopher of science Dr William M Briggs, reveals that mainstream attribution science is beset by flaws of reasoning, modelling and data.
Dr Briggs points out that most attribution claims are based around comparing simulations of the climate today to simulations of the climate as it might have been without human activity. But as he explains, this approach has a fundamental problem:
“We simply have little or no idea what the climate would have been without human activity. Moreover, we can’t ever know what it was like.”
And Dr Briggs also points out that even if we did know, it would still not be enough.
“In order to attribute individual weather events to humankind, scientists need a perfect model of the climate. They do not have this. Therefore, claims that we are responsible for any particular weather event are at best overconfident, if not plain wrong.”
Attribution studies assume that the weather has been getting worse, yet empirical observations do not support this generic assumption.
Dr Brigg’s paper is entitled The Climate Blame Game: Are we really causing extreme weather?”
Full report: https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2021/04/Briggs-Climate-Attribution.pdf
Pingback: How we fool ourselves. Part II: Scientific consensus building
As our nonlinear world moves into uncharted territory, we should expect surprises. Some of these may take the form of natural hazards, the scale and nature of which are beyond our present comprehension. The sooner we depart from the present strategy, which overstates an ability to both extract useful information from and incrementally improve a class of models that are structurally ill suited to the challenge, the sooner we will be on the way to anticipating surprises, quantifying risks, and addressing the very real challenge that climate change poses for science. Unless we step up our game, something that begins with critical self-reflection, climate science risks failing to communicate and hence realize its relevance for societies grappling to respond to global warming.” https://www.pnas.org/content/116/49/24390
Another ‘selective reference’? What an odd complaint. These guys are on track.
“As our nonlinear world moves into uncharted territory …” RIE
Mmm, has the world ever stopped moving into uncharted territory? What is so startling about the present changes when observed and compared in the context of all the many unknowns there are about our specie’s history on this planet and the many times large human populations appear to have abandoned thriving colonies etc., and we truly do not know why? We can only ever do our best in the present without ever believing there is a ‘one size fits all’ answer to a totally unknown future.
This is refreshing – thank you. The comment was Tim Palmer’s – it is true in the sense of Newton’s 4th rule for natural philosophy. Although here I would invoke Douglas Adams – ‘Don’t Panic.”
On a practical level – what we need is twice the current beef herd.
“This pragmatic strategy centers on efforts to accelerate energy innovation, build resilience to extreme weather, and pursue no regrets pollution reduction measures — three efforts that each have their own diverse justifications independent of their benefits for climate mitigation and adaptation.” https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/climate-pragmatism-innovation#:~:text=This%20pragmatic%20strategy%20centers%20on,for%20climate%20mitigation%20and%20adaptation.
To make the religious element explicit – we need a neo Hayekian utopian story to comfort the children. It may all change on a dime and we could all die won’t do the job. Equally – there is nothing to see here – move on – is not calculated to impress even the babes.
“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” Acts 2.17
If you look at it dispassionately – we are well on the way to a brighter future for our children.
Greenhouse farmers pump CO2 into their greenhouses at over 1,000 ppm, it works for them.
https://dewwool.com/effects-of-force/
Physical inactivity is associated with a higher risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes: a study in 48 440 adult patients
“Conclusion
We found that consistently meeting PA guidelines was strongly associated with a reduced odds for severe COVID-19 among infected adults. Specifically, when compared with those who reported being consistently inactive, those who were consistently meeting PA guidelines had lower odds of being hospitalised, requiring ICU admission and dying from COVID-19. Even activity levels that did not meet the PA guidelines were significantly associated with reduced odds of hospitalisation and death. It is notable that being consistently inactive was a stronger risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes than any of the underlying medical conditions and risk factors identified by CDC except for age and a history of organ transplant.1 In fact, physical inactivity was the strongest risk factor across all outcomes, compared with the commonly cited modifiable risk factors, including smoking, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer.”
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/04/07/bjsports-2021-104080
That’s true for just about every disease.
Yes it is. It is still notable that “being consistently inactive was a stronger risk factor for severe COVID-19 outcomes than any of the underlying medical conditions and risk factors identified by CDC except for age and a history of organ transplant.”, and we all know how important those comorbidities are.
All the COVID-19 measures are counterproductive, IMO.
Joshua said, with regard to establishment of a police state to manage Covid-19: “You are in a minority in that view. Majorities wanted government to take a stronger stand, in what they saw as a stronger defense of their freedoms to live safe and happy lives.”
I admit I don’t have the patience to wade through everything everyone says here– and especially Joshua– but this is just absolute rubbish: “they saw a stronger defense of their freedoms to live safe and happy lives.” Precious.
Is “police state” too strong to characterize what happened/is happening? I don’t think so. We’ve all seen videos of the police man-handling people for not wearing masks. Medical mandates are being enforced by the police power of the state: don’t wear your mask, the police will come.
According to Josh, apparently most people are stupid: that’s why they need the police to ensure that they wear their masks. But if masks mattered so much, then Florida would be about #1 in terms of deaths from Covid-19, and Sweden would be at the very top by a long mile because not only didn’t they wear masks, but– shame, for shame– they didn’t resort to a police state to manage health. A police state was never necessary.
The plain fact is that people aren’t stupid and will act appropriate to the danger in most cases. If we truly had a deadly disease like the Back Death, then we can assume that most people would take great care; the ones that didn’t might die of the plague, and that’s just their tough luck. If people don’t perceive Covid-19 as any great threat despite 24/7 news scare-mongering (and for those healthy individuals under 65, it isn’t a great threat) then they’ll act accordingly: so be it. If YOU are afraid, then YOU go around in a mask– two masks, even– a full body suit, gloves, and sanitizer. Your decision to “stay safe.” But this business that we have to impose a police state to protect your freedom is the sort of twisted logic, and grovelling subordination to the authorities, one might expect from Joshua.
Take your police state and shove it up your arse. There, I said it. The government’s job is to advise us of what it believes is the best policy to stay safe, but to mandate health restrictions is the road to hell paved with good intentions. I know Joshua will disagree but for me there’s no arguing with someone so keen to invite a police state, and so unperceptive of the dangers of doing so.
Wow, almost 400 comments so far! Having studied human reasoning about policy issues for almost 50 years, I have never seen anyone fool themselves. This is all just name calling. The concept is incoherent.
I’ve fooled myself, David.
Many years ago, working as a cook, I came home early because business was slow; I saw a black dog run across my driveway as I pulled in. Inside, I discovered that I’d been burgled, and that the burgler had come in (and left) through an open window by the driveway: the exact spot where I saw a dog running off.
Yet it wasn’t until the afternoon of the next day, after I’d plopped myself outside to read a book, that it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen a dog at all: I’d seen the burgler jumping out the window. The footprints were even there, which I followed until they cut across a yard where people– whom I assumed weren’t the burgler– were playing.
This is my “black dog” story. It has something to do, I think, with Kant’s categories of understanding, and it might have something to do with what we’re conditioned to expect (or not expect) as well. The most interesting thing about this is that even after it was very clear that I’d been burgled, it still took quick a while to connect what I saw with what happened. My assumptions managed to fool me.
So yes, the concept may be incoherent, but real life doesn’t often follow logic: it just is.
Reminds me of when I was discharged from the Army and wended my way to my new home, put the wife and kids to bed, looked at myself in the mirror, and thought, that mustache has to go.
But wait. Let’s have a little fun.
I shaved off the left half of the mustache, and at breakfast the next morning, asked if anyone noticed anything different? The kids looked around, and no… then I pointed to my upper lip and there were gasps.
This in entirely consistent with perception science, where we fill in the details of what we expect to be there.
So… not only can we not trust the experts, we can’t even trust ourselves.
““Although it has failed to produce its intended impact nevertheless the Kyoto
Protocol has performed an important role. That role has been allegorical. Kyoto has permitted different groups to tell different stories about
themselves to themselves and to others, often in superficially scientific language. But, as we are increasingly coming to understand, it is often not questions about science that are at stake in these discussions. The culturally
potent idiom of the dispassionate scientific narrative is being employed to fight culture wars over competing social and ethical values.49 Nor is that to be seen as a defect. Of course choices between competing values are not made by relying upon scientific knowledge alone. What is wrong is to pretend that they are.” Gwyn Prins & Steve Rayner, 2009, The Wrong Trousers: Radically Rethinking Climate Policy
It is of course a continuation of the culture war by other means. You are on the side of these noisy extremes or not. Science is collateral damage – policy is deadlocked.
Some fool themselves. Others are born to fool others.
“James O’Keefe of Project Veritas confronted CNN’s Technical Director Charlie Chester about his stated “focus” on pushing “Trump out of office” via a video released Tuesday.
The video shows O’Keefe walking into a diner where Chester was eating breakfast with a Project Veritas informant, who had previously left the table, allowing O’Keefe to slide into a Chester’s booth to confront him about a recently released tape in which Chester was recorded saying, “Look what we did, we got Trump out. I am 100 percent going to say it, and I 100 percent believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out. … I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that.”
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2021/04/14/cnn-director-confronted-about-his-claims-network-used-propaganda-and-fear-to-defeat-trump/
Propaganda passing for news? Who would’ve thought?
