FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOAA: April Temperatures Slightly Cooler Than Average for U.S.
May 8, 2009
The April 2009 temperature for the contiguous United States was below the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC.
The average April temperature of 51.2 degrees F was 0.8 degree F below the 20th Century average. Precipitation across the contiguous United States in April averaged 2.62 inches, which is 0.19 inch above the 1901-2000 average.
U.S. Temperature Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- April temperatures were near normal across much of the United States. On a regional scale, only the Northeast (above-normal) and the West North Central (below-normal) deviated significantly from normal.
- New Hampshire observed its eighth warmest April, based on data going back to 1895. Unlike much of the Northeast, the Midwest experienced a cooler-than-normal month. From North Dakota southward to Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia, temperature averages were below normal.
- For the year-to-date period, only North Dakota and Washington have experienced notably cooler-than-normal average temperatures. In contrast, much of the South and Southwest regions were above normal. New Mexico had its ninth warmest such period on record.
- Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 2.3 percent below average in April.
U.S. Precipitation Highlights
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
- Above-normal precipitation fell across parts of the Central and South regions, while the West and Northwest regions experienced below-normal precipitation.
- Precipitation was above normal for the contiguous United States. Georgia had its fifth wettest April on record, Kansas and Michigan had their ninth wettest, and Illinois, its tenth. Only seven states were notably drier than normal for April.
- Year to date, the Northeast experienced its fourth driest January-through-April period on record and it was the twelfth driest period for the contiguous U.S.
- By the end of April, moderate-to-exceptional drought covered 18 percent of the contiguous United States, based on the U.S. Drought Monitor. Severe, or extreme, drought conditions continued in parts of California, Florida, Hawai’i, Nevada, Wisconsin, the southern Appalachians, and the southern Plains, with exceptional drought in southern Texas.
About 21 percent of the contiguous United States had moderately-to-extremely wet conditions at the end of April, according to the Palmer Index (a well-known index that measures both drought intensity and wet spell intensity).
Other Highlights
- International Falls, Minn., recorded 125 inches of snow so far this winter season, breaking the previous record of 116 inches set in the 1995-1996 winter season. Another seasonal snowfall record was broken in Spokane, Wash., where 97.7 inches of snowfall broke the old record of 93.5 inches set in 1915-1916.
- About eight percent of the contiguous U.S. was covered by snow at end of April, according to an analysis by the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center. Snow coverage during the month peaked at 30.2 percent on April 6, after a late-season winter storm hit the Midwest and Plains.
- The 263 preliminary tornadoes reported in April was above the three-year average of 200 confirmed tornadoes.
NCDC’s preliminary reports, which assess the current state of the climate, are released soon after the end of each month. These analyses are based on preliminary data, which are subject to revision. Additional quality control is applied to the data when late reports are received several weeks after the end of the month and as increased scientific methods improve NCDC’s processing algorithms.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
How can this be… we are not in the midst of a AGW induced drought and unprecedented warming period? Al Gore said so last month!
I love the weather because it humbles all who claim to predict and potentially control it.
Colder and wetter
“NOAA understands and predicts changes …”
I wonder — is that self-aggrandizement appropriate here. I mean, if they understand it, why do they need to keep spending taxpayer dollars?
In other words, April was a boringly average month. How do they expect to stoke the flames of crisis with that?
Even with their manipulated temperature records (know as “corrections”) that usually show warmer than is actually is, we are still seeing below average temperatures. Imagine what the real temperature average should be.
Funny how they have to use 1900-2000 averages to get “above average” anomalies, and even this does not work sometimes 🙂 1900 was still Little Ice Age, not to forget.
Has anyone else noticed that the Cryosphere Today N/H ice extent graph/trace hasn’t moved for about a week now?
New Hampshire observed its eighth warmest April, based on data going back to 1895.
Was that the place that was supposed to be super-sensitive to solar cycle length and experience a step decrease? Achibald was holding forth on that.
Or is this weather vs. climate again?
Just substract the 5 degrees celsius error surfacestations.org has found and you’ll have the real data.
As we say in spanish “Confessed culpability does not need any proof”:
NOAA…conserves and manages
The charts do a wonderful job of showing why the averaging process is flawed. ALL of California is shown as normal temp and partial drought.
The reality is that it’s been colder and wetter in the north coastal area, but this gets erased by the fact that L.A. was a bit hot and dry. That cool Oregon trend ought to include the north coastal California area…
On average, the U.S. population has no gender. That we end up 1% or so female after the averaging hides more than it reveals…
Agree w/ Leon, if indeed they understand it now, debate is over. No need to keep funding the science.
Spokane has had two back to back winters with record snowfall.
It’s always fun to shovel your parent’s roof off…
…and be able to step down from it onto a 10 foot high snowpile.
In all my years of living and visiting Spokane…I’ve never seen as much snow as I did last winter there. Unbelievable!
Anthony,
Is all of NOAA’s temperature data from the surface stations that you monitor or do they have other sources?
If this averaging system is flawed, why not cut the map of the US into small equal-sized squares and use that, what about using a similar system that the WXmaps site uses?
This cracks me up….because the model doesn’t predict a connection between clouds and GCRs, the theory must be wrong. However, pay no attention to the discrepancies between observed temperatures and climate models!
Attempt To Discredit Cosmic Ray-Climate Link Using Computer Model
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/attempt-discredit-cosmic-ray-climate-link-using-computer-model
Two computer modelers from CMU have written a program to simulate the interaction of cosmic rays with Earth’s atmosphere. Because the model failed to predict significant increases in cloud cover, global warming activists are claiming the theory linking cosmic rays to climate change has been discredited. Climate models have failed to accurately predict the current downward trend in temperatures and now we are asked to accept a model as proof of how the Universe works. In truth, the paper cited is nothing more than a study of a computer program, and has nothing to do with the physical reality of how Earth’s climate functions.
Accuweather’s answer today to our cooling trend is that it is “statistically insignificant” in light of records dating back to 1895.
Since we’ve really only had truly accurate temperature monitoring for 30 years, I would say an 11-year period of cooling–more than 1/3 of the past 30 years–is VERY significant.
I might add that this cooling 1/3 is the MOST RECENT 1/3 of those past 30 years.
The AGW/Sky is boiling crowd, are in a fix because their story smells badly like frozen dead fish! The mainstream media is running around now saying that the lack of significant solar activity in Cycle 24 with “mask” the affects of AGW. It’s never mentioned that since 1950 we been living with the Sun’s Modern Maximum sunspot cycles. Perhaps it’s simply the sun and not those few pesky C02 molecules, which have been warming our globe? As the sun quiets and the globe cools, the AGW cause is slowing freezing around them like polar ice!
Determining the true likely future behavior of our sun is now paramount for our societal well-being. It appears likely that we are in for an extended period in which our earth will be cooler. If that is true, scientists need to be working diligently to determine how to produce the food and energy our humans all over the globe will need to survive. They need to abandon swinging endlessly at AGW windmills.
Record high temperature measurements are significant as evidence of global warming because they launch from starting points above the historic mean temperatures. Record low temperatures on the other hand are just weather.
Well the above average NE USA is about to get a bit of a cooling. Here on the other side of its northern border, we had a broad area of frost in the St Lawrence River Valley last night. Tonight we are warned to cover our plants from Lake Erie all the Way up to Quebec City in a band along the St Lawrence Seaway as a good frost is coming tonight. Across the country, we had snow in Calgary Alberta, Winnipeg Manitoba and about a foot of snow in Newfoundland. We should be having our first barbecues.
As you will note, Kansas was well above average precipitation. Unfortunately, here in South-Central Kansas, we received most of it in a single weather event (6+”)
J. Watson: Accuweather = AGW LOL
After a sunny April, the last three weeks have been very wet and very cloudy in North Texas and most of Oklahoma. I expect that May will show as 3-8 degrees F below normal. Corn is 3 weeks behind and the wheat is taking its time to cure.
