I am a Skeptic

Me too.
====

“(Skeptics) don’t know what a pleasure it is to be able to think things through.”
Yes, what a warm glow you experience in the bosom of conformity.

Yep…. No warming for ten years and a Tropical Troposphere that hasn’t warmed in accordance to AGW models.
AGW falsifies itself.
Eventually Luke will be overwhelmed by the cognitive dissonance that surrounds him.
Unlike Luke… I tend to use my eyes, as well as my ears. An open mind is a great thing… But only if your brain doesn’t fall out. 😉

Cool Post
I am in awe.
Steamboat Jack

Obviously as a sceptic I am completely unqualified to have a view. I first wrote a program for the mathematical modelling of coupled chemical and physical phenomena more than 40 years ago. I spent my career not only writing mathematical models but also conducting experimental science, including rather a lot of temperature measurement. Hey ho. But “Luke” has at least one merit; he reminded me why I gave up regularly reading New Scientist decades ago.

Ha! I gave a lecture in my University Intro Biology class last week about the dangers of consensus and used many of the same examples you have.
Go skeptics!

So am I.

The simple fact that the AGW “Climate Scientists” did not check any of the World’s temperature sensors to see if they were up to specs means that these self-annointed “Scientists” are just not doing Science. And that’s only the tip of the ice berg involving what is instead merely a gigantic AGW propaganda op., complete with its intentionally panic-inducing disasterizing.
As a retired practitioner of medical science, and a Classical Liberal, I’m pissed! [But for a mere $10 billion I will assemble a bunch of likewise “Scientists” who will “prove” that Global Warming will induce a virtual Heaven-on-Earth state of affairs for us all!]
There is no proven disease, but instead only an obviously disasterous cure proferred by AGW “believers”. Watch Europe closely to see just what havoc this controllist, Communistic “cure” entails. The EU is boldly projecting ~1% GDP growth for its immediate future, while it would take an immediate increase of 40% in its productivity just to catch up to that of the U.S., which also out performs the EU in decreasing the rate of even [AGW-demonized] CO2 production simply by being more efficient.
Strangely, France seems to be the only beacon of reason within the “Old World”, with its one Nuclear Reactor per one million people compared to the U.S.’s one per three million people – and France uses our technology, while Faux Liberals in the U.S. have prevented us from using this same technology for over 30 years. [I’m pissed!] When in the course of Evolution was it ever a successful strategy to let those who are essentially functional Infants run society? When was it ever “Scientific”?

Poor, delusional “Luke”. As is so typical of AGW believers, he has it completely backwards. It is AGWers who look for evidence to prove their conclusion and ignore any that does not fit what they believe, making it possible for them to believe in revealed religion and ignore anything that disputes it.
I believed the AGW nonsense until I actually started looking for the proof of it. As a Democrat, and former Gore supporter I had every reason to believe it, and no reason whatever to become a skeptic.

The reasoning of Luke is seriously flawed. Since I follow the debate on GW, AGW, is it happening or not. I have notice that true believer of the phenomenon deal particularly badly to anything that contradict their belief.
The best example is Michael Mann’s hockey sticks, which gave the true believer their argument that mankind was causing unprecedented harm to the goddess earth.
The demonization Steve McIntyre for having provided proof that the claim didn’t hold under scrutiny showed that believers mind is already made and that nothing unsupportive of their position can be true.
It also leads some “reputable” journals to make that statement:
“Nature 455, 140 (11 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/455140b; Published online 10 September 2008
Climate change: ‘Hockey stick’ holds up
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 13252–13257 (2008)
A fresh analysis of climate indicators shows that the Northern Hemisphere is warmer now than it has been in at least 1,300 years.
Previous analyses of climatic history by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and his colleagues produced a distinctive ‘hockey stick’ shape; but some of this analysis, and the tree-ring data it used, came under attack.
The latest work by Mann and his co-workers involves various climate proxies, including corals, ice cores, historical records and marine sediments. The authors show that current warming is anomalous even if all tree-ring data are eschewed.”
Shouldn’t they be scared to make such statement since it didn’t turned out so well the first time.

The difference between the Greek definition (to examine, to be thoughtful) and the modern day take (to be doubtful, to disagree with generally accepted conclusions) is telling.
Even the meanings of words have become politicized.

Any scientist who is not skeptical is not worthy of that title. “Luke” is so ignorant of the concept of skepticism that it’s pitiful. Even in religion a skeptic is one who does not accept dogma at face value. AGW has become nothing more than a secular religion, where any facts that do not support the dogma are ignored and any who question the dogma are vilified. Even those who are “lukewarmers” area considered heretics by the Carbonista’s if they don’t accept Gore’s pronouncements on catastrophic AGW.
The central premise, that may not even be at a conscious level, is that anything man does is harmful, ergo generating carbon dioxide must be harmful. It is just a matter of determining what that harm is. So there you have Dan above flacking another Mann study attempting to prove that his incompetent statistical methods gave the right answer, even though the results fly in the face of historical accounts (and other analyses) of the last 1000 years for the MWP and LIA. Only someone who is determined to believe AGW regardless of factual evidence to the contrary would accept this at face value as “proof”.

Dan
Have you looked at Mann’s data? The raw data doesn’t seem to show a hockey stick but after some math, Stanley cup here we come! Check http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3601.

Why did you change Jim’s name to Luke?
Reply – ‘Luke’ represents a stereotype of one of the mindsets in the current AGW skeptic vs. believer debate and I desired my post today to be about that mindset and not the poster himself. This way each of the subsequent comments that refer to ‘Luke’ are in fact addressing this mindset. – Dee Norris

I was just talking with my wife last night about one of our friends who lives an admirably green lifestyle. By admirable, I mean they put their money where their mouth is.
Only one small problem. Our friend was talking just yesterday about the benefits of driving less now that gas prices are so high, “… it reduces the hole in the ozone.”
I cringed at the sentence she spoke. It’s hard to give someone a lecture on the science when they try so hard to make a difference.
The point being… our schools need to emphasize being a sceptic a bit more than they do. So that atleast if you are going to change your lifestyle, the reason you are doing so makes sense.

Brava!
A great read. I enjoyed the links.
And I thoroughly enjoy your pluck.

Okay, you edited your comment to say:
Peer review doesn’t cut it. (Especially regarding any item of controversy and especially these days. Obviously.) Independent review is a sine qua non.
You know, if it were one isolated study, or one source for proxy-based reconstruction, I’d say you’re absolutely correct. But here we’re talking about data that matches between tree-rings, corals, ice cores, historical records and marine sediments, all independently and corroborating.
So no, you appear to be full of “junk science” B.S.

Yes, without review, it couldn’t be called credible science. Good thing it’s in a peer-reviewed journal then.