I think it’s pretty plain to a lot of people that a narrative has been sold whose goals seem to be (coincidentally) aligned with the Great Reset ideas of World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and the many movers and shakers who to all appearances assent to and contribute to Schwab’s vision. These people include Gates (technocracy!), Fauci, Joe gotta-save-the-planet Biden, Macron, Boris Johnson, John gotta-save-the-planet Kerry, Merkel, Xi Jinping, and many others who gather at the WEF-sponsored Davos events, whose themes closely follow the Klausian vision. https://www.weforum.org/events/the-davos-agenda-2021/
Perusing the WEF website and matters related to Schwab (such as his books) is very interesting indeed. How do we fool ourselves? Maybe by thinking that a dubious planetary emergency necessitates a reset of our entire economic and social worlds, rather than piecemeal and focused solutions that address solidly-established problems emerging from proven causal links? But let’s not forget that all this will be for peace and justice too, as this vision leaves nothing out. Utopia!
What was Schwab’s most recent book called? “Covid-19 and the Great Reset.” Planetary emergencies, you see, are rather slow to evoke a response while viral emergencies really get people off their butts. Just sayin’. Incidentally, Klaus makes clear that he understands that many people may not go along with the program, and to prod these along we’ll need an enforcing police state of some sort, although that part isn’t stated outright, for obvious reasons. Also: we’re never going back to normal. That seems to be one of the unshakable foundations of the scheme: we have to move forward into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (read: Great Reset) whether we want to or not. Glad they asked for our vote, but then again they seem bent on doing what’s best for us whether we want it or not (again, cue police state.)
Stay safe re-set: stay free.
I think it’s pretty plain to a lot of people that a narrative has been sold whose goals seem to be (coincidentally) aligned with the Great Reset ideas of World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and the many movers and shakers who to all appearances assent to and contribute to Schwab’s vision. https://www.weforum.org/events/the-davos-agenda-2021/
Perusing the WEF website and matters related to Schwab (such as his books) is very interesting indeed. How do we fool ourselves? Maybe by thinking that a dubious planetary emergency necessitates a reset of our entire economic and social worlds, rather than piecemeal and focused solutions that address solidly-established problems emerging from proven causal links? But let’s not forget that all this will be for peace and justice too, as this vision leaves nothing out. Utopia!
Counter-spinning hurricane expected to reach Cat 4, breaking some records:
https://youtu.be/CuAz5h6ZcqY
Cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons – all the same thing and they all spin counter clockwise in the NH. They are spun up by planetary rotation and happen over warm water. Typically in the cyclogenesis region some 9 to 23,5 degrees in latitude north and south. The sun passed the equinox in March in its apparent journey north. More warmth is being supplied to the western Pacific Ocean by the persistent La Nina conditions.
“Marine stratocumulus cloud decks forming over dark, subtropical oceans are regarded as the reflectors of the atmosphere.1 The decks of low clouds 1000s of km in scale reflect back to space a significant portion of the direct solar radiation and therefore dramatically increase the local albedo of areas otherwise characterized by dark oceans below.2,3 ” https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4973593
https://cdn.zmescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cloudchart.gif
Observation and and theory suggest that cloud – largely in marine boundary layer stratocumulus – is a positive feedback to global warming.
e.g. https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/6/3/62
This is contrary to the contrarian meme and will be be rejected vehemently. Where ideas are founded on values and culture they tend to be difficult to dislodge. Any challenge is greeted by cognitive dissonance. Groupthink provides an emotional reassurance that they are not certifiably nuts. Denouncing the other as fools and frauds provides a seductive frisson of feelings of moral and intellectual superiority.
Robert I Ellison: “The decks of low clouds 1000s of km in scale reflect back to space a significant portion of the direct solar radiation and therefore dramatically increase the local albedo of areas otherwise characterized by dark oceans below.2,3 ” https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4973593
Observation and and theory suggest that cloud – largely in marine boundary layer stratocumulus – is a positive feedback to global warming.
How is it a positive feedback to reflect [more] direct solar radiation back to space? Does warming produce less stratocumulus cloud cover?
you might try reading the rest of the passage.
Robert I Ellison: you might try reading the rest of the passage.
The apparent contradiction that I addressed was not resolved.
RIE,
Can you name a single, accepted consequence of man-made climate change that has affected you personally, to the extent that you noticed it?
Geoff S
RE: ” . . . name a single, accepted consequence of man-made climate change that has affected you personally, to the extent that you noticed . . .”
Everything that happens (but it’s not a religion). I believe that’s the accepted consensus. Ask Dave A. He knows about this stuff.
Climate is as weather does. “The lesson is,” says Tomas Milanovic (How simple is simple), “that even if global may often seem simpler than local, the laws of nature always work in the other direction – from local to global… the often repeated statement Climate is not weather is misleading. The right statement is “Climate is uniquely dependent on weather because its properties can only be derived from a known weather by averaging it over some arbitrary space or time domain.”
“…because its properties can only be derived from a known weather by averaging it over some arbitrary space or time domain.”
Very good, thank you.
“But Tsonis makes a step towards spatio-temporal chaos by considering that there are several interacting waves what is equivalent to introduce some dose of spatial interaction. Of course as Tsonis considers only 5 waves, it is a rather rough way to discretize space over the whole planet but it is a beginning.
The best way to imagine a full spatio-temporal chaos theory is to imagine that there is a different chaotic oscillator like the Lorenz butterfly) at every point of space (so there is an infinity of them) and that they are all coupled strongly with each other in a non linear and time dependent way. I am not saying that there can’t be some simplifications but nobody knows today. The only thing I am reasonably sure of is that there will be no progress in understanding be it via chaos or not as long as people will insist on the crutches of functions/series that are only time dependent.” Tomas Milanovic – https://judithcurry.com/2011/02/10/spatio-temporal-chaos/
Science is of course a collaborative effort aimed at discovering truth. Anastasios Tsonis revealed quantitively with a ‘toy model’ a profound truth. It had been bubbling away for decades. Beginning I think with Harold Hurst and his analysis of of nearly 1000 years of recorded Nile River level data – or with Andrey Kolmogorov’s investigations of fluid turbulence. The contrast between large and small shows how there is a continuum between weather and climate. From micro-eddies to planetary waves. What Benoit Mandelbrot called fractal. The emergent behaviour of the system manifests as persistent regimes and abrupt transitions.
“You can see spatio-temporal chaos if you look at a fast mountain river. There will be vortexes of different sizes at different places at different times. But if you observe patiently, you will notice that there are places where there almost always are vortexes and they almost always have similar sizes – these are the quasi standing waves of the spatio-temporal chaos governing the river. If you perturb the flow, many quasi standing waves may disappear. Or very few. It depends.” Tomas
The Epidemic of Stupid applies not only to vaccines but also to climate change:
https://youtu.be/lHzWZcayDbI
It turns out that you can regress observed temperature against the models that lack decadal variability to obtain a residual that is presumably anthropogenic. It is about 0.3 degrees C in the last 40 years. ‘Consensus’ science at work. Decadal variability we know is the result of shifting patterns of spatio-temporally chaotic ‘quasi-standing waves’ in the Earth system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VbgzCahx8o
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0044-6
The extra heat adds to my air conditioning bill. On the other hand – the Asian gecko that shorted to air condition and caused $3500 damage probably loved it. Swings and roundabout. Perturb the flow more and the system will shift again. This is obviously a quite difficult idea for many – but it is what scientists – including Judith Curry – understand to be so.
Opposed to this is a plethora of crazy contrarian curmudgeon ideas – generally mutually exclusive – with little to nothing in the way of sophisticated math and stats and lacking completely any empirical proof. But that’s OK isn’t it. Consensus and alarmist science – any questioning of their beliefs – is stupid.
RIE – you can regress measure temperature against a plethora of meaningless models and whatever. (Mostly fact) + (meaningless) = (meaningless).
warming = natural + anthropogenic
The models are all pretty much the same – and in this case calibrated to observation.
“The global-mean temperature trends associated with GSW are as large as 0.3 °C per 40 years, and so are capable of doubling, nullifying or even reversing the forced global warming trends on that timescale.” op cit
Judith Curry worked on this with Sergey Kratvtsov apparently. Perhaps you should learn to read and think before shooting your mouth off with simplistic contrarian cr@p.
“The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be Utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and therefore an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote. Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this had rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide. Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.” Hayek, 1949, The intellectuals and socialism.
In a social context – and despite Sherrington’s derision – utopia is not a dirty word.
“Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably been the
fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments. But, though there is a need for a “brake on the vehicle of progress,”[3] I personally cannot be content with simply helping to apply the brake. What the liberal must ask, first of all, is not how fast or how far we should move, but where we
should move. In fact, he differs much more from the collectivist radical of today than does the conservative. While the last generally holds merely a mild and moderate version of the prejudices of his time, the liberal today must more positively oppose some of the basic conceptions which most conservatives share with the socialists.” Hayek, 1960, Why I am not a conservative
Utopia, like unicorns and catastrophic global warming, doesn’t exist.
And that’s why crazy curmudgeons have lost the battle of hearts and minds. Would Hayek be turning in his grave?