I think the title says it all. Fox news will be crowing about April weather disproving global warming, but the fact remains that climate has become more up and down, and warmer on average, over the past 50 years (or more).
Andy Greene
Green Living Tips for Rednecks
NOAA: April Temperatures Slightly Cooler Than Average for U.S.
Had the month been .8 F warmer instead of cooler the report would not have said “Slightly Warmer” it would have said “Significantly Warmer”.
Okay… this April was a bit on the cool side. What about last April? It was a scorcher.. 🙂
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/apr/apr-cold-event.php
As to the last sentence in that paragraph … some more information.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/apr/apr-cold-event.php#crops
Still, many think that cold is better than warm. An over taxed / carbon taxed and starving nation is better then a nation of people enjoying the warm beaches, low energy bills, and good health.
TomS (13:44:31) :
It’s never mentioned that since 1950 we been living with the Sun’s Modern Maximum sunspot cycles.
These cycles were not significantly larger than several cycles in the 19th and 18th centuries, but temperature were…
Scientific Method:
1) According to AGWer:
– Design computer model
– Gather observations and filter out inconvenient datum
– Run model
– Modify data to fit model (i.e. data corrections)
– Explain that nature works exactly according to model
2) According to Climate Realists
– Gather observations
– Deduce hypothesis on how nature works
– Make assumptions and design computer model
– Validate computer model with past, present and future data
– Revise hypothesis and model to better relect how nature works
– Explain how nature works
Here is a chart of all April’s since 1895 from the NOAA/NCDC.
Pretty cold this April compared to average (but others were lower).
No global warming signal in US April temps (and the trend in this chart has been adjusted upward by about 0.8F from the raw data rather than adjusted lower to account for the poor siting problems identified by Anthony).
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/graphics/divstaticgraph?stationname=National%20Summary&stationid=11000&element=TMP&startdate=189504&enddate=200904&filter=04
Leif Svalgaard (12:51:51) :
“Was that the place that was supposed to be super-sensitive to solar cycle length and experience a step decrease? Achibald was holding forth on that.”
Dear oh dear, Dr Svalgaard. Aren’t we getting a trifle obsessive? Why not try waking up each day with joy and wonder instead? We now know what your fear most. It is Friss-Christianson and Lassen theory.
When will ‘weather’ favor global warming?
If you plot out “All Months” 1895-2009…There’s not much of a trend at all…
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/cdodivisionalselect.cmd?nationSelect=110&startMonthSelect=01&startYearSelect=1895&endMonthSelect=01&endYearSelect=2009&outputRadio=staticGraph&staticGraphElementSelect=TMP&filterSelect=00&method=doStaticGraphOutput&reqtype=nation
Warming or cooling!
The lack of an apparent trend is probably due to plotting average temperatures with a y-axis from 20F to 80F instead of temperature anomalies with a y-axis from -1C to +1C.
IF you want to prove that the Earth is warming, use an ‘average’ period that include figures that are generally higher than ‘normal’ (eg, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology use an 11 year moving average for Oz temps which conveniently includes peak temps like 1998).
Alternatively, to prove that the Earth is NOT cooling and that present temps are only ‘average’ and nothing for the anti-warmists to crow about, include a longer time frame that has many more cooler temps so that the ‘average’ is closer to the current spate of cold ‘weather’ events.
“New Hampshire observed its eighth warmest April, based on data going back to 1895.”
Not according to:
http://met-www.cit.cornell.edu/climate/Summary_2009-04.html
The warmest April was 1941 at 47.7, April 2009 was 45.5.
Uh, Captain Ken, that’s exactly what it shows. A rank of 108 is 8th warmest.
E.M.Smith (13:02:02) :
The charts do a wonderful job of showing why the averaging process is flawed. ALL of California is shown as normal temp and partial drought.
Well, the data is there to do a more refined presentation, if they wanted to:
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=3&mon1=4&mon2=4&iy%5B1%5D=2009&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=&irange2=&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&scale=&iwhite=1&Submit=Create+Plot
Does this look more like April for California in your experience?
Only slightly OT:
Watts Wins! Watts Wins! Watts Wins Again! -OR-
Google Traffic Indicates Death of AGW Hoax
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/05/one-graph-to-illustrate-death-of-global.html
Pearland Aggie (13:33:00) :
Thanks for the link to that site re the computer model diss of the galactic ray/cloud formation work. Perfect ending for an email I just sent.
“In other words, April was a boringly average month. How do they expect to stoke the flames of crisis with that?”
The warmers want it covered no matter what happens. If the planet gets warmer its out fault. If it gets colder that’s our fault too. And if it stays the same that’s also our fault.
David Archibald (14:39:43) :
We now know what your fear most. It is Friss-Christianson and Lassen theory.
No need to fear that one. It has been debunked thoroughly, including by one that matters most to me: myself.
I’m curious — did you put in the summaries or did they come from the NOAA?
I ask because the “Midwest” is defined as Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, yet the summary states that the Midwest states “from North Dakota southward” experienced cooler temperatures. Those are “Great Plains” states, not “the Midwest.”
Just sayin; 😉
Andy Greene (14:10:15) :
“I think the title says it all. Fox news will be crowing about April weather disproving global warming, but the fact remains that climate has become more up and down, and warmer on average, over the past 50 years (or more).”
Could you provide a reference?
Every time I see a statement like yours it usually turns out to be false. Let’s see if you can back your statement up with facts.
Also, it’s been warming for over 200 years since the trough of the LIA and it is warmer now. It also cooled for a couple hundred years from the peak of the MWP until the depths of the LIA. It should be warmer in the last 50 years than it has been for centuries given this natural climate variation.
David Archibald (14:39:43) :
We now know what your fear most. It is Friss-Christianson and Lassen theory.
No need to fear that one. It has been debunked thoroughly, including by one that matters most to me: myself.
What I do fear is government policy set by pseudo-scientific nonsense of either stripe.
Jim Watson (13:42:38) :
“Since we’ve really only had truly accurate temperature monitoring for 30 years”
We have? The surfacestations project might not confirm this …
Richard M (15:38:51) :
Every time I see a statement like yours it usually turns out to be false. Let’s see if you can back your statement up with facts.
People like Andy Greene making statements like the one he made probably don’t even watch Fox News. If they did, they’d realize Fox picks up all the regular “OHNOOOES!!! WE’RE GONNA DIE!!!” claptrap the rest of the media is so in love with.
Mark
So I heard today, that Obama’s marketing people are telling him since he lost the argument about global warming, he needs to redefine the terms of his “tax and ration” energy plan.
They tried to re-brand it all as climate change when it started getting cold, but that didn’t help. No word on what the new new branding name will be for the same old crap.
They need the taxes from the CO2 hoax to pay for the overruns from the socialized medicine debacle.
I still think my line best describes what is going on — Pay more in taxes to the government, so government scientists can pretend to control the weather. Each day it seems, Steve McIntyre exposes more of the pretend science part.
Leif Svalgaard (14:13:30) :
TomS (13:44:31) :
It’s never mentioned that since 1950 we been living with the Sun’s Modern Maximum sunspot cycles.
These cycles were not significantly larger than several cycles in the 19th and 18th centuries, but temperature were…
http://i43.tinypic.com/f9ph6v.jpg
“Murray Carpenter (12:51:22) :
Has anyone else noticed that the Cryosphere Today N/H ice extent graph/trace hasn’t moved for about a week now?”
They seem to have lost their energy a bit: They still carry the “Statement related to Daily Tech …” and talk about “This year’s sea ice retreat (2007)”.
