It's been a bad week for Believers

One issue I have with this, is the concept of 'action'. I can understand taking no action before you are sure, but that isn't what we are doing. Taking no action would be the equivalent of sitting in a stopped car. What we are doing is deciding whether or not to push harder on accelerator in our speeding car with the blacked out windows, and broken GPS, all while arguing about whether there is a cliff ahead.

 

In the modern era, there is no trend to speak of in cosmic ray flux. This makes it difficult to posit cosmic ray flux changes as the main driver of recent temperature trends.




With respect to the graph you posted, isn't that an amazing correlation? How could that have been published in Nature, yet scientists remain skeptical of a strong influence of cosmic rays on global temperature? More conspiracy, no doubt.

Why not see what the author of the paper himself says (Neff et al, 2001). It's surely not hard to find, took me about two minutes. Here's the relevant part of the abstract:

"The d18O record from the stalagmite,
which serves as a proxy for variations in the tropical circulation
and monsoon rainfall, allows us to make a direct comparison of
the d18O record with the D14C record from tree rings5, which
largely reflects changes in solar activity6,7. The excellent correlation
between the two records suggests that one of the primary
controls on centennial- to decadal-scale changes in tropical rain-
fall and monsoon intensity during this time are variations in solar
radiation."

Oddly, he says that the C14 figure is a proxy for solar radiation. So higher = more sunshine. And the 018 figure is, in this context, his proxy for the intensity of monsoonal rainfall, not temperature.

So, I don't know what you think you're measuring, but the guy who collected and published the data thought he was showing the relationship between solar intensity and monsoon intensity.

www.geo.umass.edu/climate/papers/neffetalnature2001.pdf

Does cosmic ray flux vary inversely with solar radiation? Yep. Should I think think that the warmth of the sun is irrelevant, and that the result are driven by cosmic-ray modulation of cloud cover? Until I see any robust evidence showing that, I wouldn't. For one thing, the GCMs (models) on average generate just about the observed amount of temperature change when the change in solar flux alone is entered as a climate forcing. So, the models, at least, show that the energy embodied in the extra sunshine is sufficient to explain the temperature fluctuations associated with variations in solar activity. If you want to think that's all completely wrong, and it's not variation in the warmth of the sun, it's cosmic-ray-induced variation in cloud cover, that's your choice.

 

Do you see any trend here?
This is sunspot numbers.GCRs correlate to this graph inversely.

 

See above post. Sunshine correlates positively with those numbers. The bar on the right is NASAs estimate of the increase in insolation. So a warmer sun has added to global warming, but not much.

 

Tochatihu, I certainly have not read into your posts a false consensus or the replacement of the null hypothesis. So we can at least agree on some things. Voting on something does not make it true (the everyone agrees is not science). There is legitimate skepticism on the amount of future warming and how much man has contributed to current warming. There is no reason to change the null hypothesis, and doing so weakens experiments. Their is a large amount of evidence that the global temperatures haven risen 0.7 degrees C, and ghg contributed to that, but models do not correlate well to reality. Until they do the exact amount of human contribution and future warming can not be stated with any certainty, This requres real scientific inquiry and not politics or name calling.

That seems to be quite outside the scope of this conversation, but sure we should reduce the net fluxes in reasonable ways. Here I disagree with said scientist.

Do you then agree with the APS that tAGW is incontroveratble with no ability to quetion it, but stability of mater is subject to debate?

We have those pesky emails talking about using statistical data maniupulation to hide uncertainty. We also have statements from the head of the ipcc stating clearly that they are right about himlayean glaciars, there is no doubt. This was based on a non-peer reviewed somery of science that the researcher . disagreed with. It does not appear the IPCC has clearly distinguished in the the forth report.

Actually the politicians that want to pretend consensus means something it does not, name calling is productive, and the null hypothesis should be changed to if you don't know it must be ghgs.

 

so in a nutshell when sun shines, trees grow more?

 

You are confused.
It has nothing to do with "sunshine".
Its the Suns magnetic field which is reduced during periods of low sunspot activity.Thus allowing an increase in GCRs.
The sunspot graph correlates to temp better than CO2 correlates to temp.
Its just a matter of proving the mechanism of how the suns magnetic field causes climate change.

 

That is not what the article you reference to says:

more rain -> less sunshine -> trees grow less -> less D14C in tree rings

 

Earlier, someone mentioned the idea of degrees of wrongness. The CERN results, if they're as accurate as they seem, would prove that the theory of relativity is off by 0.00025% for neutrinos under certain circumstances (that's 60ns/24ms). That would mean Einstein's math is still 99.99975% correct.