Jim2 says “Utopia, like unicorns and catastrophic global warming, doesn’t exist.”
Utopia is ever present in the minds of National politics and religions, usually thought to be achieved by threats and violence, mental and physical. History is replete with such evidence. Therein also exist unicorns.
Catastrophic global warming is another matter. It is real but we still can’t figure out what it is and how it works. Yet the tell-tales are there; in ice cores, sea sediments, tree-rings, C14 trails. It is perceived in the historical narrative once it is dissected out of the ‘utopic-?’ obfuscations – and (I nearly forgot) utopic scientific dogma.
There are ways to a bright future for the planet, its peoples and its wild places – but these need to be consciously designed in a broad context of economics and democracy, population, development, technical innovation, land use and the environment. There is a stark choice in which narratives of catastrophe and economic, environmental and social collapse have no place. Which future is for you and your children? Economic collapse, civil strife, war – or prosperous and resilient communities in vibrant landscapes?
The capacity to frame a positive narrative for the future has atrophied in many. Conservatism exists entirely as reflexive opposition. That hasn’t worked and can’t as Hayek explained. To repeat Hayek
‘Unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.’
The global economy is worth about $100 trillion a year. To put aid and philanthropy into perspective – the total is 0.025% of the global economy. If spent on Copenhagen Consensus smart development goals such expenditure can generate a benefit to cost ratio of more than 15. If spent on the UN Sustainable Development Goals you may as well piss it up against a wall. Either way – it is nowhere near the major path to universal prosperity. Some 3.5 billion people make less than $2 a day. Changing that can only be done by doubling and tripling global production – and doing it as quickly as possible. Optimal economic growth is essential and that requires an understanding and implementation of explicit principles for effective economic governance of free markets. So what are these laws of capitalism?
Restoring soil carbon stores increases agronomic productivity and enhances global food security. Increasing the soil organic content enhances water holding capacity and creates a more drought tolerant agriculture – with less downstream flooding. There is a critical level of soil carbon that is essential to maximising the effectiveness of water and nutrient inputs. Global food security, especially for countries with fragile soils and harsh climate such as in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, cannot be achieved without improving soil quality through an increase in soil organic content.
Increased agricultural productivity – by restoring soils and ecosystems – increased downstream processing and access to markets build local economies and global wealth. Economic growth provides resources for solving problems – conserving and restoring ecosystems, better sanitation and safer water, better health and education, updating the diesel fleet and other productive assets to emit less black carbon and reduce the health and environmental impacts, developing better and cheaper ways of producing electricity, replacing cooking with wood and dung with better ways of preparing food thus avoiding respiratory disease and again reducing black carbon emissions. A global program of agricultural soils restoration is the foundation for balancing the human ecology.
Utopias, socialism, religions all appeal to emotions. None can be validated by science. And all share the belief that their principles are correct while all the others are in error. Inevitably the friction between competing myths results in heightened emotions, which many times leads to violence. (One only need look at some of the nasty comments on this blog for proof.)
As a non-scientist I submit to those who are that while myths/beliefs are needed (as are our emotions), particularly to motivate us as humans, they can only lead science so far. Eventually, the irrational contradictions inherent in all beliefs surface and we are left with an impotent science that can not move beyond an arrested rationalism.
Utopia is a word invented by Sir Thomas More meaning ‘nowhere’. In the original book ideal societies were contrasted with the chaos of Europe of his day, It has inspired many different utopias and dystopias since. Star Trek: the next generation is a utopia – John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar is a dystopia. Hayek used the word in the context of democracy and individual liberty. Much is permissible in politics – without infringing on liberty – and you can’t complain if you let others chart the course to the future. To set the agenda there needs to be a pragmatic political strategy that appeals to the imagination or quiets the fears of the many. If this is a religion – guilty.
Robert … You can go back much further than 1516. Plato’s Republic was an attempt at sketching a utopia. I’m sure there may be others. With Plato, the philosopher king ruled because he was the one who had the knowledge … gold, silver, bronze. Look deep enough and each utopia has such a class. However, with socialism things get a bit messy. Historical Materialism had the workers being the class that moves history and takes humans to their destiny. Yet, Marx gave a special place to the intelligentsia. Today, various forms of socialism are moved by that intelligentsia. One could say from socialism-lite in Scandinavia all the way through to Cuba and Venezuela. None of them can show they are socialist in the true Marxian sense.
Karl Popper, a favorite of Dr Curry’s, thoroughly demolished Historical Materialism. It not only is irrational, it has never worked. It fails to incorporate aspects of human nature and eventually descends into totalitarianism. To understand this one need not look further than Orwell, who was a true socialist believer, trying hard to reform the more severe iterations, i.e. Stalinism.
The irony for me is that Marx saw that the workers would never, could never, maintain a collectivist society, if only because they were human. His solution was the storm troopers of the intelligentsia, the people ‘who know’ what’s right and can enforce it through propaganda. The high priests of any belief system have to maintain strict control. And it usually is done through the manipulation of words. Check out Syme in 1984.
As humans are wont to do, many of us just go along, maybe because like the workers we just want to live our lives and be left alone. But, there’s no keeping back the true believers. At some point they need to be confronted.
‘What has always made the state a hell on earth has been
precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven. ‘
F. Hoelderli
Quoted from Hayek’s Road to Serfdom
Robert … I think I may have a good book for you. Maybe you’ve read it? “The Phenomenon of Life, Toward a Philosophical Biology”, by Hans Jonas. Jonas was a student of Heidegger’s, existentialism being the study. As you know, existentialists are advocates of reason. Jonas had mastered the tools of reason, yet he was a practicing Jew. He believed in God. Amongst other things, the book is an attempt to reconcile the two. I don’t think I’d be spoiling it to say he didn’t succeed. Yet, his attempt successfully sketches the human animal … that juggling act of reason and belief/emotion, subjectivity and objectivity.
Here’s to being human. And, realizing we don’t have all the answers, and the best we can do is to not fool ourselves.
Thanks for your responses.
This study of soil carbon in north Australia over the last 30 years is a rare example of a climate study in which the authors allow experimental results to disprove their starting hypothesis.
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V24/apr/a6.php
There’s a lot of carbon in soil. Desperate to find ways that CO2 increase can have disastrous effects amplified in any way possible, scientists have proposed that increasing CO2 will – strangely – cause soil carbon content to decrease, leading to another one of their much loved positive feedbacks, in which soil holds less carbon and atmospheric CO2 is elevated still further, “wuss than we thought”.
These authors studied undisturbed soil in Queensland for 30 years, same method, same guy. Their starting expectation was that soil organic carbon (SOC) would decline over this time. But results showed the direct opposite. SOC increased. Rising CO2 was benefiting soil in every way.
To their credit, the authors accepted without equivocation that their starting hypothesis was “rejected” by the study’s findings. Carbon dynamics in soil under rising CO2 were better than they thought. Not worse. Something you don’t hear often. Honest climate science is still alive, here and there.
I have asked for a copy via ResearchGate – spending US$42 didn’t seem value – so I won’t comment on it. I live in the region – I know it well. An undisturbed patch is relatively rare. Soil respiration increases with temperature – it is a fundamental biokinetic property. Heterotrophic organisms like the warmth right? But I’d suggest that Queensland land clearing laws saw replacement of open woodland with dense woody weeds – not enough burning – may have something to do with it.
e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08930 – you can find an accessible pdf version here – https://judithcurry.com/2013/06/07/soil-carbon-permanent-pasture-as-an-approach-to-co2-sequestration/
“As it is a legume, brigalow has symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria, Rhizobium, in its roots. The soils of the Brigalow Belt are of better agricultural quality than the red earths of the mulga zone or the gravelly soils of the foothills of the Great Divide. By Australian standards, the soils of the brigalow country are good dual-purpose agricultural soils.
Brigalow is well adapted to its habitat, being drought resistant to cope with the erratic nature of the climate, and producing seeds that germinate and grow rapidly when they get sufficient spring rain, as occurs in La Nina episodes, but only a few times in a century. Both seeds and seedlings are very salt tolerant. Brigalow also resprouts to form dense masses of suckers, whipstick stands. The brigalow has been removed so thoroughly over its range that it is now considered a threatened ecosystem. The softwood scrubs that once covered large areas in the brigalow zone are in an even worse predicament, being as threatened as the brigalow, but awareness of them is much less than that of the Brigalow.
By 1985 the original 6 million hectares had been reduced to 30,000 hectares, that includes 1980 Ha or softwood scrub, that is now in reserves. Some small areas of scrub have since been added to the original conserved area.
The unique climatic zone, with complex hydrological characteristics, was adapted to by the brigalow communities evolving very specific adaptations. The ecosystems that replaced the brigalow communities don’t have these adaptations that suit them to the hydrology of the region, making salinisation of large areas inevitable (White, 2003).
By 1861 the entire area had been occupied. The clearing of the area for agriculture has led to a number of serious problems, for future agriculture as well as for the environment. As well as biodiversity loss, other problems are erosion, soil degradation, river silting, degradation of rivers downstream of dams. As a result of the heavily grazed pastures and annual cropping the nitrogen content of the soil that had been fixed by the brigalow has been continually reducing, and not being replaced since the elimination of the brigalow.” https://austhrutime.com/brigalow.htm#:~:text=The%20soils%20of%20the%20Brigalow,good%20dual%2Dpurpose%20agricultural%20soils.