But it is understandable. The loss of their statellite and the recovery of the NH-sea-ice must have been a double whammy.
Record warm heat through lots or Europe last month and in other places second hottest to the unbelievably warm April 2007 – http://www.knmi.nl/kenniscentrum/alweer_warme_april/ . Two hottest Aprils in a century in three years is not weather – but climate.
Also hotter than average across Australia, China, much of Russia, India, all of southern South America, southern Africa, Indonesia, Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, most of the north Atlantic and the south Atlantic…
Anyone want to guess the global surface temperature for the month of April?
REPLY: There’s no need to “guess” the global surface temperature, we have it right here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/07/april-global-temperature-anomalies-rss-steady-uah-dropped-50/
At 0.091°C, it is about as warm as this time in 1980 (0.145) a bit cooler actually and about 0.08 warmer than April 2008.
Data source: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
GISS doesn’t count, it is terribly polluted with UHI, and pointless adjustments. So no need to cite it here. Cheers. – Anthony
Having read most of the relative posts, i come down on David Archibalds side. The rational, HUMBLE, approach lends great credibility. I absolutely believe we do not ” know”, half of what we think we know. fm
Would really love to see these archives brought current…
http://climate.uah.edu/
>There’s no need to “guess” the global surface temperature, we have it right here:
Nope you don’t. That is a complex function of temperature at a range of levels in the atmosphere lying far above the surface. It is patched together from near 15 satellites with merges which are significantly contested. It also contains fictional data for the Antarctic, Andes and Himalayas.
I’m perplexed about your reference to GISS. This is just one of 4 widely available surface temperature sets all of which show similar things. Are you suggesting they are all wrong? and if so why are you reporting surface temperatures at all?
REPLY: And I’m terribly perplexed by you, why are you changing your user name here? “anon” ?
Here is what Dr. Roy Spencer has to say about your alarmist concerns spoken from the comfort of anonymity.
DJ I’m not impressed by your claims. If you want to throw out the satellite data fine, throw it all out. Your opinion is of no consequence. – Anthony Watts
TomS (13:44:31) :
It’s never mentioned that since 1950 we been living with the Sun’s Modern Maximum sunspot cycles.
Leif Svalgaard (14:13:30)
These cycles were not significantly larger than several cycles in the 19th and 18th centuries, but temperature were…
Given the faulty siting and shoddy collection of temperature data for at least the second half of the twentieth century (Anthony’s surface station report), perhaps the temperatures are not quite so strikingly warm after all. I am ready for a whole new look — a revisionist look — at what we have had to believe up to this point.
And perhaps the “coldists” on this blog might also ease up a bit. Temperature cycling is normal, even if we do not know how it happens. We need a lot more information about the sun and its immediate and overall (within the dynamic/chaotic climate system) effects on the Earth. Leif seems to be helping us rethink some almost religious beliefs. I am very happy to be wrong, but at least we should have the freedom to rethink.
Looking through wxmaps it doesn’t look like May is really hot worldwide according to predictions
hotter in the southwestern US
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp1.html
but colder than normal in northern canada
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html
———————————
H.O.T in parts of the middle east and warmer than normal in parts of Russia
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp9.html
But a bit colder than normal in the Himalayas and part of East Africa (map above)
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp11.html
————————
Tropical Africa is also cooler than normal in the forecast
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp10.html
Up and down, yes, plenty of things for both sides to cherrypick from these maps.
Here’s examples of areas a bit hotter than normal and a bit colder than normal in the same region
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp6.html
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp9.html
And the website also shows colder than normal in northern canada ( http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp2.html)and hotter than normal in the southwestern US(http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp1.html), plenty of stuff for both sides to do cherrypicking on
“Alexej Buergin (16:18:22) :
They seem to have lost their energy a bit…”
CT really has lost their energy. Their Seasonal Sea Ice Graph hasn’t been updated to include autumn/fall (OND) 2008, annual 2008 or winter (JFM) 2009. Even if they had been updated the numbers are suspect to put it kindly:
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u43/gplracerx/SummerArcticIceExtent4-2-2009.jpg
Under their “New Products”, the Comparison Product hasn’t worked for months, and when it did the comparisons were compromised since newer dates show the snow cover which compromises clarity. Also the older dates had sea ice encroaching on land areas which exaggerated the apparent size of the older dates.
The high resolution animation of the year’s sea ice retreat has not been updated since 2007. I wonder why.
At the bottom of the page, a look at the Northern Hemisphere sea ice minimum of 2007, is labeled “sea ice autopsy”. Could there be a better way to display bias?
To their credit, they did remove a quote from Al Gore at Anthony’s urging, but it seems that they should probably either remove or correct these items mentioned. It would at least be a start.
They also have never answered my e-mail. Maybe they are just too busy. I can understand that, nut perhaps they could simply remove the more egregious and obvious problems.
Basil
And your point is?
A: You agree with Leif.
B: You agree with TomS
I think it is the latter. Am I wrong?
Well…it all evens out. Yes it was warmer this usual in [Southern] Ohio for the month April…but it was due to a dominant southern wind. Such as it has always been for that portion of the state.
On the other hand, the month of May has been decidedly cooler than usual [so far…]and yes, the winds have been predominantly out of the north/north-west. That’s just the way it is, a south wind brings ‘southern’ temperatures, and northerly winds remind us that Canada exports more than just beer and hockey pucks. :p
DJ:
No, GISS shows temps trending up, while everyone else shows declining temperatures: click
Don’t be perplexed, DJ. Actually, the other temperature sets you referred to show global cooling. But GISS manipulates the figures to show whatever they want. And what they want to show is global warming.
Richard M (15:38:51) commenting on:
—————
Andy Greene (14:10:15) :
“I think the title says it all. Fox news will be crowing about April weather disproving global warming, but the fact remains that climate has become more up and down, and warmer on average, over the past 50 years (or more).”
—————
Could you provide a reference?
Every time I see a statement like yours it usually turns out to be false. Let’s see if you can back your statement up with facts.”
—————
Well, it seems Richard M was correct to question Andy Greene’s assertion for the US at least.
Here is the monthly anomaly for the US (in the usual form we are used to seeing – anomaly from average). As you can see there is just as much variation as ever and there is very little warming trend in US temps.
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3491/usmonthlyanom.png
Since this chart is basically useless with the huge variation that occurs (except to note that most warmer’s assumptions are wrong when you look at the facts), it shows why the NOAA talks about this month compared to the average etc. and doesn’t provide a monthly anomaly chart.
A more useful chart is the 12 month moving average (which shows some ups, some downs, perhaps a slight warming trend, but also a very big drop over the last few years).
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/8913/ustempsf.png
Those claiming global warming should look at a global chart, rather than just looking at the U.S.: click
A 0.2° C change over thirty years is well within measurement error.
Retired Engineer (15:46:32) :
Good point. He shoots, he scores.
Also hotter than average across Australia, (for April)
No it wasn’t.
April was much colder in the north and average to a little above average in the south.
The only area significantly above average was the desert interior of Western Australia, and I happen to know that is based on a single weather station in a half million square kilometers (Warburton). So any deviations from the rest of Australia in that area are questionable to say the least.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/temp_maps.cgi?variable=maxanom&area=nat&period=month&time=history&steps=2
And if you look at the Australian temperature anomalies for the last year, everywhere is near average to cooler than average except the WA desert interior, which indicates data problems from the single station (Warburton).
BTW, I’ve been to similar locations in the WA desert interior and taking weather measurements isn’t something people are concerned about. They also experience high staff turnover. So one year measurements may be made diligently and the next not.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/temp_maps.cgi?variable=maxanom&area=nat&period=12month&time=history&steps=3
DJ and Phillip_B, this just goes to show that “Global Mean Temperature” is a useless metric. At any time some places will warm while others cool and yet others remain relatively static.