Oh, and this:
Peer review doesn’t cut it. Only independent review will do.
Right – those silly climate scientists can’t be trusted to evaluate the credibility of climate science. LOL
Dude, you’re a [snip – Anne the tough moderator].
Reply: Please be courteous. Name calling is a no-no here.
~Smokey the moderator

Am I one of the few who has just read Monckton’s painfully detailed dissection and dismantling of the hockey stick?
I would suggest that any wanting to learn exactly how faulty and … okay, I won’t use the other f word here … let’s say, “Creative” the hockey stick is need to read its complete history.
And Dan, McIntyre was one of the peer reviewers for Ammann and Wahl’s attempt to regain credibility for the hockey stick. There was no methodology sharing, as you so forcefully claim.
Anyway, Monckton: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/monckton/monckton_what_hockey_stick.pdf

Anyone who sprinkles their comments with “ha ha ha” and “LOL” comes across as a uneducated teenager, not someone to be taken seriously.

Dan
Did you look at Mann’s source data? All of your HA HAs are like listening to a kid that hasn’t learned to read or do the math himself. Check the work. Do the math. Make some credible responses. Raising the DB doesn’t make your arguments even interesting.

Mann’s new and improved hockey stick is being systematically dismantled at Climate Audit by Steve McIntyre. The problems with this new incarnation are legion. It’s only a matter of time before this hockey stick lies broken, beside the old hockey stick.
http://www.climateaudit.org/
His most recent post, “Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up? Re-Mix.
by Steve McIntyre on September 12th, 2008” reveals that even confirmed AGW proponents, are less than enamored of the poor science in that latest Mann fable.

brazil84 (07:37:40) : All science relies heavily on inductive reasoning. We make a bunch of specific observations and try to come up with a general rule. That’s inductive reasoning.
Actually, that’s closer to abductive reasoning although they are similar. Abductive means arriving a probable cause vs. the cause. An hypothesis, if you will. Experimental design is deductive, i.e., given the cause, what are the expected effects. The experiment then sets out to see if it is the case. After many experiments, the hypothesis is then elevated to theory. The process of elevation is closer to induction.
Science is supposed to be doing both abduction and deduction because, oddly, abduction is the equivalent of the logical fallacy affirming the consequent. It can yield invalid causes thus making experiment necessary.
I guess it’s fair to say science is ultimately using induction but that really glosses over the process.
Being a skeptic or non-skeptic has little to do with the type of logic chosen. Author D. North has effectively put forth the proposition (not necessarily her own) that the process of arriving at a conclusion is different for skeptics. That proposition seems to imply that most skeptics are non-scientific in their approach. I think it’s fair to characterize scientific reasoning as skeptical reasoning.
Unfortunately, unscientific reasoning is a characteristic of both sides of the AGW debate. I’m not sure how to term these people. Maybe faithful is the best term. After all, they aren’t really looking at the evidence.
Without going into a lot of detail, I think that down deep, most people use a Bayesian approach — whether they readily admit this or not — because they rely on subjective probabilities. This allows differing abductive conclusions to be reached. The AGW scientists have assigned a low probability to alternate causes. The non-AGW scientists have assigned higher probability to alternate causes. In both AGW and GW camps, the faithful have assigned no probability to the evidence but high probability in the reliability of various sources. Also, whether anyone admits it, there is no absolute “truth” and a belief in a particular conclusion is just that, a belief.
It’s quite possible for two genuine skeptics to agree on a conclusion concerning one subject but to disagree on another. To make an observed association between one’s belief in differing topics is effectively an ad hominem.
To sum it all: SCIENTIST == SKEPTIC and both sides of AGW debate have the FAITHFUL. Looking back over the above posts I’m willing to bet on who is which but I’ll keep that list to myself 😉
Reply – I was wondering when someone would make the leap from deductive reason to abductive reasoning. Abductive is prone to generating false results, more so than either deductive or inductive, but it has its uses for narrowing the field of outcomes. – Dee Norris

“The authors show that current warming is anomalous even if all tree-ring data are eschewed.”
Well, then try telling that to the Bristlecone Pines, which used to grow at an altitude 330 feet higher in the White Mountains of Calif. than they do today, Mr. Nat. Acad. Sci.. I’ll bet that the Bristlecones don’t like to be “eschewed” [shunned or ignored], nor their ancestors thought of as “anomalous” [in the sense of being unnatural freaks].
The fact that some of these AGW people can’t seem to see their own impotent word-game propagandizing, or else think that no one will notice it and their very convenient use of language and alleged facts, is one of the main things which continually amazes me. [I’m sure I’m not alone.]
And, even though the evidence for the MWP is massive – the ipcc even had it featured in its 1995 graph – why is the time span of a mere 1300 years past suddenly the magic period which determines if there was or was not ever a naturally warmer time in the Earth’s more recent history?
For example, Stephen F. Arno states in his book “Timberline – Mountain and Artic Forest Frontiers”, pub. by The Mountaineers, 306 Second Ave., Seattle Washington 98119, etc., 1984, pg. 81:
“Another use of timberlines as a climatic indicator lies in measuring the timing and magnitude of the major warm period [the Hypsithermal] since the last ice age. Remains of large trees above the current alpine timberlines in the Great Basin, the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, and at numerous locations north of the current polar timberline indicate that the climate was substantially warmer a few thousand years ago [Wardle 1974]. Dates of the Hypsithermal vary by region.”
Arno, pg. 26, quoting Wardle, apparently considers “that ‘timberline is the sharpest temperature-dependent boundary in nature’.”
As to the Great Basin’s reflection of the Hypsithermal, Arno cites current Bristlecone Pine treelines vs “remnants” above current treelines in the White Mountain Range of California’s eastern Sierras [along with the Bristlecone treelines and remnants in the Snake Range of east-central Nevada], pg. 82:
“These remnants indicate that the forest extended at least 330 feet in elevation higher than at present during a warmer climatic period from 4000 to 2000 years ago [LaMarche and Mooney, 1967, 1972].”
So I’m not that down with the Nat. Acad. Sci. in totally “eschewing” tree data, which so far doesn’t really tell these “experts” what they want to hear.

Dee:
From one “AGW skeptic” to another. Thanks for a job well done! I really enjoyed your article and the comments it has brought forth.

I too claim the new moral high ground of skeptic and try to use both inductive and deductive reasoning. A mind should always be open, but critically so.
I am not a stereotype! I am a free man! (Sorry, watching too many ‘Prisoner’ re-runs)

Dee, Like you, I am a skeptic and I yearn for AGW to be proved wrong! But Luke´s ignorance of how science works has nothing to do with the issue. I recently experienced an enormous shock when I read the exchanges in Duae Quartunciae´s “The APS and global warming: What were they thinking?” If you haven´t read him, please do. As he says “It´s the physics, stupid!”