Thanks, Phil, that’s good to hear.
And, perhaps, those who have ears will hear.
How we fool ourselves?
1. Temperature is defined by the Boltzmann distribution.
2. A column of air in equilibrium with a gravitational field has a thermal gradient.
3. The adiabatic lapse rate fixes thermal gradients in the troposphere.
4. Convection sets thermal gradients and radiation thermal magnitudes in the troposphere.
5. Increased convection can not compensate for radiation reduced by GHGs.
Your number 5 is incorrect. Moist convection most certainly compensates for increased radiative absorption by gases like atmospheric CO2.
The earth’s optical depth is remarkably stable owing to this. Cloud cover short circuits IR absorption near the surface by blocking solar irradiance and re-radiating latent heat from higher altitude and lower pressure meaning a lowered optical depth.
This s basic atmospheric science that failed climate modeling cannot adequately replicate.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
FTR, contrary to common ‘knowledge’, all propositions are thermodynamic falsehoods.
Temperature is measured and satellites are preferable as they capture most of the energy in the troposphere. On the surface – energy is either as latent or sensible heat – with changing ratios related to moisture availability. In terms of total energy there is no difference. The ratio is more constant over oceans of course. Atmospheric moisture is cycled about every 9 days – and it seems likely that there is an accelerated hydrological cycle in a warmer world.
https://www.climate4you.com/images/TotalCloudCoverVersusGlobalSurfaceAirTemperature.gif
https://www.climate4you.com/
How we fool ourselves is by substituting tendentious physical reasoning for physical evidence.
Robert I Ellison
engineer-hydrologist-scientist .
Robert Ellison: How we fool ourselves by displaying graphs that have no relevance to proving assertion 5 by Quondam is correct.
It makes no difference whether the energy sums to 1 between latent and sensible heat. Latent heat is sensible heat removed from the surface by evaporation and by convection and returned to a higher troposphere. The phase change converts it and releases it back only upon condensation. This latent heat bypasses optical depth in the vapor phase regardless of the absorption and emission of surface radiation in the IR producing a “greenhouse effect” at the surface.
Moist convection is without question, a cooling process to the surface and troposphere because the latent heat is not retained. It is radiated away at a lower optical depth while blocking incoming solar insolation.
How we fool ourselves by making ridiculous and unfounded assertions that the warmer temperatures of the last century “seem connected to an accelerating hydrological cycle.”:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/99/4/bams-d-17-0065.1.xml
Read the last paragraph where this 33 year study indicates no change in global precipitation trends.
I would also point out that for someone like you who is severely ignorant of atmospheric science, that if GHG like atmospheric CO2 was causing the climate to warm, the atmospheric response would be declining global precipitation and weaker storms, meaning higher surface humidity’s and a lower cloud to vapor fraction. Global drought would emerge, not increased precipitation. We see none of this in the current record. Present day droughts are regional, not global and are affected by PDO cycles.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Sensible heat is emitted at lightspeed – compared to slow convective processes. You have missed the point again. 33 years of hydrological data is of course far too little to characterise precipitation variability. There is of course decadal to millennial variability in both precipitation and evaporation. It has many sources in the massively coupled ocean and atmospheric flow field – in which Pacific Decadal Variability is a part. I could explain the analysis of geophysical series that led to understanding the nature of these changes but that would be a massive waste of time.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/spei.png
You continue to substitute specious reasoning for data. In such a complex, coupled, nonlinear – spatio-temporal chaotic – system – that is complete nonsense. Evidence is of course required in science – not just a contrarian thought bubble.
The SPEI link:
https://spei.csic.es/map/maps.html#months=1#month=2#year=2021
Robert Ellison: Your responses continue to reveal you are ignorant of any real principles from atmospheric science.
You don’t even realize you just made and affirmed my point rather than thinking you refuted it.
Those “lightspeed” absorptions and emissions of IR and solar radiation are exactly what contribute enormously to a vigorous moist convective overturn in the troposphere as the upper water vapor boundary in the troposphere emits powerful and destabilizing IR radiation over most of those wavelengths causing sharp cooling and an untenable temperature lapse rate that theoretically even approaches a super adiabatic cooling lapse rate near the surface demanding vigorous overturn to reach convective stability. This describes a very energetic convective overturn which then, at light speed, causes intense radiative emission from cloud back body radiation, emitting the latent heat effectively at a lowered optical depth to space.
Your chart reveals areas of regional drought, which also have been redefined to exaggerate drought conditions compared to the old Palmer index, but as would normally occur in any changing conditions, but proves nothing you would like to assert it to, like most of your other charts.
Your posts are so silly, you even implied upthread that references I gave you to atmospheric science texts published in the late 1950’s have somehow been disproven only because of your claims that in the computer age, model simulations and ability to measure more precisely somehow disproves founding principles. That is equivalent to claiming that Einstein’s theories of relativity are obsolete only because they are old compared to new physics that actually uses these concepts as a building block to further advance the science. Complete nonsense.
You are the one who would end up wasting anyone else’s time who understands atmospheric science trying to untangle the warped concepts you advance that you try and get readers here and elsewhere ( I’m sure ) to believe you know what is happening and those you like to call contrarians don’t understand science. But I have had plenty of experience with those like you and I fully realize that you have to assert an insulting arrogance to those that expose your weak understanding of science to try and get a reader to believe you are correct.
In truth, 95% of all your assertions on this blog are complete nonsense, backed with nothing. Especially your claims you have discovered “climate tipping points” that place humanity in danger if we don’t address human CO2 emissions to reverse them, but your blather is not fooling those who have the good science backgrounds. You will, however, get the ear of the political class that funds this junk science. They purchase opinions like yours so they can tax and regulate societies into oblivion in the name of “savin’ the planet”. That is not practicing science. That is advocating for non scientific concepts that satisfy a political agenda and will accomplish none of the claimed objectives.
There is no climate crisis and CO2 is not changing the climate as all the evidence gathered to date demonstrates.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
The locations where rain falls is somewhat random – but in large part depends on spatio-temporal patterns of ocean and atmospheric circulation. These patterns in the Earth flow field shift on scales from moments to eons as signals propagate through a coupled nonlinear system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VbgzCahx8o
Now I am not clear what your point is – amidst the crazy contrarian rants.
The observational evidence has progressed over the past 70 years.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/clement-figure-3-e1618626575638.jpg
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/clement-et-al-e1512080464744.png
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/325/5939/460.abstract
It is utterly bizarre. It is completely mad. Quantitative analysis cannot proceed without observation and be called science. Relativity has been confirmed experimentally many times.
“Especially your claims you have discovered “climate tipping points” that place humanity in danger if we don’t address human CO2 emissions to reverse them, but your blather is not fooling those who have the good science backgrounds.”
You are all over the place. But I never claimed to have discovered chaos. Some people trace it back to Pioncare – but in meteorology it begins with Lorenz. It makes prediction an initial value problem. You have not a clue and cloak your ignorance with arrogance and calumny.
I meant to add this link:
https://history.aip.org/climate/rapid.htm
“Your posts are so silly, you even implied upthread that references I gave you to atmospheric science texts published in the late 1950’s have somehow been disproven only because of your claims that in the computer age, model simulations and ability to measure more precisely somehow disproves founding principles.”
What I claimed that you were handwaving at some ancient texts I presume from your youth. Without actually articulating what these foundations are. Convection is a reality? Duh.
I have run hydrodynamic models for decades. I am well aware of numerical model uses and limitations.
“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.” https://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709
What I claimed was that experimental observation is the foundation of science itself – and that dispensing with that is complete twittery. If you are going to whine about things – cut out the crap misrepresentations..
“It is the goal of pattern formation to understand nonequilibrium systems in which the nonlinearities conspire to generate spatio-temporal structures or pattern. Many of these systems can be described by coupled nonlinear partial differential equations, and one could argue that it is the field of pattern formation is trying to find unifying concepts underlying these equations.” https://www.ds.mpg.de/LFPB/chaos
The discovery of dynamical complexity in the Earth system – shifting patterns in coupled oceans and atmosphere – can be traced back to Harold Hurst and Andrey Kolmogorov. Based on painstaking analysis of data. Ed Lorenz provided the theoretical insights to decipher its meaning. .
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2015.1125998
Thank you, CF. Well done.
But warming whether by GHG or other forcing should increase evaporation, increase cloud, increase albedo, and increase precipitation, no? Drought was common in the LIA, not in the MWP.
Jimmww: Thank you. The difference in the MWP versus a theoretical warming by CO2 is that if the premise were true ( which it is not) the temperature sensitivity to higher CO2 and less water vapor would create more rapid warming in those regions which would be primarily in the colder arctic. If warming is not linear across the latitude lines as in this condition, the jet stream strength would weaken, baroclinity and storm development would decrease at mid latitude and migrate to a higher latitude leaving larger regions at mid latitude with drought and lessened precipitation, yet higher surface humidity’s.