 

1) Read what the APS actually said. I've quoted it painstakingly twice already. Would all caps help? Ok. THE ONLY THING THEY SAID WAS INCONTROVERTIBLE WAS THE EVIDENCE THAT THE PLANET IS WARMING. Then the acknowledged the uncertainties in prediction and attribution. Yet despite the uncertainties, they judged they knew enough to issue that policy statement.

2) The IPCC's official statement on the glacier issue can be found here:
IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

They have arranged it so that anyone who comes to retrieve a report will see that highlighted on the page. In a nutshell, one paragraph out of that 900-plus page volume was incorrect. They admit that they slipped up and have taken pains to see that it doesn't happen again.

So, you seem to be saying the following. We should ignore the entire 4th TAR (all 2000 plus pages of it), summarizing the current state of research and knowledge and a vast body of scientific work, because one factoid was wrong. (And, as noted by the IPCC, that factoid did not materially change their conclusions on the topic of glaciers or anything else).

Is that scientific method? Is that good science?

Having been involved in writing large reports in the past, I say, if that's their worst error of fact in the report, then they did a tremendous job.

3) On this: "if you don't know it must be ghgs" is an odd statement. No one who understood how GCMs work could say that. From this, I infer that you don't really grasp what GCMs do, or the entire topic of models and attribution. (Neither C02 nor temperature is a residual in the model.) Putting models aside, that statement ignores the substantial evidence from the paleoclimate data, and from basic physics suggesting that GHGs are the culprit.

Again, is this good science? I surely don't see it. It appears to me that you don't grasp how GCMs work. The IPCC has a nice chapter on models, it is well worth the reading.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch9.html

4) On "those pesky emails", taken out of context, what are you saying here? There are now dozens of papers on that same topic and they pretty much validate what the supposedly "cheating" paper said. If they cheated (although the method was described in detail in the paper, and the problem with the tree-ring series had actually been published as a separate paper in Nature), why hasn't that paper been withdrawn? Isn't that usually what happens when research is found to be fraudulent?

So, you seem to be saying we should ignore all the evidence, because you believe somebody's interpretation of a casual statement in an email. Is that good science?

The IPCC does a nice writeup of the uncertainties of temperature proxies, it might be worthwhile to read it and see what scientists actually say about this. It's a serious issue and has gotten a lot of work recently.
6.6 The Last 2,000 Years - AR4 WGI Chapter 6: Palaeoclimate

The potential un-reliability of an individual series (or author, for that matter) does not stop real scientists from seeing where the preponderance of evidence is. That's why the IPCC published this graph of the last few centuries:



Are you saying we must ignore all that, because you think Michael Mann is a cheat? Is that good science.

In short, despite all your references to proper scientific method, I think you are acting like the English Lit major in my Asimov quote earlier in this thread. You are using nit-picking to dismiss large bodies of evidence. That's not science.

 

I did read it. Here it is in context.

They did pull back in explanation of the statement added in 2010, but they should have removed the offensive certainty and corrected the language. They do allow for doubt and other experimentation in all other policy statements. Let me be clear. My objection is not to the policy, but to the science.

Really? The thing came to most of our attention because the head of the of the the IPCC used the Nobel prize and consensus to say glaciers really were melting this fast and caused by AGW. If it wasn't warming those bad Indian scientists objecting needed to say what else was going on. An honest slip up, that was corrected or investigated when there was objection would not have been a problem. You can find the clips from the tv shows on youtube. I used this as an example of how the IPCC is not a fair arbiter of showing objective skepticism. The published report violated the ipcc rules since it quoted a non peer reviewed pop science article and never bothered to check with the researcher whether he agreed with it. Turns out he didn't, but that did not stop them from attacking skeptics in the media that turned out to be absolutely correct. Do you have an explanation for the behavior if it is not to discredit legitimate objections?

Now you are putting words in my mouth and they don't correlate at all with my thoughts or statements. Most of the IPCC is reports of real science. Some of it is dribble that has not been properly reviewed. The summaries for policy makers are objected to by many of the contributors for overstating their research. These summaries often conceal the caveats of the research and must be read carefully.

IMHO there is strong evidence for human generated emissions and deforestation contributing to climate change. What I disagree with is science that won't take objections. Or science by a majority vote.

 

1) Well, I'll quote APS directly too:

"The evidence for global temperature rise over the last century is compelling. However, the word "incontrovertible" in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the 2007 APS statement is rarely used in science because by its very nature science questions prevailing ideas. The observational data indicate a global surface warming of 0.74 °C (+/- 0.18 °C) since the late 19th century. (Source: Global Warming Frequently Asked Questions)"

In their discussion, of exactly what they meant, they made it clear that they were talking about temperatures.

Further, when the physicist resigned, what did he discuss? Temperatures. Again to quote:

"In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."

That's it. His objection is to measuring temperatures.

You are free to infer what you will, but the plain language of the APS posting (in full) and the plain language of the resignation letter refer to temperatures.

