Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Interestingly enough I'll be attending a talk by Jeff Price (one of the authors of the IPCC reports) tonight titled "The Real Day After Tomorrow" on the subject of climate change. Maybe I'll use one of these sunspot ideas to prompt a discussion.

 

All are taken from peer-reviewed journal articles or institutionally funded research stations. Better than contrarian blogs I would say...

 

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

Just throwin it out there...

 

Not necessarily. There are examples of that most definitely NOT being the case. However, I don't know of it being the case in climate research.

 

You mean the "Better than contrarian blog" part? I am curious. Can you give me an example?

 

Well..I am not the contrarian here.. but there you go. On the warming art pages the references are at the bottom of the page:

Image:Carbon History and Flux Rev.png - Global Warming Art

Image:Instrumental Temperature Record.png - Global Warming Art

Image:1000 Year Temperature Comparison.png - Global Warming Art

NOAA Paleoclimatology Program - Oerlemans 2005 Glacier Length Records Temperature Reconstruction

Image:Solar Cycle Variations.png - Global Warming Art

I would be interested if you can provide ANY DATA of the same caliber and with appropriate time scales.

 

I've seen things like these before in my own field:

Project Steve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And with regards to climate change, most scientific societies have released statements of agreement with the science. This encompasses many thousands of scientists worldwide:

Scientific opinion on climate change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've always thought it hilarious that the last remaining dissenting statement is from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

That is why I prefer data or discussions out of peer reviewed journals.

 

I mean peer reviewed and institutionally funded research. A great example is cholesterol and diet research. A fellow by the name of Ansel Keyes and many of his minions basically dominated the study of heart disease. Their thesis (actually Keyes assumption) was that fat causes heart disease. By the 70's this was considered a fact, despite the fact that the research showed otherwise. This had a massive influence on what research got funded and what questions were asked. By creating a "consensus" researchers assumed a lot of things as fact that were never proven by Keyes' research, or any research that tried to prove his thesis. Good research that showed the opposite was considered "not in the totality of evidence" supporting Keyes' view point. The result was that bad science was accepted as fact and a generation of health practitioners were advocating practices that weren't backed up by good science and may actually be detrimental to public health. Read the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" and you'll get an interesting look at it. Reading it had the effect of making me more wary of "consensus" positions. I don't think it applies to the climate debate but frankly, I'm not really equipped to make a good decision because I like the knowledge. However, simply stating there's a consensus and peer reviewed articles doesn't necessarily mean anything. It might, but it might not.

 

I'm aware of that story because of Michael Pollan's book, "In defense of food". However consider the differences between nutrition issues and things like evolution and climate change.

In the case of nutrition there is a powerful lobby that funds and has an interest on controlling what we eat. This resulted in policy that was not based on the data but on the agenda of people that were mainly not scientists.

As you point out the case of climate change is different. In many ways is the opposite. Oil companies lobby and fund contrarian blogs that argue against international data on which there is general agreement by climatologists as a whole.

I think as science progresses and information is easily disseminated it will be harder to push a political agenda over the data.

 

And that may be why those in power are looking at ways to curtail the free access to information on the internet. They'll make it sound like a good idea too.

 

How are you going to get anything but biased information when corporations like Comcast will control what you have access to on the internet?
NY AG subpoenas Comcast on broadband

Well, what do you know? It's already started:

Comcast admits paying attendees at FCC hearing.

FCC dispute over Comcast's hiring of seat warmers

Comcast crowded hearing with seat warmers

Organizer disputes Comcast over hearings


" I think as science progresses and information is easily disseminated it will be harder to push a political agenda over the data."

And I think there are those who think it's in their best interests to see that information is as difficult as possible to obtain and what little you find only supports their political agenda.

Anyone who thinks net neutrality isn't an important issue is fooling themselves. Once the net is "owned" and "controlled" you can forget about accessing the kind of information you're posting on climate change. It won't be easily disseminated.

 

Some of the best (IMO) climate blogs - call them "contrarian" if you like - are not to my knowledge funded by anybody but the bloggers and visitors. Some of the best are:

Roger Pielke's Climate Science

Anthony Watts and related Surface Stations

and Climate Audit

So you can't just dismiss it by saying it's all industry funded.

 

The climate change talk I went to tonight was actually pretty good. Dr. Jeff Price gave a great presentation on the subject and explained how the IPCC report evolves and the incredibly tedious nature of getting to a final version. The way he explains it makes the information contained within that much more valuable it seems. He says that the report goes through a bunch of different reviews, he actually stated all of them but I lost track after 4. Each review is done by mostly peers and that not everyone agrees on every point but the final result is the consensus or average of all those opinions. He explained how one scientist in particular was so upset that his view didn't match the majorities that he left the IPCC and made a big fuss about it, he didn't mention names but I wonder if that was J. Christy or not. Like any science, he explained, there are differing opinions on a particular subject but in this case what you are reading is the general opinion of the majority of scientists. He went on the explain the roles and difference between contributors, and lead authors to the IPCC reports and how the report is likely the most peer reviewed paper on the planet.

I found his explaination for how CO2 actually traps longwave radiation rather interesting as I have never really seen it described let alone in such an easy to understand format.

 

Indeed. The folks on the aforementioned sites are playing a vital role in disseminating information that is keeping the climate debate balanced - much to the consternation of those pushing the "global warming agenda".

In my observation, the quality and participation levels on such sites has soared dramatically in the past few years and as a result a lot more people are beginning to question the orthodoxy.

 

Is it or is it due to all the money being dumped into anti-climate change media sources???

 

Great point, as usual Tripp. It is very concerning to me that as much as we have spent on climate research, we still know startlingly little about what drives climate change.

The last 6 or so years have been instructive. Whether you believe CO2 is a significant influencer of climate, I find it troubling that nobody can offer much of a theory as to why global temperatures have recently stabilized (and now may be perhaps falling). What is the underlying mechanism? It obviously can't be CO2 - though undoubtedly temps could rise again at any time and CO2 could clearly be a factor. But what are the other factors we have yet to discern?

Also, what mechanism causes the abrupt shifts in climate? If you look back over the past century (and also longer timescales) you can clearly see abrupt "steps" in the temperature increases and decreases.

Without insight into fundamental questions such as these, we are no better off understanding climate change than we were with the researchers who promulgated low-fat diets as the cure-all for heart disease.

 

Could be. I suspect though it is a backlash against pro-warming alarmism in the media (i.e., 21 foot sea level rise, 10 degree C temp increase, etc). Granted, these are not the positions of mainstream scientists, but in my opinion such statements have a much larger effect on turning people off than the relatively small sums spent by the "anti-climate change" folks.

I constantly hear the $19 million number spent by Exxon. Anyone care to speculate what NRDC, Sierra Club, etc. are spending to drive climate fear (and induce fundraising contributions)?

Anyway, I know we won't see totally eye-to-eye here F8L, but that's my opinion.

BTW - the talk you went to sounds interesting. Any "skeptics" in the audience or presenting? I always thought it would be interesting to attend such an event but am afraid I'd get pummeled! LOL!

 

With apologies in case it has been mentioned hereabouts before. There is at least one website where the possibility of betting on future climate (actually mean global surface temperatures, I infer) is discussed.

Betting on Climate Change

The author chooses the 'warming' side, and suggests that the odds required by the 'cooling' bettor would indicate their level of confidence. He asserts that Richard Lindzen (a name that will be familiar to many) required 50:1 odds.

I might put a bet on the warming side as well, but waiting to see what odds the other side might require. I'm not in at 50:1.