The tropics would likely not change much, but would likely be somewhat drier as the occasional incursions of the subtropical jet into those regions would be weakened as well.
Hard to say what effect this would have on tropical storms and hurricanes.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
So no drought – the rain falls in different regions? Largely as a result of of SST in the Pacific – a cool eastern Pacific especially. Contrary to Ulric’s nonsense. Not only do they have no theory and no data but they can’t even keep the crude, crazy contrarian story straight.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/7/eaax0087
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2009GL042239
…a cool Pacific between 1260 and 1920… with more MBL stratocumulus… fancy that…
Robert: Your reading comprehension seems to be a challenge to you.
You need to re-read my posts and think about what I said before responding with incorrect assertions which are nearly equivalent to inserting words into my posts that are not there.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Your narratives – and there is nothing else – I’m sure make perfect sense to you. You obviously don’t understand the progress made in your own field in the past 50 years. Just how ancient are you? You and jiminy should pay attention to Tim Palmer and not the voices in your heads. And then you are rude and obnoxious – just like Jiminy. And whine that I then treat you with condescension and disdain. Duh.
All the science is nonsense – and only you and jiminy know the truth aye?
Robert Ellison: How “ancient” am I? Ancient enough to know better than to make the silly assumptions you have done here by throwing loads of collective data out that prove none of your assertions about atmospheric CO2 changing the climate.
In the videos you post, the first, from Kravtson, Grimm and Gu, gave a stark and candid admission that climate models are, in fact, what I have been stating they are for 20 years, which are overrated heaps of junk that have no demonstrated predictive skill in regards to the earth’s climate. Whether you give a mathematical treatment that in short range weather forecast models ( talked about in the second video from MIT ) as a IVP ( initial value problem) or the second treatment in climate models as a BVP ( boundary value problem) where weather runs random in the system thru large time integrations, the problem that arises is the same, and in fact, gets worse with the BVP treatment because computational stability can only be maintained by sacrificing the very thing that causes the solutions to fail after a matter of a few days, which is because there is no grid sizing that can become small enough to satisfy the limits of the partial differential equations that are incorporated into the system. This means that no matter what, energy flow and transformation within the system is lost. The systems “leak” energy rapidly such that the solutions are worthless beyond about a week.
I have worked with and tested ensemble member techniques in short range forecasting, and find their usefulness, just like from the models themselves, of only limited value. I have seen many times, when the system perturbations fail to disturb the operational run solutions, theoretically meaning high confidence in the operational run, only to find in a six hour later initialization and run, everything changes.
So if you don’t have a model that can yet predict the earth’s climate with, what do you have to assert atmospheric CO2 is changing the climate within such a chaotic system? I assert nothing by going back to founding principles that demonstrate thru empirical calculation that atmospheric CO2 does not have the power to change the earth’s optical depth in the presence of its hydrological cycle.
But someone is not telling the truth because the political establishment is operating under a false presumption that climate models are accurate and can be used to make public policy with. Who is doing this? I’m guessing the usual suspects that give the political establishment what it wants to implement these worthless “green energy” policies and legislation which will do nothing to atmospheric CO2 or the climate.
This ought to bother anyone in science who understands the issues, but apparently not you. Where is your conscience if you get it, which I do question because your posts indicate otherwise?
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
CO2 as a gas is radiatively active in the IR band is not hugely in doubt. This has been addressed. The increased forcing is relatively precisely calculated line by line using the radiative transport equation. We have dealt with that – move on.
Decadal variation is real? So what? I have been studying it for decades. That models and climate are coupled, nonlinear, chaotic systems is hardly news. It was expressed in precisely those terms by the IPCC in 2001 – and was understood well before that.
The bottom line is that your hypothesis – built entirely on hand waving – lacks empirical verification. It is in fact contradicted by available observational evidence.
The rest is clearly merely political rhetoric – that seems to make up the bulk of your comments. Perhaps if you dropped the rhetoric – you would have room to coherently frame your hypothesis. Or here’s a novel idea – present some empirical evidence. .
Robert Ellison: Further, my post above gets us full circle to what is necessary to prove failed climate models are correct and that is an accurate calculation of the earth’s optical depth’s changes thru time, which your data does not display. Emission alone is not describing optical depth.
However, there is one scientist that has made a robust attempt at doing this very thing using the TIGR2 radiosonde data sets which contain 2311 global soundings and 228 atmospheric profiles. Then using HARTCODE radiative transfer ( better than HITRAN and that he developed as a NASA IR radiative transfer specialist scientist) which has 3490 spectral intervals, 9 streams and 11 molecular species, calculated the change in earth optical depth and determined the optical depth of water vapor compensated for the increased absorption of IR with increased CO2, and with observation, developed empirical relationships with the data he has gathered that come back full circle to founding principles in IR radiative transfer. The stable optical depth he determined from this that CO2 cannot change is a tau of 1.87. Imagine that. A summary of his work is found in this paper:
https://atlatszo.hu/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/article.pdf
I would also like to address your claim that climate science has advanced far beyond the founding principles derived from atmospheric science. I won’t argue that the ability to measure and gather data is much improved, but to date, it has not given any further insight as to whether climate models can be validated, and the answer there is they have not been. So again, where is you proof that the optical depth of the earth has changed to match up to model output? You don’t have any proof, but I did offer a proof from a former NASA scientist by the name of Ferenc Miskolczi whose work demonstrated that climate models are the true failures they are.
Another thing that caught my attention 7 years ago and under the presumption climate science is advancing as you claim, was a paper written by Francis and Vavrus that claimed arctic amplification causes the jet stream to weaken, amplify and stall, leading to increased global weather extremes. This paper passed peer review, yet it is clearly incorrect and at odds with more founding principles from atmospheric science that describe the behavior of planetary Rossby waves. It was widely criticized by other atmospheric science academics but the message it left was widely disseminated by an eager press who lapped up the conclusion so that now, every time there is severe weather, climate change is deemed the culprit. I wrote about this and showed why their paper is incorrect here:
https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/a-warming-arctic-would-not-cause-increased-severe-weather-or-temperature-extremes-2/
How could something this wrong pass peer review, let alone be fronted by academics that should know better? And this gets us back to the circumstances that have caused climate science to have been politicized, meaning, IMO, that truth has become relative to the flow of money, whose faucet is controlled by the political class who appear to me to have objectives to control every aspect of our lives through endless taxation and regulation and this arrangement has caused corruption of most of the objectives and taken academic freedom away from those who are truly interested in finding the truth about the earth’s climate.
I don’t believe anything that “sounds good” to me in science. It has to make scientific sense. And what I find in looking at your posts is that they do not make sense and do not prove at all that atmospheric CO2 is a culprit in changing the earth’s climate. You demonstrated that you don’t even understand what has to be done to prove out your points and assertions.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
It has been more than a decade since I considered Ferenc Miskolczi. It is based on balloon data that is not nearly precise enough or with sufficient coverage to empirically verify his thesis. If this is what you mean by fundamental science you are wasting our time. I am not wasting any more of mine on it.
HITRAN is maintained at the Atomic and Molecular Physics Division, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I am really not entertaining your diversionary nonsense about what is the better database.
d(work & heat)/dt = energy in – energy out
The heat is mostly in the oceans. And the heating in the satellite era is overwhelmingly due to reduced low level cloud cover. Obviously changing the inconstant optical properties of the atmosphere.
I linked three papers on the connection between the Arctic Oscillation – modulated by solar variability – and mid-latitude storms under the most recent week in review. Solar intensity causes some 3% of the AO variability – but it is also the result of internal atmospheric feedbacks. Don’t you think that you have discredited yourself sufficiently?
My point was that cloud is positive feedback to warming – demonstrated by a wealth of empirical evidence.
The rest is simply a response to your tedious scattergun rhetoric. Which you invariably seem to claim as a validation.
Robert Ellison: There is more to consider with Miskolczi’s work than just the optical depth calculation derived from 61 years of data that is far superior to the availability of the same from the CERES data because of its limitations working with cloudy earth areas and the fact it has only been available for a short and inadequate period of time to do the same thing.
The empirical relationships derived are also important to the big picture and mirror founding principles, something that failed climate models do not. Your response indicates you spent little if any time considering, let alone, even understanding the physical significance of Miskolczi’s work.
Your silly comment about HITRAN vs. HARTCODE also demonstrates you know little about either because HARTCODE was developed nearly exclusively for the IR radiative transfer problem with resolution several orders of magnitude better in resolving spectral absorptions and radiances than HITRAN does.
Playing duck and bob is clearly your MO on this thread so it is pointless to continue the discussion. Contrary to your belief, it is you that has discredited yourself with your evasive and incorrect answers and non answers to my questions.
It is also my experience that this MO is the most common in those that promote climate hysteria like you are doing on this thread. If you presented these shallow assertions of yours in a seminar setting where questions from an objective scientific audience were allowed and not fielded by a moderator, you wouldn’t survive any defense you might try and use and would walk away thoroughly discredited.