It really comes down to if you:
– “believe” in the computer models; or
– are mostly convinced by the empirical data and the actual physics calculations.
Luke’s comment comes from a “belief” because if he understood that ALL of the serious global warming impacts ONLY come from the results of the computer model simulations (versus actual evidence), he might change his tune.
Even the commentary from Spencer Weart (the official global warming historian) at RealClimate this week said that there is no physics calculations that predict 3.0C of warming per doubling, it ONLY comes out of the global climate simulations.
The basic physics calculations say 1.2C per doubling – an inconsequential figure really. If the computer models kept spitting out 1.2C, the modelers and Hansen would have to say “okay, this is a minor problem we can probably forget about.” It is only when Hansen’s tweaked computer models say 4.5C that they get to scream “global warming disaster – send us money.”
Science is not about belief (especially belief in the results of a significantly manually adjusted computer program) – it is about evidence.
Does the FDA allow new drugs into the market based on
– computer simulations; or do they,
– insist on double-blind, placebo-controlled, replicated well-designed studies that use rigourous statistics to demonstrate/prove the drugs are beneficial and do not cause harm.

Hmmm.. I accidently posted a link to a temperature graph in my comment above. I was going to relate it to something Amanda Lynch said in the Age a few days ago, about global temps tracking above the IPPC’s projected scenarios. According to that graph, they’re not- which makes me want to ask, why does she say they are?

Dan,
Come back and comment.
Mike

Charles, evolution was used in the original post in reference to characterizing skeptics. I realize that’s off topic for the site, but I thought it would OK to comment on it given it’s inclusion in the article. Apologies for going there.
Dee, “I just don’t know” would be a welcome statement from many scientists in contrast to the unsubstantiated just-so stories they proffer. Good to hear you think it’s a reasonable answer…
Reply – Skepticism sometimes means admitting one just does not know. However, it does not mean that one stops trying to know. The issues of complexity in cellular microbiology you bring up may very well have valid scientific explanations. Personally, I suspect they do and historically, that is the pattern – it may take a year or 100 years, but 100% of the historic similar incidents have been resolved. In the meantime, I just don’t know. A little mystery in life is a neat thing and I look forward to being surprised at the outcome. – Dee Norris

Religous? YES! In Denmark we have a debate where some pro-AGW people directly says : “If the IPCC says the moon is made of green cheese, i believe it”.
First the AGW tries some arguments they have learned. When these quite rapidly fall to the ground they use the argument: “But how can the whole world be wrong about AGW?” and they considder the sceptics for “Conspirathy thinkers”.
These peoble seems extremely indifferent with facts.
So Religion, yes, it more and more looks like a religion.

“Many of the outspoken believers in AGW are also dedicated foes of genetically modified organisms such as Golden Rice (which could prevent thousands of deaths due to Vitamin A deficiency in developing countries), yet they are unable to explain the significance of Gregor Mendel and the hybridization of the pea plant,”
I wish you wouldnt lop people together in big globs like that. Im anti AGW yet am still an advocate of labeling and controling genetically altered foods. Why you ask? First off a majority of genetically altered crops carry a dominant gene, meaning if you grow them next to a non genetically altered field they will both produce genetically altered product. I also have issue with any company owning the rights to plants. I fear the ‘greater good’ frankly because I do not trust frankenstein:) What genetic alteration does do is create a batch of clone plants who are all suceptable to the same desease and easily wiped out, diversity is what will keep the world fed.
Reply – As I am sure you realize, clones and GMOs are different things. A clone can be of a perfectly ordinary organism and GMOs can have a lot of intra-speciesdiversity between individual specimens. The danger from a lack of diversity in our food source is equally a risk with using limited non-GM0 food-stocks as with GMOs. In both cases, inter and intra-species diversity can be lost by the exclusion of other variations on a species. However, a case can be made that GMOs can increase intra-species diversity by adding to the gene pool. Clones, however, are a huge risk as inter-specimen diversity can be lost. – Dee Norris

I agree completely. Its amazing how much venom is heaped on AGW skeptics. But I suppose we have it easy compared to those who were skeptical of the prevailing wisdom in the past. When Galileo said the earth was not the center of the universe he was forced to recant and sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life, despite the fact that he proved it. The church didn’t get around to exhonerating him until 3 centuries after his death.
This is one more reason to be thankful we have a constitution that protects us from such things.

Moderator, this may be of interest to you and the group:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080910133934.htm
“Contrary to 40 years of conventional wisdom, a new analysis published in the journal Nature suggests that old growth forests are usually “carbon sinks” – they continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for centuries.”
[…]
“In the 1960s, a study using 10 years worth of data from a single plantation suggested that forests 150 or more years old give off as much carbon as they take up from the atmosphere, and are thus “carbon neutral.”
“That’s the story that we all learned for decades in ecology classes,” Law said. “But it was just based on observations in a single study of one type of forest, and it simply doesn’t apply in all cases. The current data now makes it clear that carbon accumulation can continue in forests that are centuries old.”
Perhaps those that call for criminalization of skeptics should call for those that followed this conventional wisdom be imprisoned.

Nigel Jones and others:
The 31,000 scientists are not “proof” that AGW theory is wrong, and never were intended to be. They are, however, proof that the science is far from “settled”, there is in fact a “debate”, and claims to the contrary are wrong.
A quick skim through the list demonstrates more expertise in related disciplines than the IPCC can claim, even though it should be well known that not ALL scientists the IPCC claims in fact agreed with the IPCC’s conclusions.

Dan, since you appear to be a True Believer facts won’t affect you but I’ll try anyway. Major statisticians have refuted Mann’s methodology, not just Steve McIntyre. Both Wegman and Ian Jolliffe, a noted principal components authority, repudiate Mann’s usage of PCA. It doesn’t matter that Mann has new data, the methodology itself is fatally flawed>/em>.

“Dan is attempting to argue that any association with oil companies invalidates anything said by a skeptical scientist. That, of course, is a pure ad hominem argument, and therefore it fails.”
That knife cuts both ways, but few seem to recognise it. If any pro-AGW scientist has any ties to any organisation which would benefit from the advancement of AGW hypotheses, they would be equally tainted (or untainted, as the case may be).
Ties to nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal energy to start. How about carbon trading? What about to any government agency that would gain a larger budget? If scientists with ties to oil (no matter how tenuous) are immediately corrupted by it, why not scientist tied to the other side of the fence?

This letter to the editor was worth noting:
David McKnight, of the University of NSW, alleges that ExxonMobil has funded “junk science” with the intent to “deny” climate change (“The climate change smokescreen”, August 2).
ExxonMobil agrees climate change is a serious issue and is taking action to address it. We are an active player in the debate on Australia’s climate policy. We are taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at our operations and have invested in energy-efficient cogeneration technology that has saved more than 10 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
The work of ExxonMobil scientists has produced more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed literature. Our scientists participate in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and numerous related scientific bodies. We have supported major climate research projects at some of the finest academic and governmental organisations in the world, representing a range of positions on the science of climate change.
McKnight has ignored the fundamental point that ExxonMobil does not try to control the views and messages of those whom we support. A case in point: one of the institutions we have funded for many years is McKnight’s employer.
Trisha Perkins Public affairs manager, ExxonMobil, Australia

Adam: “Dan is attempting to argue that any association with oil companies invalidates anything said by a skeptical scientist. ”
What make them think that oil companies are anti-AGW anyway? Both Shell and BP have jumped on the bandwagon. Anything which pushes up the dollar barrel price has to be in their interests.