2) " head of the of the the IPCC used the Nobel prize and consensus to say glaciers really were melting this fast and caused by AGW"

Perhaps you could post the URL for the youtube video? I spent some time searching and I found a) numerous instances of this guy saying it was a mistake and apologizing, and b) a lot of accusations by other people that they delayed, tried to hide, profited from, blah-blah-blah, this mistake. What I don't see is a video of this guy saying yes, we firmly believe the glaciers are melting that fast, and anybody who says otherwise is wrong.

So it would be instructive, to me, to see a video of the IPCC chair aggressively defending not the IPCC, or himself, but the content of that mistake. I would appreciate seeing it.

3) On objections to the report, again, I think you are are exaggerating. My impression, with as little to back it up as yours, is that there were a handful of scientists who objected, most of them being the usual suspects. Do you have any sort of summary of who did and didn't object, or even, of who did object, and why? Or is this just your impression?

Just traipsing over to that font of all wisdom, Wikipedia, I found this, an entire article dedicated to that topic.
[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report[/ame]

Not seeing a whole lot of contributors objecting there, although the criticism by Landsea looks pretty compelling. The others seem like rather more moderate concerns.

Oh, I do see this, though, from US climatologists:
"
On March 13, 2010, an open letter from scientists in the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US"]US[/ame] on the IPCC and errors contained in its Fourth Assessment Report was sent to federal agencies in the United States. The published letter states that it was signed by 250 scientists, the vast majority of whom are climate change scientists who work at leading U.S. universities and institutions, including both IPCC and non-IPCC authors.[1] The stated objective of the letter is to “bring the focus back to credible science, rather than invented hyperboleâ€. As well as dealing in some detail with the errors that have been reported and their implications, if any, and urging the IPCC to "become more forthcoming in openly acknowledging errors in a timely fashion, and continuing to improve its assessment procedures to further lower the already very low rate of error", the letter states:

Many in the popular press and other media, as well as some in the halls of Congress, are seizing on a few errors that have been found in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in an attempt to discredit the entire report. None of the handful of mis-statements (out of hundreds and hundreds of unchallenged statements) remotely undermines the conclusion that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal†and that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.
—Open letter from scientists, http://www.openletterfromscientists.com/"


​

Ah, darn, there's that assertion again -- unequivocal instead of incontrovertible. And, again, directly referencing warming.

Anyway, given that, I think your impression of massive scientific protest is incorrect. Or, at least, until I see maybe 100 who wrote for the report now object to it, I'll have to call this one at least a tie.

4) On the idea of the IPCC summary being "dribble", can you take the IPCC summary (which, by its nature, provides a simplified and abbreviated version of the findings), and show me an example of "dribble". I'm not even sure what you mean by that. I've read it, and I certainly didn't see much to object to. It would be interesting, to me, to see what significant portion of the summary you consider to be "dribble".

 

It's too bad the 'experts' on both sides can't be compelled to divulge who's paying their salary.
ie; show me the money (source) and it's worth a thousand words.

 

Sorry, coming into this late, but there's some easy pickings here, so I can't help myself.

Theoretical physics is a completely different part of science than climate research. It's like telling a gym teacher they're teaching classes incorrectly because somebody updated the German linguistics manual.

But yes, a change of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit is small. It's the changes that might follow that warrant concern. Also, the occurrence of acidification of the oceans due to the increased CO2 levels, which could further harm our fish supplies and marine biodiversity and water quality is less controversial, but also less publicized for some reason. It's another effect of rising CO2 levels.

The old guy had some interesting memories on the ozone hole and acid rain also, claiming those were non-issues raised by alarmists. The ozone hole still hasn't peaked over the south pole, although its' been holding fairly steady, and only because we took decisive steps - banning CFCs worldwide, much to the detriment of several industries at the time. Acid rain has been reduced because of clean air legislation, although it's still a problem in some areas, just not receiving public media attention like it used to.

And what does all that have to do with truth? The perception of the civilian populace is irrelevant to what is happening in the atmosphere.

 

Climate Change
Well why not just fix the policy statement instead of trying to explain the language is rarely used, and pretending this is a correct use. This commentary, from the direct link was added in 2010 after objections. Why not fix it, instead of doing a page 5 explanation in small print on why it wasn't really wrong.

For those of you that think incontrovertible was used correctly, the statement contains the present tense "is" not was, and no it does not depend on what the meaning of is is. We can not be open to the possibility that it may not be currently working, based on past warming, even while we are open to the possibility that nutrinos may be able to travel faster than the speed of light. Both things will be eventually proved, but global warming is supposedly so incontrovertible that we can not have an open mind as we do to other fields of science. I don't know how I can be any more clear than this. You may disagree with me, but do not pretend that I can't read or understand the statements.