Here is something to read that explains what HARTCODE is all about and its application to the atmospheric radiative transfer problem, something you seem not able to comprehend in promoting climate hysteria.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287994595_HIGH_RESOLUTION_ATMOSPHERIC_RADIATIVE_TRANSFER_CODE_H_A_R_T_C_O_D_E_Version_No_01
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Chuck my ancient friend – you are a sky-dragon slayer and now denying that a constant optical depth was the central fact of Miskolczi. In which somewhat imprecise and spatially sparse balloon data was bent to breaking point. And you tell us that data from the most modern, purpose build satellite observing system with dozens of precision instruments is inferior. Sound about right?
Do you imagine that some other radiative transfer database of millions of atmospheric observation from planes and balloons says something else about greenhouse gases?
You assume that I am some crazy contrarian stereotype – and no well educated in engineering, hydrology and science, deeply curious and very broadly read over decades in broad areas of climate science and policy.
I make the point that climate and models are coupled, nonlinear. chaotic systems – that you appear to agree with and then refuse the obvious corollary of inevitable tipping points. That is the dominant climate paradigm. So I would not be alone in your hypothetical seminar.
e.g. https://www.nap.edu/catalog/10136/abrupt-climate-change-inevitable-surprises
We all know about the limitations of weather and climate models. As I have said explicitly. Including Tim Palmer who I introduced to bring some authoritative reality to this. Yet this continues to be your major whine.
e.g. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/49/24390
You are a know nothing contrarian blowhard.
Robert Ellison: One of the things that those that promote climate hysteria like you do who demonstrate they cannot discuss science competently is to call others a name as a put down and imply from the condescension that only their arguments are valid. So here is another example of your inability to discuss and understand. Your comprehension is terrible, and again, you put words in my comments I never stated to distort what I have really said. And please don’t call me your friend. I am anything but.
A central theme of Miskolczi’s work and calculations was a stable optical depth. That doesn’t mean absolutely fixed at 1.87. In a stochastic and chaotic system there will always be variation around a derived number like this, but the relationships derived suggest the value will not stray far above or below this value. Your comment again proves you either don’t understand this work or care to because it doesn’t fit your ill conceived climate hysteria narrative, and yet, you have no proof to offer that the number is incorrectly calculated theoretically or by any measurements including those from CERES because you again failed to understand there is not the ability of these systems to calculate optical depth any better than the TIGR data Miskolczi used at present because of the difficulty in getting around atmospheric cloud cover and the short time the system has been in existence. No matter how many times I point this out, you fail to comprehend, and you also are incorrect (again) that Miskolczi’s work or my assumptions are connected to sky-dragon slayers. Try to at least get that right if you can’t comprehend much else.
Contrary to your claim, I don’t believe you are crazy. But you are an arrogant and condescending individual who speaks out of both sides of his mouth and you display a lot of ignorance. Your advanced degree is in environmental science and its clear from that, your forte is not atmospheric science, an essential discipline in understanding how the atmospheric system works.
You claim to acknowledge model limitations, but then turn around and present Tim Palmer, who thinks he can further advance these train wrecks by introducing new concepts from within them without first solving the very known limitations the modeling imposes upon itself.
He solidifies this concept by claiming the scientific community has soundly established that the warming of the last century is due to GHG accumulation but offers no proof other than having to rely upon what he just admitted is a failure to get the answers. That is patently absurd and you ascribe to this nonsense. This is especially true if there are tipping points to the climate system because you have no way to identify them without model construct but mathematical constraints prohibit this. Another example of disingenuous doublespeak and your references are again a proof of this.
And yes, contrary to your claim, you would be alone in my hypothetical seminar if you excluded the use of failed models because you would have no other way of trying to prove your claims which really puts you out on a limb.
You are the poster child of what is wrong with climate science. Always certain and never in doubt with a full blown aura of arrogance to move your blind sighted positions down the road, and in your case, headed for the steep cliff that you will go over once the climate decides not to cooperate with all of the frivolous claims that surround you, sort of like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
I am presuming you are again going around in ever tightening circles until you disappear up your own arse. I’m bailing.
Chuck, there seems to be no point discussing science with Elly, who has his unalterable opinion on CAGW. Phrases like “the divergence of surface temperature from linear responses to greenhouse gas forcing at whatever scale…” suggest he still hasn’t grasped the exponential decline of CO2’s GHG effect. And “inevitable tipping points”??? If tipping points were inevitable, surely ONE would have occurred in the last 550 million years, certainly at the PETM.
No, he has a virgin mind, impenetrable, inviolate, and occasionally charming. Mind you, I still think that a warmer world is a wetter world, as evidenced by the MWP vs the LIA.
A cooler world is generally more arid – but the effect with the very limited temperature change over the last millennium is not known. Changes in the location of precipitation related to changes in patterns of SST – as in the studies on US precipitation I linked – certainly occurred. There may be a hint of reduced rainfall in the long Nile River records analysed by Harold Hurst. Rainfall in the western Pacific region increased.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/nilometer.png
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/vance2012-antartica-law-dome-ice-core-salt-content-e1540939103404.jpg
Jiminy’s facile arguments are of negligible technical worth. And the bulk of his comments – and Chuck’s – involve denigration of a critic of their contrarian groupthink memes.
Robert Ellison said: “Jiminy’s facile arguments are of negligible technical worth. And the bulk of his comments – and Chuck’s – involve denigration of a critic of their contrarian groupthink memes.”
Wrong again. My comments were written only to expose your incompetence and failure to prove any of your points just like the one you fail to make here by showing graphs that are not even remotely connected to making your claimed points about precipitation and by using outdated graphs while failing to provide the author sources and methods used to calculate the results.
Nobody that I know that is scientifically competent makes these sorts of mistakes. This demonstrates your incompetence or willingness to try and deceive.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
The Nile River graph – with a comparison to random variability – comes from here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02626667.2013.804626
The Law Dome ENSO proxy comes from here:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/26/3/jcli-d-12-00003.1.xml
Both have been referenced previously – but if they can’t find it – just ask.
These guys are just such no nothing blowhards.
A good example of scientists fooling themselves was described by Ronald Fisher in his paper “Have Mendel’s Laws Been Rediscovered?”. He showed that the variation in results in the published papers was less than what would be expected if Mendel’s Laws were true — the inference being that the scientists were biasing their results, or at least their reports, toward what they expected.
Matthew, Yes, Mendel omitted some inconsistent results, which was not unacceptable at the time. Isaac Newton may have adjusted calculations to fit observations. Robert Millikan, in a research paper describing the charge of an electron, failed to mention that he eliminated some data points. Galileo was biased. So was Newton. Einstein introduced a novel constant, lambda, to make things come out right. Cyril Burt was a cheat, but his conclusion was correct. What matters is whether they were right or not.
Calculations exist to reflect observation. As in the Planck constant in quantum theory. Not the other way around.
Once again without the courtesy of a reference that he might be referring to. More grandfatherly muttering… Oh well, I suppose that will happen to all of us eventually.
In my cups? Please! I’m not Australian!
That was the most generous interpretation. Since you so utterly missed the connecting between math and observation demanded by the scientific method. Plus you invariably only rude and obnoxious.
jimww: Matthew, Yes, Mendel omitted some inconsistent results, which was not unacceptable at the time.
That was not the point of Fisher’s article.
Elly is still unable or unwilling to quote the words that he objects to.
“utterly missed the connecting between math and observation demanded by the scientific method.”?? I’m not the one using models to predict the future. I rely on data and observation, as required by all reasonable folks from Galileo to Feynman.
Changing what you’re measuring and how is fine if appropriate, as is leaving out errors of measurement. Cherrypicking data so that your model fits is not.
Until you can and will, please stifle.
Matthew, You’re right, it was just the springboard for my rumination on the significance or not of error and data manipulation.
I invariably reject the wankery of models – and other types as well. I have a great deal more knowledge and experience in numerical modelling than liminy ever aspired to or is capable of.
In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of (perturbed) ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles
will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential. IPCC 2001 s 14.2.2.2
What is possible is relentlessly expanding.
And I quite obviously disagreed with it all as jiminy puts the horse before the cart. It is nothing more than dullard grandstanding and an incessant waste of our time on partisan rhetoric, trivia and diversions. On top of that he is relentlessly rude and obnoxious. He has a few pieces of ‘data’ he trots out – and there are always alternative explanations that make a lot more sense. And he rejects much more sophisticated and precise modern data because it doesn’t fit the narrative. We have seen it all before.
General relativity – for instance – was modified as new observations emerged. Yes of course the math was tweaked to match reality – or as much as we understand. The theory and the math were used to make predictions and the predictions tested. Duh.
Forget to enclose the IPPC quote in quotation marks.
Elly!! For the love of god, man! Have you no sense, at last, no decency, no honor?
Horse = ? Cart = ?
You just haven’t the courage to risk being refuted! Wanker!
“more sophisticated and precise modern data ”
And that would be…what?…wanker?
“alternative explanations that make a lot more sense.”
And those would be… wanker?