Dan where is the list of scientists who do support AGW? The last warmer I asked about this finally produced a list of 11 scientists who support AGW theory. This was the best he could do after much arm twisting by me.
So the score was:
Sceintists who are skeptical of AGW 31000
Scientists who support AGW 11
Can you do any better?

A scientist runs a series of experiments and notes the results. In the real world, for real experiments, the results will not be identical for every run. Then it is that the results are compiled and subjected to mathematical analytic procedures – statistical analysis if you will – in order to derive a scientific ‘law’ of some sort. (Settle, settle, this is only intended as a very broad generalisation to serve a limited purpose). Such a ‘law’ is but a generalisation drawn from a number of particular instances – it is scientific induction at work. Surely, ALL such science (i.e. experimental science) is inductive. This can be contrasted with the deductive method which is appropriate to the logical syllogism and, within limits, to most of mathematics. As a personal matter I don’t really buy the characterisation of AGW proponents and AGW skeptics as one or the other. I can only have real confidence in those who pursue the experimental evidence wheresoever it may lead. For me, that includes those who pursue general circulation models. But at each and every step of the way, that process MUST be open to falsifiability. That can only be done if the methods, programs, experimental evidence, statistical analyses etc etc are available for examination and replication by ANY other scientist.
Witholding evidence, statistical methods or results; or refusing to publish certain papers because they arrive at different conclusions – any of these things is anathema to science and the scientific method.
Alas! It seems to me that there is considerable reason to think that this is exactly what has been happening in relation to AGW.

Sorry, my reply above should be addressed to Glenn.

I write, and review, software for embedded systems, and I know only too well how errors remain overlooked through the most rigorous of review processes, only to become glaringly obvious during testing.
Peter
Yes, this is surprisingly common – at least to those unaware of the way things actually work. “Degrees” by themselves actually don’t get you anywhere, nor does “peer review”.

Sorry, my keyboard has itches today – so I’m scratching it.
Dan,
Glad to see Mann proved his Hockey Stick with new data. Too bad the same hockey stick appears when the program is fed a telephone book…
(Things that make you go hummmm?)

And what of being skeptical of the evidence, data, and theory contributed by “skeptics?”
My biggest problem with the skeptic community is that, in my opinion, they preach a double-standard. While many skeptics take a hard-line, skeptical attitude towards all aspects of it – theory, evidence, and predictions – they take any contrary theory, evidence, or predictions on faith. Follow these examples from this very thread as illustrations of this point:
Yep…. No warming for ten years and a Tropical Troposphere that hasn’t warmed in accordance to AGW models.
A true skeptic would ask, “Why hasn’t there been warming for ten years? Why hasn’t the tropical troposphere validated AGW model predictions?” Then, the astute skeptic would reason that, a) there has been warming for the past ten years, and choosing 1998 and it’s anomalous El Nino is merely a way to obfuscate that fact, and b) the tropical troposphere has indeed followed predictions. This comment was not a skeptical one; it was just plain wrong.
However, it seems with the AGW believers insist that when contradicting data turns up, they simply say that “we know our theory is correct but the contradicting data show us that we need to tweak our computer models”
A true skeptic, when told of this contradicting data, would ask “is this data correct?” This comment takes the accuracy of that data on faith as correct, assuming that the AGW theory is either out of tune with the data or not robust enough to handle it. A skeptic would question the data first – not the theory. I saved my favorite for last:
The simple fact that the AGW “Climate Scientists” did not check any of the World’s temperature sensors to see if they were up to specs means that these self-annointed “Scientists” are just not doing Science.
A true skeptic… wait, this comment is just BS. For those of you out there who do not have training in operational meteorology, be advised that there is an elaborate, extensive system and coding scheme with which we try to observe the global weather. Take it from an insider: we all know that it has huge issues. Mr. Watts’ SurfaceStations project is nothing new – anyone who has spent ten minutes dealing with climate data knows about these issues. While documenting all the issues will help clean up the records, the problem is not that we don’t know about them. The problems are systematic, and as such, are dealt with as efficiently and pragmatically as possible.
But, of course, a true skeptic would know this and would understand it’s a moot point. This commenter is simply uninformed on this issue.
—
Anyways, does this illustrate my point? A skeptic doesn’t get to pick and choose what to be skeptical about. A skeptic’s attitude is universal. Climate change skeptics seem to take on faith that all evidence contrary to AGW predictions is valid and true; that’s the opposite of skepticism.
Let this be an open invitation from a proponent of AGW – come, be a skeptic. Audit our data. Debate our predictions. Try to pull the rug out from under us. But sane. We’re getting sick of skeptics reserving all their skepticism for us rather than utilizing it on their own evidence.

“Here are just a few of the more recent advances in science which initially challenged the consensus:
• The theory of continental drift was soundly rejected by most geologists until indisputable evidence and an acceptable mechanism was presented after 50 years of rejection.
• The theory of symbiogenesis was initially rejected by biologists but now generally accepted.
• the theory of punctuated equilibria is still debated but becoming more accepted in evolutionary theory.
• The theory of prions – the proteinaceous particles causing transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases such as Mad Cow Disease – was rejected because pathogenicity was believed to depend on nucleic acids now widely accepted due to accumulating evidence.
• The theory of Helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers and was widely rejected by the medical community believing that no bacterium could survive for long in the acidic environment of the stomach.”
Then AGW theory should be added to this list. The common factors that unite these examples are that they are theories that offer a new understanding of some phenomenon and have subsequently gained wide acceptance despite initially being rejected. AGW offers an explanation for climate change, which was once believed to be due wholly to natural causes. Currently, AGW is gaining mainstream acceptance against rejection by sceptics, just as in the examples above.
Furthermore, scepticism does not belong in this group because scepticism is not a theory. A theory is a positive claim that x is the case. AGW is a positive claim. Scientific scepticism attempts to find flaws in a theory. Today’s AGW sceptics are in the same position as those rejected theories such as evolution and continental drift.

The commentor should take a lesson on science. All scientific theory is based off of inductive logic. The only way to gather information about the natural world is inductively. Of course, bad information/opinions are more common than good ones on both sides of this issue. I’m not sure why but, debates on AGW are excellent for exposing people for knowing very little about science.

Dee Norris, I liked your post. It was smart. If you’re at all interested in the philosophical etymology of skepticism, give this a click (moderator permitting, of course):
http://www.the-thinking-man.com/cynic-versus-skeptic.html
I’m asked this question more and more, so I thought I’d do a short article on it.
Induction, far from being inferior to deduction, is the very locus of conceptualization.