Basil (16:12:07) :
“These cycles were not significantly larger than several cycles in the 19th and 18th centuries, but temperature were…”
http://i43.tinypic.com/f9ph6v.jpg
You should know by now that several lines of evidence show that the sunspot number in the past is wrongly calibarted.
1) values before ~1945 should be increased by 20%
2) values before ~1890 by another 20%
http://www.leif.org/research/Foukal-F107-Rz.pdf
http://www.leif.org/research/Napa%20Solar%20Cycle%2024.pdf
and there is more…
When New Hampshire leads the nation, you know it’s politics, not science.
Lessee, if the sun is main weather driver people are correct, then cooler cloudier is to be expected. April and May, check.
If the CO2 main weather driver people are correct, then hotter drier is to be expected. April and May, just anomolies folks, nothing to see here, move along now.
Two months do not a trend make, but by the end of this week, we are on track to be the coolest May here in Tennessee I can remember in the last 30 or so. The issue is, if the trend is upward as the Global Warming Alarmists would have us believe, then two data points this far below the mean would be a one in a thousand or so probability.
All these temperature differences, either warmer or colder, can be directly related to what the jet stream was doing during the month under consideration. Those deep jet stream loops, as big as they are, go a long way in bringing or shielding cold Arctic air to the upper NH American continent. Why was it hot in April 2007? Check the jet stream archive maps.
DJ (16:56:18) >
I would have to agree with you, at least partially. I don’t have a great deal of confidence in our ability derive accurate global average temperatures with the present satellite technology and I’m even less confident in the surface station record and I would refer you to the post from earlier today about Anthony’s Surfacestation Project if your still wondering why anyone would be dubious of the GISS dataset. Personally, I think trying to derive accurate global average temperatures with any of the methods we’re now using is a fool’s errand and still would be even if we were able to magically remove all the errors, biases, and adjustments now afflicting the system. Global average temperature is an essentially meaningless concept on a planet that moment to moment is experiencing temperature extremes more than 200 degrees apart and every variation possible in between those extremes. When we have amassed a long term record of the fluctuations of the planets total energy balance i.e. the difference between TSI and the energy reradiated out space, we may able to make some more educated guesses about the state of the planetary climate, but until then I can’t see any of this stuff really telling us anything we can depend upon.
Correction: The station is Giles not Warburton.
On the map of Australian climate reference weather stations below, Giles is the dot near where the WA/SA/NT borders meet. The nearest climate reference stations are 600 to 800 kilometers away.
Curiously, in the area showing the only significantly warmer than average temperatures in Australia over the last year (to the west of Giles) there are no climate reference stations. Apart from Giles (a hundred or so kilometers to the east), the nearest one is perhaps five hundred kilometers away from the anomalously warm area.
This looks like a highly questionable case of extrapolating data to cover areas where you don’t have data, which results in the warmest place (in term of the anomaly) in Australia.
BTW, in Western Australia we are used to big distances.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/reference.shtml
And New Zealand is having its best start to the ski season in 20 years – with ski fields looking at opening early as there is so much snow (this after closing late last year as the season extended):
http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/new-zealand/2402746/NZ-ski-fields-get-ready-to-open
Plus a huge hail storm and tornadoes / waterspouts hit one of the big seaside resorts:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10571716
(from the website – WeatherWatch analyst Philip Duncan said the icy conditions had arrived about two months early. “This is July weather. Winter has definitely come early, with hail storms, lightning strikes and weak tornadoes.”)
Smokey:
10 YEARS is WEATHER, not CLIMATE… and… and… the dog ate my homework!
Quoting:
“with exceptional drought in southern Texas.”
Commenting:
The end of April saw (literally) canoeing in the streets of my neighborhood in Houston. That would be Southern Texas. Never before in the 13 years I’ve been in this house.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
Trust the NOAA! All hail the mighty NOAA! Never question the all-knowing NOAA!
Steve Hempell (17:39:25) :
Basil
And your point is?
A: You agree with Leif.
B: You agree with TomS
I think it is the latter. Am I wrong?
Well, the “official” data would indicate that 20th Century has seen more sunspot activity than the 18th or 19th, so I was challenging Leif’s reply. In response, Leif argues that earlier sunspot numbers are too low. So I remembered that I had Leif’s TSI data handy, which yields this:
http://i39.tinypic.com/23kyovl.jpg
So, some broad, centennial scale swings, but not higher at the end of the 20th Century than during the middle of the 19th, using Leif’s data. But I don’t think that rules out an influence from the broad centennial scale swings in the solar cycle on terrestrial climate. Maybe we should be wondering why the mid-19th century was warmer?
I meant: Maybe we should be wondering why the mid-19th century wasn’t warmer?
Do the alarmists promote life without CO2? Are the alarmists leading by example? How does your “carbon” foot-print compare with the “carbon” foot-prints of the leading alarmists? Is there a huge discrepancy between the CO2 contributions of the alarmist “do as I say, not as I do” charlatans and your personal “carbon” foot-print? Do you enjoy being controlled by ill-informed politicians? Well, you are about to get your enjoyment.
—————————————————-
Carbon is not causing global warming or climate change
All life on planet depends on CO2
Dr. Tim Ball
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10987
By Dr. Tim Ball Monday, May 11, 2009
A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses: it is an idea that possesses the mind. – Robert Bolton
As a loife long resident of NH, I can tell you that while the average for April in NH was above normal, that is a very deceptive statistic. Most of the month was well below normal, but the last week of the month we got a couple >90 degrees F days that totally skewed the monthly average upwards. The whole spring has been cold here and the lilacs and other flowers are at least a couple weeks behind normal.
Oh, and I don’t believe those >90 degree days were anyway. I’d love to see what the stations here look like, because I have experienced the weather here for almost 50 years, and those were not the way 90+ degree days feel.
>And if you look at the Australian temperature anomalies for the last year, everywhere is near average to cooler than average except the WA desert interior, which indicates data problems from the single station (Warburton).
No need to check the map when you can get the actual numbers (http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=tmean&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=0) which show an anomaly of +0.35C.
That a record 7 year in a row for which May->April has been warmer than average.
And here are the maps…
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=maxanom&period=12month&area=nat
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=minanom&period=12month&area=nat
which do not support your claim.
REPLY: Nice try “DJ”. Can you prove that the temperatures have not been:
1) influenced by UHI
2) influenced by siting
3) numerically adjusted in such a way that adds positive bias to the record
The surface temperature record in the USA and much of ROW is corrupted by all of these problems and the problems exist in GISS, NOAA, GHCN, and HadCRUT…which is why the surface temperature record is diverging from the satellite record.
Cheers – Anthony Watts
Miskolczi`s New Greenhouse Law
‘Based on NOAA’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index, the contiguous U.S. temperature-related energy demand was 2.3 percent below average in April. ‘
Dept. of Energy does the energy bean counting.
Does NOAA duplicate effort here?
NC Tejas (Texas) near normal? I think not. And I can’t believe how little sun we have had this year either! Especially on weekends when I have off; doing laundry and drying clothes in the sun has not worked out this year.
[snip – one more word about chemtrails and you are permanently banned from this forum – Anthony]
Basil (19:34:33) :
Maybe we should be wondering why the mid-19th century wasn’t warmer?
Maybe we should re-examine the rationale for that it should have been warmer…
The NOAA article keeps using the word “normal”: “near normal”; “above-normal”; “below-normal” etc. Shouldn’t they be using the word “average”? Or is it a subtle attempt to imply anything not “normal” is bad? And what do they mean by “notably cooler-than-normal average temperatures”?