You know, I was hoping against hope that Elly and I could get down to discussing data and theory, but I’ve given up. If there’s anyone else who would like to rebut anything substantive I’ve said, please do so. I do so want to have a substantive discussion without rant and ad hom. In 8 years, I’ve not found anyone able and willing to refute any of my statements about history and theory. I’m still waiting. Please, someone, tell me why I cry alone here in the wilderness. No…no… Not you, Elly…
The plaint of a crusading dullard. lmfao
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There is a link between low polar surface pressure, more zonal polar winds, Pacific Ocean gyre circulation and fish abundance modulated by nutrient rich upwelling. The science is close to 2 decades old. The latest Pacific Ocean climate shift in 1998/2001 is linked to increased flow in the north (Di Lorenzo et al, 2008) and the south (Roemmich et al, 2007, Qiu, Bo et al 2006)Pacific Ocean gyres. Roemmich et al (2007) suggest that mid-latitude gyres in all of the oceans are influenced by decadal variability in the Southern and Northern Annular Modes (SAM and NAM respectively) as wind driven currents in baroclinic oceans (Sverdrup, 1947).
Here’s one from a few bright young guns from the University of Rhode Island – who are far closer to the spirit of scientific enquiry than the usual suspects here.
Decadal Patterns of Westerly Winds, Temperatures, Ocean Gyre Circulations and Fish Abundance: A Review – https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/140/
Yet contrarians consider themselves to be superior to climate scientists – have little need therefore to be familiar with the literature – something usually considered de rigueur in any field of natural science – and inevitably become crusaders typically for their own perspicacity. Any challenge and they go off their tiny little brains. It is such a seductive cognitive trap.
Robert Ellison: The paper is complete nonsense, defies the physics of Rossby waves and in particular, the amplification of such waves exactly as I point out in my article I authored and provided a reference to upthread.
Climate science has been ruined, completely politicized and improperly funded because of the political class deliberately refusing to fund any aspect of it that contradicts their faked narrative, which is being advanced to attempt the government take over of the energy sector, managed by the political class.
This is further exacerbated by the management in academia who rigorously control academic freedom by punishing and destroying the careers of any scientist who would challenge the CO2 climate change nonsense so as to protect the obscene cash flow from their own public money grubbing that they are anxious to defend and protect by pleasing their puppet master politicians who fund them.
A meteorologist or any other scientist well grounded in the physical and earth sciences who is not controlled by academia or lost their sense of ethics because of perceived job security is clearly in a better position to advance correct science and be truthful about what it means and this clearly excludes you, Ellison. You continue to demonstrate your incompetence.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
Sorry Chuck – it is quite obvious that you are neither competent or impartial. You are a crusader repeating the same tired old memes. The Rhode Island young guns investigating decadal variability in a review of the science that you reject out of hand – are much closer to the mark than you.
Robert I Ellison
engineer-hydrologist-scientist.
Robert Ellison: Yes, I’m sure they are “closer to the mark” than me without presenting or using a single equation that validates their assertions, because that is what their paper did.
But unlike you, at least in their case, they were careful to admit their assertions “may” be correct, but that much additional research is necessary and are not claiming they are.
In reality, the PDO flip to warm phase ( which they are describing) involves the de-coupling of the subtropical jet over the Pacific during ENSO events, which acts to relax latitudinal dependent temperature gradients, thus reduce the amplitudes of the hemispheric long waves and leads to more Rex blocking over North America.
Their assertion that these patterns are some sort of a signal to GHG warming has no other proof attached to it other than pure speculation and that is the kind on nonsensical, non scientific sophistry that you ascribe to.
When you make the assertions you do as to claiming I am wrong, you need to prove it. You never do, you merely continue with your blind sighted ignorance down the road to that steep cliff I told you you are headed for as the climate has already produced metrics that diverge away from your assertions about atmospheric CO2 causing warming or “climate change.”
But like I already told you, the MO of climate hysterics like you is duck and bob, ignore any measurements or research that contradicts your narrative, and promote anything no matter how weak that supports your failing narrative. That is the definition of political science, not true science.
I have a lot of experience in dealing with those like you. You are a master of deception by engaging in obfuscation, distortion and political sophistry. But it’s the only way the political science you promote has any chance of survival.
Chuck Wiese
Meteorologist
The paper is a review – and you will find the original sources in the reference. Beyond that I suspect that you again get into rat’s arse territory.
And as always observations precede realistic math. You don’t quite get the idea of empirical science do you.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/gsofacpubs/140/
“with weakening jet streams forming Rossby waves in the northern and southern hemispheres.”
That’s interesting. Speak of putting cart before horse. Rossby waves are intrinsic to a rotating planet with an atmoshere, caused by coriolis forces, not jet streams. The reverse is true.
And then, http://www.co2science.org/articles/V24/apr/a6.php
“… it is clear that the increase in the SOC (soil organic carbon) stock observed at this pristine subtropical site is in direct opposition to model-based theory, which suggests it should have decreased in response to the approximate 1°C rise in temperature over the 33 year period of study.” Well, so much for the hysterical fear of that top 3 meters of soil releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. Not that that would be a bad thing, as it would lead to further abundant plant life.
This site is, I believe, dedicated to the investigation and reporting of fundamental scientific findings that are pertinent to the current controversies in climate science. Secondary effects in this chaotic nonlinear dynamic system can be, and are, cherrypicked and are of interest only insofar as they lead to causative rather than merely correlative understandings.
The polar vortices – in which the jet streams occur – are the result of planetary rotation.
Soil depth in which SOC is measured in the study is actually 0.3m. If you had any understanding of realistic constraints on soil data acquisition – that would not have slipped past. And it needs to be put in an appropriate context. Something that you are incapable of doing. I know the brigalow belt region well – it is local. An undisturbed area is rare in the threatened ecosystem. And I suggest that a lack of essential fire in the region may be a factor. To go up in smoke in the next intense fire fueled by an uncontrolled build up of fuel load.
I would hesitate before extrapolating a point result to the entire planet. I have asked the authors for a copy of the study – it is not worth US$42 to me. You are of course content with content on a partisan blog. And then stretch that to breaking point.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721000851?via%3Dihub
Soil respiration increases with temperature – it is simple biokinetics.
e.g. https://judithcurry.com/2013/06/07/soil-carbon-permanent-pasture-as-an-approach-to-co2-sequestration/
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0048969721000851-ga1.jpg
You of course deny the link between CO2 and temperature – and are an unquestioning fan of CO2 fertilisation. The other side of the coin is that atmospheric CO2 is much better sequestered as carbon in agricultural soils and ecosystems for many reasons. The soil carbon and ecosystem stores can be renewed by restoring land. Holding back water in sand dams, terraces and swales, conserving and restoring wetlands, rangelands and forests, reclaiming deserts, changing grazing management, encouraging perennial vegetation cover, precise applications of chemicals and adoption of other management practices that create positive carbon and nutrient budgets and optimal soil temperature and moisture. Atmospheric carbon is transferred from the atmosphere to soil organic carbon stores through plant photosynthesis and subsequent formation of secondary carbonates. The rate of soil carbon sequestration possible ranges from about 100 to 1000 kg per hectare per year as humus and 5 to 15 kg per hectare per year as inorganic carbon.
Regimes and transitions in the climate system – such as identified by Harold Hurst in the long Nile River instrumental – the nilometer – record in the first half of the last century are diagnostic rather than correlative. It provides the basis for understanding and potentially predicting climate.
“We are living in a world driven out of equilibrium. Energy is constantly delivered from the sun to the earth. Some of the energy is converted chemically, while most of it is radiated back into space, or drives complex dissipative structures, with our weather being the best known example. We also find regular structures on much smaller scales, like the ripples in the windblown sand, the intricate structure of animal coats, the beautiful pattern of mollusks or even in the propagation of electrical signals in the heart muscle.” https://www.ds.mpg.de/LFPB/chaos
Ocean and atmospheric indices – there are dozens of them – are records of chaotic oscillations at nodes on a global network. It leads to such things as the ‘stadium wave’. The globally coupled chaotic oscillators are the source of most natural climate variability at all scales. Spatio-temporal chaos is the fundamental mode of operation of the climate system
https://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/all/
I suggest that you need a much broader familiarity with the literature of diverse disciplines to understand climate. But of course the science – such as that of the Rhode Island young guns – is cr@p.
Some of Elly’s offerings are actually interesting. Others are digressions, and still others are just not true. So, on balance, he seems to have a very mixed bag of offerings.
“You of course deny the link between CO2 and temperature ” He says, without offering any quotation. And somehow he forgets the several sources I have referred him to for the actual theoretical GHG effect of CO2. Sigh.
And that “0.3m of SOC”? The article [http://www.co2science.org/articles/V24/apr/a6.php] actually says “Approximately 2344 Gt of organic carbon is stored in the top 3 m of the planet’s soils, representing a global carbon sink exceeding that contained within the atmosphere and all of the world’s terrestrial vegetation combined.” So that’s wrong too.
I have no expertise in the matter, and I don’t always remember to put the decimal point in the right place, so I’m surprised I got the right and he didn’t.
“Routine soil surveys for estimating the soil organic carbon (SOC) pool account for a soil depth of about 1 m.