Dee your article was great but there is a pervasive problem where the AGW dogmatists do not want to debate the science but tell skeptics that the science is finished along with name calling e.g., traitors. This appears to be a major impediment in making progress in the debate as the news media usually reports in lockstep with the AGW crowd. Unfortunately even a drastic cooling may not provide sufficient evidence of corrupt science but only be categorized as a temporary incremental climate change. The eventual tipping point may not be of scientific origin but from public protests to burdensome regulations with their associated costs.

a reminder that temperature is not easy to measure:
http://www.capgo.com/Resources/Temperature/TempHome/TempMeasurement.html
another reminder that no attempt to determine error in the measurements is made, neither by season or by latitude or by type of station:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/HadCRUT3_accepted.pdf

Ok, all you mathematicians and economists, let me try this line of reasoning out, because I really do want to know where I have gone wrong – otherwise I can’t advance my understanding of our energy situation:
Exxon-Mobile recently listed its much balleyhooed [pre tax] profits of
$12-13 billion for its quarter, which amounted to a little less than 10% profit over expenses. So, what is 10% of $4.00/gal. gas? A mere 40 cents, right? So how can “Big Oil” be blamed for the high price of gas? Especially in light of the fact that here in Oregon, for example, State and Federal gas taxes amount to about 42 cents per gallon, and this has been the case even before gas went from $1.80 to just below $4.00 per gallon, as it now stands where I live.
Please, tell me where I have gone wrong. I want to know.

Reply – I was wondering when someone would make the leap from deductive reason to abductive reasoning. Abductive is prone to generating false results, more so than either deductive or inductive, but it has its uses for narrowing the field of outcomes. – Dee Norris
Thanks for the reply. It’s not so much a leap as recognition of reality. BTW, I assume you meant inductive (vs. deductive) reasoning as science normally proceeds from a few known facts to general rule.
Yes, assigning false cause is a possible outcome; that’s why 1) it’s only the starting point and 2) it’s necessary to test hypotheses, preferable through experimentation.
Abduction is the method of choice in medical diagnosis. It’s the first step in forming any hypothesis whether or not it’s done subconsciously. And it is the methodology used when eliminating some hypotheses out-of-hand, especially if the justification is “not a probably cause.”
Inductive inference, i.e., assigning a cause through pure logic (assuming that’s really possible), is extremely rare outside of well understood circumstances. Even something as simple as answering why the ground turned white, perhaps by saying “probably it snowed,” automatically rejects the possibility of other causes (say volcanic ash layering) because of perceived (low) probability of these causes — assuming they would ever occur to most people at all.
I recommend the book “Learning Bayesian Networks” by Richard E. Neapolitan, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-012534-2 for a good description of a computational process for abductive inference. Not the most definitive work but it is the one most easily read.
Note: in logic class something like “Every crow I’ve encountered is black; therefore all crows are black” is trotted out as an example of induction. Well, it is but I focused on causes because I think most scientific endeavors are more akin to asking the question “Why is this bird black?” and getting a list: “Because it’s a crow; because it was swimming in an oil spill; …” The list may be arrived at inductively but, unless one has unlimited resources, any resulting investigation involving the list is going to be pared through abduction (which I maintain makes the whole process abductive).
Reply – That would be ‘Luke’ who got it backwards, not me. It was one of the reasons the comment stood out at me when I first read it. – Dee Norris

Reply – That would be ‘Luke’ who got it backwards, not me.
OK, I guess what caused my “BTW..” comment was your: ” was wondering when someone would make the leap from deductive reason to abductive reasoning” as I made no such leap (at least I don’t think I did). I wasn’t implying you got anything essentially wrong.
Interesting discussion.
I think every investigation proceeds using abduction if only to narrow the search. My original point is that regardless of the conclusion (pro vs. con), both sides got there by the same process (abduction) but have assigned different subjective probabilities to the various causes and this alone is the reason for the differing beliefs. Both sides would make more progress IMO if they recognized this.
Reply – I guess my wording was confusing. I was considering on adding a follow up on abductive reasoning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning), but was pleased that you beat me to the punch. – Dee Norris

I’m completly sceptical that CO2 induced global warming will cause “global cooling” and associated “Climate Chaos” which seems to be the coming AGW mantra…
BTW – following the same lingusitic logic of the AGW Climate Chaos camp – I’m also willing to be sceptical of the following points (by analogy).
1. That growing older makes you younger…
2. That growing fatter makes you thinner…
3. That earning more makes you poorer…
4. That earning less makes you richer…
5. etc, etc, etc,….
Once you accept the “logic” that CO2 induced Global Warming causes “Climate Chaos!” including Global Cooling – Then any effect can be linked to any cause – even a contradictory one.
I actually put AGW’s constant morphing in the face of contradictory evidence down to Cognitive Dissonance…
The typical AGW believer is so heavily emotionally invested in the idea that AGW is true and correct and that they must save the world (oh the significance of it all…) that contrary evidence must be accomodated (Climate Chaos!), denigrated (ad-hom, etc) or ignored (MSM Silence, Climate Consensus, etc).
At no point does logic or scepticism intrude. Even the use of the most basic logic in an honest way would reveal the internal contradictions of the current AGW Climate Chaos mantra.
At least when the AGW camp only predicted “global warming” they were at least “somewhat falsifiable” – now that the world is refusing to warm while CO2 continues to be pumped into the atmosphere.
So the AGW believers have a choice. Give up on the theory – or change the theory. The main response, as reported, in the MSM seems to be to mod the theory to predict everything – warming, cooling, etc. Of course the AGW theory then becomes pseudoscientific junk as it is no longer falsifiable.

WRT the comparision of Darwinisim and AGW:
The proponents of Darwinisim are not seeking to increase the cost of energy through CAP and Trade systems, taxes, etc, Nor are they seeking to place intrusive controls on my lifestyle choices.. Nor are Darwinists seeking to subsidise (Taxes again) economically inefficient industries like Bio-Fuels that directly remove food from the world markets driving up prices for the worlds poor…
etc, etc…
I think the impacts are obviously different – looks like Darwinism is not a heavily politicised theory.

evan, that is truely a useless concept. I think you intended it, you abjectively abductive thinker, you. I like Dav’s ideas, but what the hell is he talking about in this case? Not that I really care.
Reply – Abductive reasoning allows us to eliminate what we know is wrong, leaving a set of possible answers which includes the correct answer and one or more incorrect answers. Further testing can eliminate the remaining incorrect answers. – Dee Norris

WRT to energy companies and AGW – I have not seen one that does not state in advertisements that they are “Protecting the environment” and guess who has their hands out to diversify into tax payer funded windmill farms…
Windmills are great for energy companies.– You have to keep you original baseload power generation operating plus you get a guaranteed profit from the windmills due to tax breaks and subsidisation.
Guess who pays, the tax payer and the end consumer. Any AGW proponent who thinks that big oil and the energy companies are naturally against AGW is a fool.
These companies exist to make a profit, selling oil, gas, coal, electricity is just something they do – and they are not attached to the specific things that they do to make a profit. If the Govt promises subsidies they will line up for the money.
AGW is money for jam for the energy companies.