DJ, your constant harping on temperature (actually anyone’s harping on temperature data stand alones) demonstrates a lack of knowledge as to why this area or that area was hot or cold. Simply stating the temperature does not prove anything. Examine the circumstances. Just like the circumstances surrounding the steep Arctic melt in late summer. That melt was due to unusual ice outflow (current and wind) to warmer more southern latitude waters where it melted as expected, not from sudden warming, or global warming, in the Arctic circle itself. You reveal your lack of understanding regarding weather pattern variations and weather drivers, as does anyone who uses temperature alone to “prove” the side of the fence they stand on.
Based on the real NOAA maps, about 2/3 of the country was below normal and nearly half of New Mexico was below normal. The article’s analysis is suspect – at best.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/Last1mTDeptUS.png
Here in eastern Washington state, we are under a late freeze warning. Even our local global warming zealots have stopped writing letters to newspapers claiming that we in danger from warming. They have shifted to claiming that cap and trade will lead to less energy use which will somehow save the planet. They are very vague about the specifics.
DJ is there a budget allocation at BOM for time spent in “denier smackdown” across the ocean?
One wonders if the taxpayers of Australia approve of such job activities. Aren’t there problems in Australia that need solving? Cheers- Anthony Watts
Steven, I see in the colors of your map, the trail left behind by deep jet stream loops digging into the western and mid section of the North American continent before the loop rises back up to its northern confines by the time it reaches the Great Lakes.
There is a link between CO2 and temperature!
Global Warming is causing CO2, but we new that already.
Nice piece from Dr. Roy Spencer
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/05/global-warming-causing-carbon-dioxide-increases-a-simple-model/
Anthony I refer you to your policy – http://wattsupwiththat.com/policy/ .
Perhaps you have forgotten this part…
Trolls, flame-bait, personal attacks, and other detritus that add nothing to further the discussion may get deleted, take that personally if you wish, but all deletions are final. Grousing about it won’t help since deleted posts can’t be recovered. Rather than trying to edit, bulk moderation may be employed to save time.
Perhaps you might delete your previous comment. You have also flouted the implied anonymity on your comments page.
Reply: By pointing out that you might be from Australia? I think you are reaching here DJ ~ charles the moderator
DJ, do you live in Australia? If not, please refrain from quoting temperatures in this vast island. It’s a lot cooler this year than last. It’s been cooler all summer. Ski seasons in both New Zealand and Australia have started 6-8 weeks earlier than last winter. We’ve the best snow falls in 57 years here in Australia.
David Segesta (15:19:51) :
“In other words, April was a boringly average month. How do they expect to stoke the flames of crisis with that?”
The warmers want it covered no matter what happens. If the planet gets warmer its out fault. If it gets colder that’s our fault too. And if it stays the same that’s also our fault.
It needs to be “Our Fault”. The implication is that with such great responsibility – goes great power.
I speculate that the underlying psychological motive for AGW Belief is a fear that humans are insignificant and powerless in the face of the forces of nature. The Belief in AGW, posits the opposite which provides a convenient, masking, security blanket for the AGW Warmist Soul.
Inappropriate Guilt is (too my mind) motivated by the same dynamic, i.e. it is better to be guilty, than to be powerless. To experience guilt is less threatening than to experience powerlessness.
I’d be surprised if the temperature data ever was able to convince closed minded people of anything. (Note: as a point of psychology, everyone is closed minded unless they are undecided. That’s just human nature.) The surface data is hilariously bad, yet some folks cling to it tenaciously. The satellite data is at least not scandalously bad, but AGW believers have sufficient excuses to ignore it.
This is why the sea ice data is the true canary in the coal mine. The data is not in dispute and it is a fair measure of global temperature. Now the sea ice’s response to global conditions is slow (dare I say “glacial”) and thus it’s a lagging indicator.
On top of all that, Gore made a clear prediction about sea ice. AT LAST, a falsifiable statement!
Oops.
Pat (20:23:16) :
I met someone who was visiting from Australia. He told me of the winds incessantly blowing (Melbourne) same as we have here. What part of Australia do you live in and do you have these incessant winds?
Dr. Spencer, you have discovered KISS. The models don’t need pages and pages of code. Always consider the simple connection first. If you can’t rule it out, don’t make it more complicated than that, until such a time as you can falsify the simple reason. Don’t talk about the Sun or CO2 till you can rule out the simple weather pattern variation from natural drivers easily demonstrated out your back door.
I live in North Central Arkansas. I can attest to the cooler than normal temps. It’s also much cloudier and it rains almost every day the past 2 weeks. We went a full week with zero sunshine earlier this May. It’s currently 58 with an expected low of 53. Trust me. This is not what we were getting back in the 90’s. But we did have a cool Spring last year, too. I hope we have another mild Summer, but my wife’s praying for some sunshine. Her garden could use it.
tarpon (16:00:46) :
So I heard today, that Obama’s marketing people are telling him since he lost the argument about global warming, he needs to redefine the terms of his “tax and ration” energy plan.
They tried to re-brand it all as climate change when it started getting cold, but that didn’t help. No word on what the new new branding name will be for the same old crap.
They need the taxes from the CO2 hoax to pay for the overruns from the socialized medicine debacle.
I still think my line best describes what is going on — Pay more in taxes to the government, so government scientists can pretend to control the weather. Each day it seems, Steve McIntyre exposes more of the pretend science part.
Apparently they are thinking of trying “Clean Green Jobs” – but I don’t have the reference link handy…
Am I the only one here who suspects that if two brilliant ego-centrics quit sniping at each other and decided to collaborate on just one, miniscule area where they could both admit to uncertainty that climate science would be irrevocably changed and a cure for cancer might result as well? I’d be willing to offer my place on the Southern New England shore as a neutral parley ground. I can both cook and have the very rare ability to translate ‘stroyn into English.
If you plot out “All Months” 1895-2009…There’s not much of a trend at all… Well, when you look at that graph, that’s certainly not very alarming.
Basil
I’m in a bit of a hurry so this might be a little incoherent. I have often felt uncomfortable with Leif’s insistence that the sun was as active in the 18th and 19th century as the 20th. Now, I seem to remember that the area under a curve (AUC) for a graph can give an indication of a quantity of what the graph is representing. Assuming that a graph of SSN (or TSI) is a “proxy” for the suns activity I have used this for estimating the percentage difference in activity for the 18, 19 and 20 century. I have used a smoothed representation of the of Leif’s latest (I hope) TSI data. This estimation gives the 19th century being ~12% more active than the 18th and the 20th being 21 % more active than the 19th.
Here is my graph (I hope). I’m new at posting graphs! Use ImageJ to get the areas.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37061901@N05/3524588928/
“rbateman (20:32:37) :
Pat (20:23:16) :
I met someone who was visiting from Australia. He told me of the winds incessantly blowing (Melbourne) same as we have here. What part of Australia do you live in and do you have these incessant winds?”
I live in Sydney, western suburbs sufficiently enough west to be colder in winter and hotter in summer than central Sydney itself. We’ve had some wind here, but in all reality, it’s not that bad. I’ve lived in Wellington, NZ, so I know all about wind lol.
I was in Melbourne recently, the weather was great, sunny and clear, albeit cold. The first day I was there, getting out of the car after parking, it was THAT cold I actually popped into a second-hand clothing store across the road and purchased a Kathmandu fleece jacket for AU$10. In one of the pockets was a shopping list, and another was a 200 Koruna note (AU$15 – winner LOL!).
Melbourne recently had recorded it’s coldest May morning in 30 years or so. Melbourne is typically colder than Sydney and is the inspiration for the song “Four Seasons in One Day”.
Graeme Rodaughan:
I speculate that the underlying psychological motive for AGW Belief is a fear that humans are insignificant and powerless in the face of the forces of nature.