I think you are reading the letter quite differently than me, and quite incorrectly. He is saying even if these temperatures are calculated correctly, the possibility that we may not be currently warming and warming in the future should still be open to scientific inquiry. Its a questioning that possibly noisy data from a directed time period prove current warming. The policy statement clearly is talking about current warming, not past, caused by ghg.

This is the correct scientific point of view. Further he adds that other less controversial things are open to debate.

Now to the issue of measurement, this is indeed an issue, but most agree we are doing the best that we can do. There were a great deal fewer observation points on the earth than we use now, and less of an urban heat island effect on the measurements. People have tried hard to get an equivalence but there is disagreement on how to calibrate and measure global temperature. This is one reason the 3 sources of global temperature data all come up with different numbers every year. That has little to do with the incontrovertible language, which should be gone even if there was an agreed upon way to average weather stations and convert past smaller sampling to current sampling.

IMHO it is quite likely that we are currently warming. But well supported by evidence is quite different than incontrovertible. Not every criticism against political rhetoric means that you don't understand the science. Definitely when I hear the words denier used to discredit a nobel prize winner, instead of evidence, I understand the criticism often is not scientifically motivated.

 

Ok, blow off the youtube video. Blow off the "dribble" in the AR4 summary. And if you've never been involved in drafting one, policy statements are voted on by membership, and are hard to revisit after-the-fact.

This is still not good science.

I don't know what you mean by "3 sources of global temperature data". But you seem to be saying that if the "3" sources disagree as to the extent of the warming, then we can't conclude for sure that the earth is warmer now than in the recent past. That would only be true if at least one the "3" showed significant cooling, or something of the sort, over the relevant time scale. But in fact, all "3" sources say that, for sure, the earth is warming. The fact that there is modest disagreement on exactly how much is secondary.

To be more positive, none of the "3" sources says that the earth is not warming. (I think. If only I knew what the 3rd source was.)

Here's the concordance across satellite and ground-based measurements. Over the relevant time scale (several decades), it sure looks like both satellite and ground measurements show warming.

Are you obliquely talking about the flattening of the curve after 2000? If so, say that. Even a cursory examination of the scientific literature says you can't expect decade-scale changes to line up in some steady march toward higher temperatures. So again, that would be bad science.

So, show me the data you think shows that the earth has not warmed since (e.g.) 1970, and we can then discuss this on the basis of facts.

And, if a Nobel Prize winner denies that the earth is warmer now than (say) 40 years ago, then yeah, he's a denialist. Unless he can show the science to back up his point. If he has some evidence on his side, not. If he has no evidence -- if all he has is a gut feeling, not backed by analysis -- that that's pretty much the essence of denialism.

So it boils down to: You claim that there is significant doubt that the earth has warmed in the recent past. Show me the evidence backing up your claim.

Here's a fact to ponder, something we all learned in grade school. Fill in the blank: 70% of the earth's surface is covered by ...... ? (A: Oceans). So obliquely appealing to urban heat island effects is not an adequate response. You want to attack the data, attack the ocean temperature data. Because, as we all know, 70% of the measured temperature change using surface thermometers has nothing whatsoever to do with air temperatures. That 70% is ocean water temperatures. And there are no cities out in the ocean.

And yet, the trends agree. Amazing, isn't it?

 

Hey, I went off to play sand volleyball with some friends. You could have easily googled for the video if you were in disbelief. That's what people do now a days, but here you go.

Not quite an innocent mistake. Then we get told those disagreeing with the blunder called deniers and practicing voodoo science. The head of the IPCC refuses to sit down with these deniers or look into the differences in data. He says it needs to be peer reviewed and published before he will even look at anything, all the time the basis of the speculation was not credible.

http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/01/25/ipccs-himalayan-glacier-mistake-no-accident

So do you still believe it was a minor clerical mistake. That the IPCC always openly discusses all possibilities?

APS had to issue commentary in 2010, they could have easily corrected the statement. They knew many members had strong objections? Are you saying it was too hard to get rid of an offending word? But now agree it should be removed. OK, that's fine, and a much better point of view than the APS is correct in its language.

 

The 3 sources are GISS, NCDC, and HadCrut. If you want to intelligently talk about global temperatures you should at least know about them. They have differences in calculating global temperatures. The question is are we currently warming statistically? You need to at least acknowledge differences in methodology and the averaging period and measurement error. '98, '05, '10 all are statistically tied. The possibility that temperatures are stable should be considered. IMHO evidence from longer periods suggest warming is continuing.

 

I am envious.

 

I didnt reference any article,Chogan did.
Its a BS theory to make an easy strawman target.
Regardless, the historical data for GCR and temp correlation is solid.You cant argue against it.
You can only try to ignore it.