I am weak on the cloud cover documentation. World wide satellite correlation? Day night differentials? Are these hooked to the cosmic particle index. Is that mapped by a global index? There are so many areas of interest, I my experience parceling is required. No one person can hold all the facts. So far it does not seem that NOAA or NASA have anything but AGW in their agenda, so it seems maybe science of the Blogs.

Counters,
If AGW was just another theory, and two sides were arguing it back and forth just as we do many other theories, then there wouldn’t be such a stink about it.
But the scientists behind AGW keep hiding their data and methods, and re-writing history. What exactly is the point of trying to do away with the MWP? Why does it take extraordinary effort to get data out of AGW’s main proponents?
If the scientists pushing AGW were completely above-board and open with their data, their algorithms, and their methodology they wouldn’t be catching flack like this.
If the IPCC was responsive to informed criticism and worked to correct the errors pointed out by many scientists, they might be gaining credibility and respect rather than slowly losing it.
So the scientists behind AGW have only themselves to blame for the increasing skepticism. They’ve spent 20 years giving us terrifying predictions, all while playing hide-and-seek with the methods and data that others could use to replicate their results.
Now add in the fact that the AGW proponents have significant influence over the purse strings for entire economies. So we’re not just batting theories back and forth here, we’re talking about the fiscal livelihood of nations. If global warming is that dire a threat, I want to see a free and open scientific discussion of it.
So I’ll be skeptical until I’m convinced otherwise. I don’t have anything to prove. Rather, its the warmists who need to prove their case to me. And hiding their data and methodology doesn’t leave me feeling very confident in them.

J. Peden (20:05:36) : So far, I have no idea what “abductive” reasoning is.
evanjones (20:18:49) : I worship the sun every morning. ..
LOL, evan.
Deductive reasoning is arriving at a conclusion from a know starting point: “all crows are black, X is a crow, therefore X is black”
Inductive reasoning is deriving the antecedant or cause using reverse logic. “All crows I’ve ever observed are black, therefore all crows are black”
Abductive reasoning is essentially the same as inductive reasoning but a probability is assigned to each antecedant and the antecedant (cause, if you will) giving the highest joint probability is sometimes selected although more often a list of possible causes
Note that both inductive and abductive reasoning can lead to erroneous conclusion. This means that testing the conclusion becomes imperative.
Better example of abduction, using medical diagnosis, might be: The patient has the following symptoms {X, Y, Z}. It is known that diseases {A,B,C}. can cause these symptoms with the probabilities Xa, Xb, Xc, Ya, Yb, etc. The most probable cause of the patient showing ALL of the symptoms is disease H, a member of {A,B,C}. IOW: the joint probability of X, Y, Z is at a maximum given H. Note: joint probability or X,Y,Z means the probability of X AND Y AND Z.
It’s possible to proceed with abduction even when the values of the probabilities of effect given cause are only known qualitatively (high, low, REALLY low, etc.). An example: what you are calling an alien UFO was most likely a bird you didn’t see clearly. Of the two possible causes, the bird has a higher probability assigned and alien visitation has an extremely low assigned probability. These probabilities are not only qualitative but subjective as well.

Excellent summary. I might add it is informative to look Atlas Shrugged with a focus on Dr. Robert Stadler – who become a sell-out, a scientist who had great promise but squandered it for social approval, to the detriment of the free. He worked for the State Science Institute and thought he lead the project and direction, only to find he was a figure head being manipulated for the politicians.
As AGW begins to fall apart, the politicians will simply note they were mislead by the scientists. The politicians like Al Gore will portray themselves as the victims of poor science. What could they do? They were mislead and misinformed?
Reply – I sort of imagined myself as Dagny from time to time, but I seem to be still looking for John Galt. – Dee Norris

A great article and thread,
I’m left with the overall impression.
settled science = (political) dogma.
NB – I do hope J. Peden is wrong about Europe, but I think he is right.

Lets summarise the ‘denier-skeptic-religous right oddball’ argument.
Take scientific evidence, add a particularly large splash of finance from companies that will be affected by neccesary changes to protect the environment, add the conspiratorial goofballs, from the deniers in the anti AGW camp add a huge dollop of jealousy, a tinge of regret. Add to the mix a vat of ignorance and while mixing pick out the actual scientic evidence if it doesn’t quite fit and replace it with innacuracies, hopeing that if said loudly enough some fools that don’t want to pay a little extra on fuel will believe (works on holiday if the locals don’t speak English, why not here where the locals don’t understand science!), add a lot of slander, pseudo-religous comparisons and a pich of twittering from pseudo-intellectuals.
There it is, the whole anti AGW argument served in a pie! Listen…can you hear them….the death throes of your ‘argument’!!
Reply – I am not quite sure what you are trying to say here, but it almost sounds like you are talking about the AGW Believers, not the skeptics. – Dee Norris

“To summarize I’m saying that any of the theories, such as solar, to describe the recent temperature trends have been shown to be lacking.”
Mary Hinge, does it ever occur to you that we look for alternative hypotheses to explain “the recent temperature trends” because AGW completely failed to predict it?
Do you understand that current temperatures are below even the error bars on the IPCC’s predicted temperature range? That AGW has been falsified by observation?
People clinging to AGW in the face of all the evidence is what brings to our minds words like sect, believers, and dogma.

Mary,
Even when AGW is the correct theory, we simply don’t know how to change people. Use your intuition, consider that for thousands of years, teachers, sages, preachers, gurus, saints, and politicians, have been trying to change people “for the better”. I think this point is naively overlooked by most environmentalists. Think about how many years people spend in therapy, going to counsellors, attending church, visiting psychologists, going to weightwatchers, and most people, over the course of 10 or 20 years, change very little. Most people simply carry on making the same mistakes that they always made. They keep having inappropriate affairs, or they keep drinking, or they keep being sexist, or they keep overeating. Most people cannot be changed. Even if you got rid of multinationals and corrupt politicians, you still wouldn’t have changed people’s basic values and desires.
It is off topic for this forum but I fear it keeps coming up in the background–the idea that the root cause of people disagreeing with AGW is purely about “selfish motives”. Well, d’uh. The point is Mary, you can’t change those motives, which pushes the environmental movement to impose change… eventually by coercion and force.
The wisdom needed to change the world peacefully for the better, simply doesn’t exist at the moment in anywhere near the number of people required. Most environmentalists simply don’t have it. So if you want to talk about people’s selfish and corrupt motivations, then just notice that, you talking about them doesn’t change anyone.
The more the scientific elite tries to preach to us what we should be doing based on evidence, the more they will be ignored by the public. Environmentalists, through not understanding people, are doing far more damage than you could imagine. You probably don’t see it because you are on the inside, on the “right” side. Good luck with that. The public may be selfish, but they are very savvy about efforts to control them. Just consider things like Iraq, and get a feel for the true nature of your fellow man. Oil companies didn’t make people greedy warmongers, they just are greedy. It’s natural. Some philosophers used to talk about how man is corrupted by a corrupt social system, but that sorta died along with the myth of the noble savage.
Sorry this is so off topic, but these threads are supposed to be about science, and comments like Mary’s just keep dragging it back to “human motivation”, so I try to comment on where that leads..
“add a particularly large splash of finance from companies that will be affected by neccesary changes to protect the environment, add the conspiratorial goofballs, from the deniers in the anti AGW camp add a huge dollop of jealousy, a tinge of regret. Add to the mix a vat of ignorance…” — Mary
An environmentalist once said to me, “we reduce CO2 because that reduces consumption, reducing CO2 reduces greed”.
I see, so you’re going to try to reduce greed… and somehow succeed with this project where all the lineages of Buddhas and all the sages failed?
I used to be satisfied that AGW is 100% correct and I was elated one day when I heard that Kyoto was going ahead. Then I began to notice the direction environmentalists were going with the “solutions”… and I’m sorry Mary but it just isn’t tenable.