No doubt. And for many, just throw in some postulated evil villians, and selves-as-heroes and we perhaps have the average 6-12 year old’s fantasy life now as perceived “reality”.
This is the URL to the Essex-McKitrick paper “Does a global temperature exist?” A classic.
Ian
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/globaltemp/GlobTemp.JNET.pdf
Steve Hempell (20:58:25) :
This estimation gives the 19th century being ~12% more active than the 18th and the 20th being 21 % more active than the 19th.
Assuming that the time constant of solar influence is short compared to a century [numbers like 5-10 years are brandied around – or otherwise the recent cooling cannot be ascribed to a recent solar downturn], it is not useful to integrate over a century as increased solar input is radiated away over the time-constant. The relevant comparison is for intervals corresponding to the major ‘peaks’, say 30 years long centered on the peaks. The ‘standard’ [and thoughtless] objection is that ‘the oceans are storing all the heat’, but if so, we have to wait many decades before the recent solar downturn is felt.
Integrate over a sliding 30 years and plot that.
I’m working on a politics essay on climate change- I can’t seem to find a single published paper that refutes the publications detailed in the IPCC. I had thought this was an outrageous claim but it appears to be true.
I have turned to these blogs by way of investigation- and you guys don’t even seem to bother with peer reviewed science. All of the posts I have followed here lead to unpublished material. Is this really the case?
Can you please post ANYTHING you have that is published, and clearly refutes that very high levels of CO2 does not equal warmer atmosphere????
Steve Hempell (20:58:25) :
This estimation gives the 19th century being ~12% more active than the 18th and the 20th being 21 % more active than the 19th.
And think about what your percentages mean. Assume that in the 20th century every year was 0.5 W/m2 higher than in the 19th [a vast overestimate] then your integrated numbers would be 50 W/m2 higher than the 1360*100 W/m2 sum over the century or 0.037% higher…
The math has to be done right.
Snow in the WA Cascade passes tonight and tomorrow. Nice mild November in the Northwest.
So we have a 4.5 billion year old planet and a 13.8 billion year old universe and 10,000 or 12,000years since the last ice age and we are arguing over the significance of 10 or 20 or 30 year trends and calling it science? Are we collectively nuts?
We don’t have enough hard data, and we have not seen all the cycles. This is not science it is speculation. Build a model, load it with all known historical observations, and it can’t duplicate the past let alone predict the future.
How about you all go buy a Davis Weather Station from Anthony and send all observations to him.
Rick,
Forget peer review in the climate sciences, it is corrupted [see the Wegman Report to Congress for proof].
Here is a good starting point: click
Steve Hempell (20:58:25) :
This estimation gives the 19th century being ~12% more active than the 18th and the 20th being 21 % more active than the 19th.
If you calculate the average [corrected] sunspot numbers then they are
18th: 47
19th: 53 (13% higher than 18th)
20th: 62 (17% higher than 19th)
21st: 55 (so far, a meaningless 11% lower than 20th)
A pictoral representation of the 11-yr smoothed corrected SSN is here: http://www.leif.org/research/11-yr-Corr-SSN.png
Steve Hempell (20:58:25) :
The math has to be done right.
Ah, I finally see that you are integrating the excess above 1365.60. That will give you the [almost] correct numbers you gave. I apologize for thinking you integrated all the way from zero.
Anyway, the comment about time-constant still stands.
If you have a temperature series that you trust, try to plot that on top of the TSI curve.
Rick (21:36:34): Your question depends on what you consider “published.” See, I consider anything I post to be published and open to peer review. Perhaps that’s simplistic but I consider it to be far more honest and open than the method of publishing and peer review I see in current scientific publications. Does it not bother you are placing political popularity above actual data?
Rick (21:36:34) :
Nobody had proof for 2000 years that the Sun revolved around the Earth.
Yet, the assumption was made that it did.
Just because AGW has a computer model that says that CO2 causes global warming does not mean that thier theory is correct.
But don’t mistake some of us communicating the cooling change we observe amongst ourselves as proof that that is all we care about, or that that is all this blog is about.
You can watch the video Ed Scott posted, then look up the scientist that is behind the theory. There is challenge.
Ed H (19:45:43) :
The days around then at my Davis VantagePro near Concord NH reported:
| 2009-04-24 | 37.2 | 73.7 |
| 2009-04-25 | 44.2 | 90.1 |
| 2009-04-26 | 58.7 | 79.8 |
| 2009-04-27 | 48.9 | 80.1 |
| 2009-04-28 | 48.2 | 92.1 |
| 2009-04-29 | 41.1 | 66.0 |
The dew point was in the 40s, so dry, just barely 90s. Not as hot as it could have been.
Smokey, I have already got that link of another blog- OK, its a useful inclusion on the politics side, but its still not a proper reference I can use in a dissertation.
I have a background in biomedical research. And from my perspective I have four volumes of published papers on one side, and nothing on the other.
I am amazed that all these blogs seem to skip over this fact, because its the deal breaker for me.
OK- in medical research you have instances where commercial pressure leads to publications. But that generally gets refuted *within the published literature*.
Its pretty hard to argue a point academically (well in a college framework anyway) if you have no published material on your side. And on this issue, I would have thought people were scrambling over each other to publish the first definitive refutation of AGW.
For instance, on the thread here doubt has been cast on the various global data sets. This should be a straight forward scientific paper, .ie GISS is wrong because…., so why can’t I find one?
Rick (21:36:34) :
I’m working on a politics essay on climate change- I can’t seem to find a single published paper that refutes the publications detailed in the IPCC. I had thought this was an outrageous claim but it appears to be true.
You might want to checkout the video posted above Ed Scott (19:49:02) : about Miskolczi’s work, but I might suggest a more interesting twist for your paper, given what you’ve already discovered, would be to examine what appears to be a systematic exclusion from employment,funding and publication of scientists who in any way question the prevailing orthodoxy of AGW. I’m not a climate scientist myself, but in pursuing my interest in this question I have come across many references to this phenomenon and while I can’t provide you with links right now, you shouldn’t have much difficulty finding them for yourself.
rbateman (20:32:37) :
Pat (20:23:16) :
“I met someone who was visiting from Australia. He told me of the winds incessantly blowing (Melbourne)…”
There must be another Melbourne; not this one I was born in, and now once again live in, 60 years on.
_____________________________
rephelan (20:52:58) asks: “Am I the only one here who suspects that if two brilliant ego-centrics quit sniping at each other and decided to collaborate on just one…”
No, rephelan, you are not the only one.
DJ is there a budget allocation at BOM for time spent in “denier smackdown” across the ocean?
One wonders if the taxpayers of Australia approve of such job activities. Aren’t there problems in Australia that need solving? Cheers
I am going to giggle myself to sleep tonight…
rephelan (20:52:58) :
I already have a cure for cancer. I am a co-inventor of a patent on an anti-cancer drug with two professors from Purdue University. In vitro trialling at Queensland Uni last year demonstrated efficacy against cell lines in prostate, breast, ovarian, Hodgkin’s lymphoma and melanoma. It also works very well against benign prostatic hypertrophy. Next stage is toxicology and human trials. Mode of action is synergistic inhibition of the tNOX molecule on the external membrane of cancer cells by sulforaphane and capsaicin. Until it is commercialised, I recommend that you eat broccoli sprouts, a lot more potent than the mature heads.
Ric Werme (22:16:19) :
That mini heatwave we had in April was made slightly worse by the fact that there was hardly any vegetation to grow in as of that time. As I recall 850mb temps were in the 14-16°C range during the warmer days of that 4 day stretch which would usually only yield highs in the mid 80’s under full sun in a deep-mixed layer/downslope flow regime (which there was). However, without any growth to occur as of that time there wasn’t any evapotranspiration (cooling process) and insolation penetrated directly down to the surface without hindrance from the forest tree canopy (lower albedo). Add that into the fact that the antedecent ground conditions were abnormally dry and there’s your extra 5 degrees that took temperatures into the 89-92 range instead of the expected 84-87 range given the atmospheric profile. I also noted that BUFKIT model temps were running 3-5 degrees cooler than observed temperatures during that warm spell too.