[Topsoil – so to include subsoil…]
The active and intermediate fractions are located in the upper 1 meter of soil and are often grouped together as nonpassive or labile SOC. The passive fraction of SOC is often found below 1 meter and it is considered chemically stable humus that is very resistant to decomposition from microorganisms (Trumbore, 1997). According to Rumpel and Kogel-Knabner (2011), a high radiocarbon age of SOC found in subsoils contributes to the stability and longevity of deep SOC. It can take anywhere from 100 years to more than 2500 years for turnover to occur. The subsoil contains the largest pool of SOC and is the least likely to be influenced by changes in management practice and often may be subjected to different environmental conditions than top soil”
–Soil Organic Carbon Distribution with Depth: Implications for Ecosystem Services Rebecca Drayton Chandler Clemson University
and
“Soil contains a large reservoir of organic C (2,273 Pg in 0–2 m depth) and is an important part of the global C cycle (Jackson et al., 2017).”
https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/saj2.20176
and
“Routine soil surveys for estimating the soil organic carbon (SOC) pool account for a soil depth of about 1 m. Deeper soil horizons, however, may have a high capacity to sequester significant amounts of SOC as the turnover time and chemical recalcitrance of soil organic matter (SOM) increases with depth.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065211305880022
Oh well. I imagine he has a splendid garden. I have great difficulty growing cilantro
More of jiminy’s long winded, rambling and delusional nonsense. It is really not worth taking seriously.
Here’s the abstract of the actual science.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721000851
And that “0.3m of SOC”? The article [http://www.co2science.org/articles/V24/apr/a6.php] actually says “Approximately 2344 Gt of organic carbon is stored in the top 3 m of the planet’s soils…”
And as not quoted from CO2 is life.
“We measured SOC stocks in a subtropical soil at 0–0.3 m depths for 33 years.”
Utterly nuts.
I’ll put it another way. Jiminy – and are we as tired of the silly diminutives as I am – I told CO2 id life misrepresented the study they were reporting. Mistakes happen and scoundrels make hay. Not only did he not check it out – but doubled down. Making a big deal of how he got it right and I didn’t. He then quotes an elementary description for students of soil carbon partitioning as if it had some deep (pun intended) relevance.
He is a 10 minute internet expert and a ratbag.
“Recent studies highlighting the presence, and traceability, of the 22 year magnetic cycle of the Sun have revealed the occurrence a new type of event in the solar lexicon—the “Terminator” (Dikpati et al., 2019; Hurd & Cameron, 1984; McIntosh et al., 2019). Stated simply, a terminator is the event that marks the hand‐over from one sunspot cycle to the next. It is an abrupt event occurring at the solar equator resulting from the annihilation/cancelation of the oppositely polarized magnetic activity bands at the heart of the 22 years cycle; that is, there is no more old cycle flux left on the disk. Put another way, a terminator is the end of a Hale magnetic cycle.” https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020EA001223
A brand new study courtesy of Judith. The Hale cycle is an obvious candidate as a driver of decadal Pacific Ocean variability – cool and warm states that transition at irregular intervals of some 20 to 30 years – given the correspondence in periodicities between ENSO and the PDO. My hypothesis is that it is the result of solar magnetism modulating the Mansurov Effect in the polar regions. Changing polar surface pressures drive changes in the planetary waves of the polar annular modes – that in turn change patterns of winds and currents. Near the equator Ekman transport and Bjerknes feedback kick in.
https://watertechbyrie.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/lam-2013-geopotential-at-polaes.png
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL061421
There is a link between low polar surface pressure, more zonal polar winds, enhanced Pacific Ocean gyre circulation and fish abundance modulated by nutrient rich upwelling. The latest Pacific Ocean climate shift (to a cool state) in 1998/2001 is linked to increased flow in the north (Di Lorenzo et al, 2008) and the south (Roemmich et al, 2007, Qiu, Bo et al 2006)Pacific Ocean gyres. Roemmich et al (2007) suggest that mid-latitude gyres in all of the oceans are influenced by decadal variability in the Southern and Northern Annular Modes (SAM and NAM respectively) as wind driven currents in baroclinic oceans (Sverdrup, 1947).
And if he is wondering where the references can be found to be the subject of spurious repudiation – https://watertechbyrie.com/2014/06/23/the-unstable-math-of-michael-ghils-climate-sensitivity/
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/styles/node_teaser_image/public/teaser_images/Marshall-SAM-F2.png
A positive SAM is associated with an acceleration of the South Pacific gyre and a cooler eastern Pacific during the hiatus. As the thermocline shoaled allowing abyssal ocean water to upwell. There is an equivalent process in the north that helps to explain the common periodicity of ocean states in both hemispheres. That is changes in PDO states coincident with changes in the frequency and intensity of ENSO states. It is significant that the post hiatus temperature spike was primarily the result of a positive cloud feedback in the eastern Pacific.
https://www.mdpi.com/climate/climate-06-00062/article_deploy/html/images/climate-06-00062-g002-550.jpg
https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/6/3/62/htm
Regimes and transitions in the climate system – such as these shifts in Pacific state – were identified by Harold Hurst in the long Nile River instrumental – the nilometer – record in the first half of the last century are diagnostic rather than correlative. It provides the basis for understanding and potentially predicting climate.
“We are living in a world driven out of equilibrium. Energy is constantly delivered from the sun to the earth. Some of the energy is converted chemically, while most of it is radiated back into space, or drives complex dissipative structures, with our weather being the best known example. We also find regular structures on much smaller scales, like the ripples in the windblown sand, the intricate structure of animal coats, the beautiful pattern of mollusks or even in the propagation of electrical signals in the heart muscle.” https://www.ds.mpg.de/LFPB/chaos
Ocean and atmospheric indices – there are dozens of them – are records of chaotic oscillations at nodes on a global network. It leads to such things as the ‘stadium wave’ – a product of Marcia Wyatt’s beautiful mind. Arrived at in collusion with Anastasios Tsonis, Sergey Kravtsov, Judith Curry and other profound thinkers. Leading edge climate science.
The globally coupled chaotic oscillators are the source of most natural climate variability at all scales. Spatio-temporal chaos is the fundamental mode of operation of the climate system. Apparently this is alarmism writ large – but in reality it is a scientific paradigm that will likely remain beyond the capacities of some.
https://stateoftheocean.osmc.noaa.gov/all/
Full disclosure – some of this is copied from a comment still in moderation just above.
The preponderance of political posturing is ignorable. The confident ignorance of my special subject expressed in sweeping and wrong generalizations – less so.
I’ve enjoyed as much of this as I can stand. You can look at the references I cited and decide for yourself. If you can manage to get past Elly.
CO2 is life where they misrepresent “A study over 33 years shows that carbon and nitrogen stocks in a subtropical soil are increasing under native vegetation in a changing climate”. And a science direct article for soil carbon noobies that is about correct but adds nothing to this.
“In response to the ‘reproducibility crisis’ that affects many scientific disciplines19, the scientific community is demanding that studies are rigorously conducted and independently replicated before drawing broad conclusions and implementing management measures, particularly when describing widespread phenomena of global importance20.” Clark et al, 2021, Ocean acidification does not impair the behaviour of coral reef fishes
Like jiminy I conclude from this study that increasing CO2 to 1000 ppm in short order isn’t the dumbest and most unnecessary idea in a history of dumb ideas? Ask jiminy – he is a world ranking expert in dumb ideas.
And of course I didn’t start it. Ellison did, with “jiminy” with all those connotations. I’m sure he enjoyed it, perhaps as much as I have the “Elly”.
How silly it all is. I did it first. No.
And of course I should remind y’all that Elly has never quoted a word, phrase or sentence of mine that he could refute.
Honestly – it is just interminable nonsense.
I question whether it is actually possible to BE a research scientist in plenty of disciplines within ‘climate science’.
The reason is simple: the cognitive bias is applied through the grant-awarding bodies, and those that comply become Professors and those that don’t find new careers.
My response to fevered scientists crying wolf about ‘retreating Alpine glaciers’ is simple: ‘prove to me that this hasn’t happened again and again over the past 1 million years.’ Glaciers advance and retreat, always have done. The fact that they are retreating right now isn’t some never-before-occurring phenomenon, it’s just what glaciers do. But don’t tell any funding body that if you want funding. Tell them you want to link carbon dioxide to glacier retreat and you’ll do much better.
We have had all kinds of feverish outbursts about spring 2021’s late frosts in Europe. Every time you read details of articles, you find that this sort of thing has happened before, within the last 50 years or if not, certainly within the last 200 years. It’s not unique, it’s just quite rare. How on earth did Europe survive the last time a premature spring was followed by sharp frosts? Millions did survive, so although it is bad for anyone who is ‘all in on grapes’, it isn’t a problem for those who plant their potatoes in late April, it isn’t a problem for those who will sow carrots in May, squash in May, beans in May etc etc. It won’t kill off all the cows, pigs, sheep and game, will it?
Anyone would think that farmers don’t have insurance against adverse weather scenarios. If the private sector insurers won’t insure them, it suggests they are growing the wrong crops in the wrong regions. Where wine making is concerned, the centuries-long tradition in Europe suggests that insurers should not be afraid about underwriting policies as long as they get their historical actuarial calculations right.
Yes. 700 years ago, wine grapes were growing in the north of Britain.
2200 years ago, Hannibal took elephants across the Alps.
I am not surprised at perpetual change in the climate system.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02626667.2013.804626