Carbon Dioxide causes warming like wet roads cause rain
Inductive?
Deductive?
Abductive?
or what?

(Mary Hinge)
I think the starting point for most ‘proper’ science should be observation and data, I think you would agree.
Let’s look at just a few facts against the alarmist predictions.
1 (a). We were told years ago that if we didn’t reduce the amount of man made CO2 in the atmosphere that temperatures would rise inexorably at a fairly unprecedented rate for modern times. We were told that just leaving the same amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would still cause temperatures to rise due to the time lag for its effect.
1 (b). Facts… We have actually continued to pump man made CO2 into the atmosphere at an ever increasing rate since these warnings. Result- the climate has been on a cooling trend since 2001!
2 (a). We were told that sea level rise would accelerate at a huge rate in the 21st century producing a total sea level rise of at least 2-6 meters.
2 (b). Facts…. There has been no acceleration in the 21st century indeed the rate of sea level rise has fallen in the last few years.
3. (a) We were told that sea temperatures would rise sharply in this century causing problems for flora and fauna and a further out gassing of CO2.
3. (b). Facts…. Sea temperatures have actually fallen slightly over the last few years.
4. (a) We were told that there would be a huge reduction in global ice levels.
4. (b) No sign of such a thing. AGW proponents tend to only talk about NH events but when you include the SH ( which accounts for 90% of global ice) then there is no reduction in global ice. Indeed Antarctica has been getting cooler for some time now with all that means for global ice volumes, given that the largest part of global ice is based there.
Now just these few facts would, you would think, cause Nasa etc to return to their models and try to adjust them to take account of this data.
There is no sign of them doing so because any proven natural factors would overturn their CO2 theory in an instant. The CO2 theory was based on a ‘Last Man Standing’ concept when all other natural factors were rejected because of their calculated maximum effect.
If natural factors can be shown to have this amount of cooling affect then of course a similar combination of effects could have had that amount of warming affect in the first place making a monkey of the CO2 theory.
It would be interesting to see what their models would produce if they reduced the hypothesised sensitivity of the Earth to increased CO2 and increased the hypothesised sensitivity to Solar factors. After all we have no idea what is the magnitude of feedback mechanisms triggered by changes to the Sun eg cloud cover etc. After all we know that Ice ages are triggered by changes to the amount of TSI received by the Earth but the percentage changes do no seem nearly enough to produce such a violent change. Obviously the Sun is triggering other feedback mechanisms but no one has been able to effectively describe and quantify them. Even Milankovitch knew that the changes due to his identified cycles were not enough on there own to trigger an Ice age.
So what are all these ‘proper’ scientist doing with this new data and observations?
All I here from them is phrases like ‘noise’ and Natural Variability’. Personally I don’t recognise these as scientific expressions. I recognise variability but not in the sense that these people are trying to state it. They are trying to give the impression it’s as if the Earth tosses a coin each year to decide whther it is to be colder or warmer and that the current cooling trend is just some ‘luck of the draw’. The Earths climate is indeed variable but this is only in response to certain factors. It’s as if they are afraid to look seriously at the developing situation and these because they see no advantage vis a vis their stated position and reputation.
Alan

Mary Hinge (02:18:41) wrote: “Glad to see you’re up early and on the ball! To summarize I’m saying that any of the theories, such as solar, to describe the recent temperature trends have been shown to be lacking….” ad nauseam.
For what it’s worth, my experience with Hinge suggests she will forever (if allowed) continue her insane dialogue using some of the most convuluted logic immaginable. If you want to see “illogic in motion,” continue respopnding to her diatribe… it’s a hoot!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
[Throwing oil on the flames will only produce more CO2 – lets not have to keep you both in different rooms – Dee Norris]

I have read a couple comments where people are trying saying that those that visit this site are hypocrites because so long as the evidence is contrary to AGW then it is excepted. Thus we who visit this site are not being skeptics but rather towing the line for Exxon Mobile and the Heartland Institute.
To those people I say nice thoughts but you do not understand what is going on at this site. Most people who come here are skeptical of many things. For instance Many skeptics believe that the sun is the primary cause of tempeture change. However they are often challenging as to the degree of change that this current lull in sunspot activity will cause. Few of the skeptics say that CO2 does not have some warming effect either, they challenge HOW MUCH EFFECT it causes.
As far as the list of scientists and bias in it. Lets face it it is no more biased then the IPCC. I mean think about the bloody name for crying out load the “Internation Panel of Climate Change”. Even the bloody name is biased to believe that climate change is occuring. Which of course it is the climate is in constant flux but then thier mission statment is as follows “The IPCC assesses the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced climate change.”
So please tell me how these people can be anything but biased to a certain agenda. Thier mission is not to assess why the climate is changing. Thier mission is not to examine all evidence of factors. In fact if Humans are not causing climate change then the IPCC are not needed, and that is alot of money that they do not get anymore and have to go and get real jobs that may actually contribute something to the world.
Do the math, I am assuming those who read this and will respond to it can do math. Forget about ‘feedbacks’ as they are hypothetical at best and lies at worst. Just do the math on the CO2 and then decide if it can be a primary factor in REAL Catestrophic Global Warming. Make sure you run a comparison of all the other possible factors ( orbit of earth changing, Solor output, deforestation, reforestation, sulfuric coal usage, Magnetic convergance, solor winds, etc ) Please take into account that we still don’t know how to take the earths temperature correcty ( which is what this site started with btw thanks Anthony ) and guess what you are left with. Not much and anyone who says differently is fooling themselves. So I am skeptical of a political organization with an agenda feeding me data and telling me what I should believe. Seriously Watts up with that?