Candidate for Quote of the Week:
“notably cooler-than-normal average temperatures”
Rick (21:36:34) : “I can’t seem to find a single published paper that refutes the publications detailed in the IPCC.”
First, you need to know that a senior author on the first IPCC panel resigned and harshly criticized the IPCC for taking points in published works out of context without allowing the original authors any chance to review before the final report. The IPCC’s “details” were cherry-picked elements that supported their premise.
Further, some statements in IPCC reports are not based on peer-reviewed papers. An important one is the claim that western fossil fuel emissions are the primary source of anthropogentic residual CO2 in the atmosphere. The IPCC Working Group One executive summary included the conclusion: “We calculate with confidence that: …CO2 has been responsible for over half the enhanced greenhouse effect; long-lived gases would require immediate reductions in emissions from human activities of over 60% to stabilise their concentrations at today’s levels…” These calculations were not from peer-reviewed papers, but from the working group itself. Critics raised the question about the source and underlying data of these conclusions and the claim that fossil fuel emissions were the primary source. A definitive rigorous paper that could support the IPCC claim was lacking. Subsequently, a pair of studies were launched regarding the source of anthropogenic CO2, resulting in peer-reviewed papers published in Nature — one in 2000 and another in 2005. The first concluded that Third World home fires was the dominant source of anthropogenic CO2 with Indonesian peat fires a major contributor. The second also concluded most GHGs came from Third World home fires and identified a major concentration from rural China. Neither paper supported the IPCC focus on fossil fuel emissions and so both were ignored. Rick, note: a central IPCC claim unsupported by peer-reviewed studies refuted by two peer-reviewed papers.
The first IPCC Working Group also concluded: “Based on current models, we predict: . . . increase of global mean temperature during the [21st] century of about 0.3 oC per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 to 0.5 oC per decade); this is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years.” Several peer-reviewed papers surrounding the “Fairbridge Curve” of 1976 and subsequent papers used to prove the veracity of Fairbridge’s sea level curve showed periodic rapid climatic changes during the past 6,000 years that had to be greater than 0.5°C per decade to cause relatively rapid sea level changes of greater than two meters.
If you look far enough, you will find strong published articles by leading statisticians that refute the Mann Hockey Stick graph — a feature of the earlier IPCC reports and Al Gore’s film. So strong was the refutation, that the IPCC no longer promotes that graph.
Lastly, “peer review” does not carry the strength of verifiable fact. Several peer-reviewed papers cited by the IPCC published in the late 80s and early 90s and public statements made by featured IPCC authors have simply not shown any degree of truth. Famous among these is James Hansen’s testimony to Congress in 1988. In that presentation, Hansen showed climate modeling results that predicted a 1.2°C increase in global temps in 20 years. Here we are more than 20 years later and the global temperature anomaly data is showing only a warmth anomaly of 0.09 – 0.20°C. The present condition also completely refutes the IPCC’s 1991 “prediction” of 0.3°C warming per decade, not just Hansen’s grossly exaggerated predictions.
One does not need peer-reviewed papers to compare statements made in those papers to the reality of present data.
The Miskolczi paper is published in Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, a very obscure journal. There are probably three other papers with such science, all in obscure journals. OK- that in itself is no reason to dismiss something- particularly if the subject matter is similarly obscure- but that is not the case here.
The standard practice in science would be to publish extensions of the work in top shelf journals, once the importance of the work is established. This has not happened- and adds to my suspicions.
If I get up and debate 100s of papers published in Science, Nature and elsewhere without similar material, I’m going to get laughed at- so I’m not going to do it.
I am really disturbed that anyone seriously consider a blog post to be the equivalent of a publication or a peer-reviewed publication? Thats just ridiculous- we don’t get any idea of your qualifications, who you are and who is commenting on your posts- come on… you guys have lost me completely.
If I get the drift of all these blogs right- you are basically saying that there is a conspiracy theory whereby climate scientists are manipulating science, funding and publications on a mass scale.
There is a disconnect in this assumption- where is the proof? Again, its just blog posts. Just like an alternative scientific theory refuting AGW- this would be Noble prize winning, shout from the rooftops, big news.
It doesn’t make any sense to a rational observer. I mean- who wants climate change to happen, not many people- I don’t- so why is this material unpublishable?
Weather report on TV tonight, Camden (A western Sydney suburb) reached 4c this morning, 5c below average. Sydney was at 9c this morning, coldest start to a day since spring. I assume the wetherman is talking about last spring.
Rick: “OK, its a useful inclusion on the politics side, but its still not a proper reference I can use in a dissertation.”
The coat-of-arms and other faux-heraldry probably don’t lend much to the argument, either.
“And on this issue, I would have thought people were scrambling over each other to publish the first definitive refutation of AGW.”
Me too. Funny that. Perhaps it’s because AGW is now collapsing like a house of cards. No point doing the hard graft when we’re just on the cusp of the turning point and any day now the bubble will burst, the rats will jump ship with a last gasp while the edifice crumbles and the game ends. Then it’ll be all over Rover for AGW. Yep. It’s definitely gonna happen.
I wonder if anyone else noticed:
wattsupwiththat (20:10:28) : (May 11)
Thanks Anthony, a lot just made sense when I noticed this. Probably not too difficult to trace an IP address…
Some years back I had a website that was very “anti” our then Prime Minister. I was most entertained to see more hits from official government IP addresses than anywhere else.
Rick (22:23:22),
Something tells me that your arguing is only a tactic. If I’m wrong then I apologize for thinking that. Here is some reading material.
When you’re finished with these citations, get back to me and I’ll provide more:
Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Volume 12, Number 3, 2007)
– Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, Willie Soon
Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
(Climate Research, Vol. 13, Pg. 149–164, October 26 1999)
– Arthur B. Robinson, Zachary W. Robinson, Willie Soon, Sallie L. Baliunas
Are observed changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere really dangerous?
(Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology,v. 50, no. 2, p. 297-327, June 2002)
– C. R. de Freitas
Can increasing carbon dioxide cause climate change?
(Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 94, pp. 8335-8342, August 1997)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Can we believe in high climate sensitivity?
(arXiv:physics/0612094v1, Dec 11 2006)
– J. D. Annan, J. C. Hargreaves
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/AGW_hypothesis_disproved.pdf
Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics
(AAPG Bulletin, Vol. 88, no9, pp. 1211-1220, 2004)
– Lee C. Gerhard
– Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics: Reply
(AAPG Bulletin, v. 90, no. 3, p. 409-412, March 2006)
– Lee C. Gerhard
Climate change in the Arctic and its empirical diagnostics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 469-482, September 1999)
– V.V. Adamenko, K.Y. Kondratyev, C.A. Varotsos
Climate Change Re-examined
(Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp. 723–749, 2007)
– Joel M. Kauffman
CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 69–82, 1999
– Sherwood B. Idso
Crystal balls, virtual realities and ’storylines’
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 343-349, July 2001)
– R.S. Courtney
Dangerous global warming remains unproven
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 167-169, January 2007)
– R.M. Carter
Does CO2 really drive global warming?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 351-355, July 2001)
– R.H. Essenhigh
Does human activity widen the tropics?