(Mary Hinge)
“Where do you get this garbage from? We know that ice the recent ice-ages were caused by plate tectonics.”
Last time I looked out my window I didn’t see a three kilometre thick ice sheet!
Or are you saying that plate tectonics have changed in the last 15K years?
Plate tectonics are just one factor in glaciation periods if they were the overwhelming factor we would still be covered in ice wouldn’t we? Perhaps you ought to think a little for youself rather than parrot other peoples thoughts.
It’s strange how you and others manage to swallow some of the most amazing concepts without question.
Al Gore et al first tried to get us to believe that increased CO2 was the cause of rising temperatures at the end of the last glacial period. When this was disproved by the ice core records you are now asked to accept that what actually happens is this. :-
Some effect or combination of factors starts to cause the Earth to warm. After a lag, CO2 levels start to rise as a feedback effect. However, at some, not very well described point, this cause and effect reverses itself and suddenly increasing CO2 levels become the cause and increasing temperatures the effect. Then amazingly at some other point this cause and effect reverses itself again. Temperatures start to fall and after a lag CO2 levels start to fall, until we enter another glacial period and the cycle repeats.
How do you manage to swallow all this without breaking into laughter?
Of course all this convoluted somersaulting by the Earths climate is only necessary if the CO2 theory is correct. If it is the Sun driving the climate, together with other factors such as plate tectonics then things are far more understandable.
Alan

(Mary Hinge)
“4-There IS a huge reduction in sea ice in the Northern hemisphere, especially in recent years. There is also probably a huge loss in VOLUME of southern ocean ice, resulting in a noticeable reduction in salinity (which of course results in more freezing due to raising of freezing tmperature.”
Of course you have thought this through thoroughly haven’t you Mary?
If what you say is true where has all this water gone?
You have repeated what the alarmists have said, huge ice melt leading to a hugely accelerating sea rise trend and a massive overall rise in sea levels. You say that a huge melt has already taken place. Where are the huge sea level rises then?
Sea level rise has actually been slowing in the last few years. Another example of dogma defeated by data and facts!
Alan

If the scientists pushing AGW were completely above-board and open with their data, their algorithms, and their methodology they wouldn’t be catching flack like this.

They also know there wouldn’t be anything to be alarmed about.

Being a skeptic implies taking a negative view toward some accredited or accepted belief.

I disagree completely with this characterization. Skepticism is not automatically a negative view of anything, it’s an objective view, a probing view. Only those with an agenda consider it negative when it is applied towards their beliefs.

Dee, Have you been following the continuing exchange between “mugwump” in the skeptic corner and Ray Bradbury in the AGW corner on Real Climate (Spencer Weart topic)? Totally compelling! Wonderfully informative entertainment! Global warming education at its best!

Richard Courtney – you need to remove the closed quote from your URL to get it to work.
All – As a scientist who also worked along side the IPCC on global warming issues, I believe that AGW definitely is a fact. Albeit with much uncertainty as to the when, the where, and the magnitude. You need only to believe the laws of physics.
1. CO2 and the other greenhouse gases (GHGs) have a demonstrable warming effect on the Earth. This has been accepted for decades. Without this beneficial effect the surface temperature of Earth would be much like Mars. Thank goodness for the greenhouse effect.
2. The quantity of GHGs has been increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. This is a measureable quantification with undisputed accuracy and well-documented in the Mauna Loa record and elsewhere. Also evident in ice-core data. The tremendous rise in GHG corresponds to the industrial revolution and the use of fossil energy (mostly oil and coal). This makes sense since we are taking carbon previously sequestered underground, burning it, and forming CO2. At the same time we also are removing trees and other carbon “sinks.”
3. If you believe in the physics of the greenhouse effect and the measurements of GHG rise, you have to accept that there is a strong possibility that burning of fossil fuels and other anthropogenic activity may have a part in the equation.

Kohl Piersen (05:33:10) : Note also that deductive reasoning can lead to erroneous conclusion
When I said inductive and abductive reasoning could lead to erroneous conclusions I actually meant logical conclusions. Point taken though. Initial assumptions should always be verified!

In any arena you can think of, skeptic usually wins. Why? Because has a very special mind.
Mind of questioning, challenging questions, digging deeper in quest for truths.
Doing so- ultimately discovers more to travel either to
“staying a skeptic”
OR to
“new knowledge that may shift her thinking”.

I lived in the Netherlands from 2004 to 2008 and as you know much of this part of NW Europe lies at, or below sea-level.
The country is protected from the 1-in-4,000 year storm surge and in some cases, from the 1-in-8,000 year high water mark. In the grand scheme of things this is long term thinking but if Al Gore’s predictions are to be believed, these defences would not take the country much beyond 2050.
What has become clear is the ensuing ‘debate’ is the fact that truth cannot be established scientifically. Science can only speak of probabilities and empirical distributions. It cannot claim to measure all things, even in the visible universe.
You are right to be sceptical.

Alan Millar (08:02:23) : A lesson in Archimedes Principle
“-…..There IS a huge reduction in sea ice in the Northern hemisphere, especially in recent years. There is also probably a huge loss in VOLUME of southern ocean ice, ……..”
“Of course you have thought this through thoroughly haven’t you Mary?
If what you say is true where has all this water gone?””
Alan dear, you are doing what so many [snip] do, make the most basic errors, in this case you obviously haven’t heard of the Archimedes’ principle. Notice I said OCEAN ice. Put an ice cube or two into a glass of water and make a note of the water level. Done that? Good. Now wait for the ice to melt, what has happened to the water level? Explain.
As should be clear to you after this little experiment is that melting sea ice or ice on the sea surface has no effect on water level.
To Mike Bryant (08:43:05) :
A [snip] 😉
and to llbeck (08:54:57) :
A little bit of sanity at last!
and finally to evanjones (09:04:06)
Always relied on to provide some basis for his arguments, like Anthony a true skeptic .
The North Atlantic cycle looks to be the most interesting and could explain the MWP and the LIA, these could well be more localised than thought, especially as they have a minor effect on global temperatures, as shown by proxy temperature measurements but a much larger effect on Europe. These cycles do have some effect for sure but again, probably not enough to explain recent warming. This is an area that needs a lot more work and illustrates the complexity of the study of climate and climate change.
Warning: If the ad hominem attacks keep going, eventually whole comments will start disappearing because the effort to keep [snipping] is exceeding the value of the material. – Anne the Moderator.

By after 1980 do you mean after the temperature sets were “adjusted”?

“Warning: If the ad hominem attacks keep going, eventually whole comments will start disappearing because the effort to keep [snipping] is exceeding the value of the material. – Anne the Moderator.”
And you don’t find the whole comment below to be an Ad hominem (or Ad feminem) attack to 50% of the human race?
“Mike Bryant (08:43:05) :
To anyone responding to Ms. Mary,
[snip]…
Reply:I gotta go with Mary H on this one, Mike B, that was out of line, even if you did not intend offense. ~ charles the moderator
Reply: I just saw that too. It was out of line. – Anne

evanjones (09:58:09) :
Inductive?
Deductive?
Abductive?
or what?
Reductive.
Might intuitive trump the other ‘ives’?
I enjoy your comments.