(arXiv:0803.1959v1, Mar 13 200
– Katya Georgieva, Boian Kirov
Earth’s rising atmospheric CO2 concentration: Impacts on the biosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 12, Number 4, pp. 287-310, July 2001)
– C.D. Idso [WUWT contributor]
Evidence for “publication Bias” Concerning Global Warming in Science and Nature
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 287-301, March 200
– Patrick J. Michaels
Global Warming
(Progress in Physical Geography, 27, 448-455, 2003)
– W. Soon, S. L. Baliunas
Global Warming: The Social Construction of A Quasi-Reality?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Number 6, pp. 805-813, November 2007)
– Dennis Ambler
Global warming and the mining of oceanic methane hydrate
(Topics in Catalysis, Volume 32, Numbers 3-4, pp. 95-99, March 2005)
– Chung-Chieng Lai, David Dietrich, Malcolm Bowman
Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists Versus Scientific Forecasts
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 997-1021, December 2007)
– Keston C. Green, J. Scott Armstrong
Global Warming: Myth or Reality? The Actual Evolution of the Weather Dynamics
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 297-322, May 2003)
– M. Leroux
Global Warming: the Sacrificial Temptation
(arXiv:0803.1239v1, Mar 10 200
– Serge Galam
Global warming: What does the data tell us?
(arXiv:physics/0210095v1, Oct 23 2002)
– E. X. Alban, B. Hoeneisen
Human Contribution to Climate Change Remains Questionable
(Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, Volume 80, Issue 16, p. 183-183, April 20, 1999)
– S. Fred Singer
Industrial CO2 emissions as a proxy for anthropogenic influence on lower tropospheric temperature trends
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 31, L05204, 2004)
– A. T. J. de Laat, A. N. Maurellis
Implications of the Secondary Role of Carbon Dioxide and Methane Forcing in Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
(Physical Geography, Volume 28, Number 2, pp. 97-125(29), March 2007)
– Soon, Willie
Is a Richer-but-warmer World Better than Poorer-but-cooler Worlds?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1023-1048, December 2007)
– Indur M. Goklany [a WUWT contributing author]
Methodology and Results of Calculating Central California Surface Temperature Trends: Evidence of Human-Induced Climate Change?
(Journal of Climate, Volume: 19 Issue: 4, February 2006)
– Christy, J.R., W.B. Norris, K. Redmond, K. Gallo
Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties
(Climate Research, Vol. 18: 259–275, 2001)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
– Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Risbey (2002)
(Climate Research, Vol. 22: 187–188, 2002)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
– Modeling climatic effects of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions: unknowns and uncertainties. Reply to Karoly et al.
(Climate Research, Vol. 24: 93–94, 2003)
– Willie Soon, Sallie Baliunas, Sherwood B. Idso, Kirill Ya. Kondratyev, Eric S. Posmentier
On global forces of nature driving the Earth’s climate. Are humans involved?
(Environmental Geology, Volume 50, Number 6, August 2006)
– L. F. Khilyuk and G. V. Chilingar
On a possibility of estimating the feedback sign of the Earth climate system
(Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences: Engineering. Vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 260-268. Sept. 2007)
– Olavi Kamer
Phanerozoic Climatic Zones and Paleogeography with a Consideration of Atmospheric CO2 Levels
(Paleontological Journal, 2: 3-11, 2003)
– A. J. Boucot, Chen Xu, C. R. Scotese
Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data
(Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 112, D24S09, 2007)
– Ross R. McKitrick, Patrick J. Michaels
Quantitative implications of the secondary role of carbon dioxide climate forcing in the past glacial-interglacial cycles for the likely future climatic impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas forcings
(arXiv:0707.1276, July 2007)
– Soon, Willie
Scientific Consensus on Climate Change?
(Energy & Environment, Volume 19, Number 2, pp. 281-286, March 200
– Klaus-Martin Schulte
Some Coolness Concerning Global Warming
(Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 71, Issue 3, pp. 288–299, March 1990)
– Richard S. Lindzen [WUWT contributor]
Some examples of negative feedback in the Earth climate system
(Central European Journal of Physics, Volume 3, Number 2, June 2005)
– Olavi Kärner
Statistical analysis does not support a human influence on climate
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 329-331, July 2002)
– S. Fred Singer
Taking GreenHouse Warming Seriously
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 937-950, December 2007)
– Richard S. Lindzen
Temperature trends in the lower atmosphere
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 707-714, September 2006)
– Vincent Gray [WUWT contributor]
Temporal Variability in Local Air Temperature Series Shows Negative Feedback
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1059-1072, December 2007)
– Olavi Kärner
The Carbon dioxide thermometer and the cause of global warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 1-18, January 1999)
– N. Calder
The Cause of Global Warming
(Energy & Environment, Volume 11, Number 6, pp. 613-629, November 1, 2000)
– Vincent Gray
The Fraud Allegation Against Some Climatic Research of Wei-Chyung Wang
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 985-995, December 2007)
– Douglas J. Keenan
The continuing search for an anthropogenic climate change signal: Limitations of correlation-based approaches
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 24, No. 18, Pages 2319–2322, 1997)
– David R. Legates, Robert E. Davis
The “Greenhouse Effect” as a Function of Atmospheric Mass
(Energy & Environment, Volume 14, Numbers 2-3, pp. 351-356, 1 May 2003)
– H. Jelbring
The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle
(Energy & Environment, Volume 16, Number 2, pp. 217-238, March 2005)
– A. Rörsch, R. Courtney, D. Thoenes
The IPCC future projections: are they plausible?
(Climate Research, Vol. 10: 155–162, August 199
– Vincent Gray
The IPCC: Structure, Processes and Politics Climate Change – the Failure of Science
(Energy & Environment, Volume 18, Numbers 7-8, pp. 1073-1078, December 2007)
– William J.R. Alexander
The UN IPCC’s Artful Bias: Summary of Findings: Glaring Omissions, False Confidence and Misleading Statistics in the Summary for Policymakers
(Energy & Environment, Volume 13, Number 3, pp. 311-328, July 2002)
– Wojick D. E.
“The Wernerian syndrome”; aspects of global climate change; an analysis of assumptions, data, and conclusions
(Environmental Geosciences, v. 3, no. 4, p. 204-210, December 1996)
– Lee C. Gerhard
Uncertainties in assessing global warming during the 20th century: disagreement between key data sources
(Energy & Environment, Volume 17, Number 5, pp. 685-706, September 2006)
– Maxim Ogurtsov, Markus Lindholm
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HANSENMARSCHALLENGE.pdf
David Archibald (23:59:55) notes: “I already have a cure for cancer…”
Australia has a nice history in major medical breakthroughs; so stay with it, David!
For example: Maker of the Miracle Mould
“The story of penicillin – the first antibiotic used successfully to treat people with serious infectious diseases – begins with a bit of luck. Alexander Fleming, a British scientist, noticed in 1928 that mould had prevented the growth of bacteria in his lab. But the main plot of the story involves the rediscovery of penicillin 10 years later by an Australian scientist born one hundred years ago this year. Howard Florey and his dedicated team’s systematic, detailed work transformed penicillin from an interesting observation into a life saver.”
“If I get the drift of all these blogs right- you are basically saying that there is a conspiracy theory whereby climate scientists are manipulating science, funding and publications on a mass scale.”
There’s no “conspiracy” in the climate science world – but – imagine you are a professor at a university who needs to get funding to do research and publish papers in order to become tenured. As you respond to research grant proposals from mainly government entities (e.g. NSF, NOAA, NASA, etc.), you notice that if your research aim is to disprove any aspect of global warming dogma, your funding proposal is rejected. Further, you begin to notice that papers submitted to journals which go against the “consensus” are similarly rejected. In this environment, it won’t be long before you (a) leave academia due to lack of funding and publications, or (b) write papers favorable to the AGW agenda knowing this will bring in the research dollars.
Unfortunately for the climate science community, the line between objective science and hard core political advocacy has already been crossed by people such as Jim Hansen and Mark Serreze. Morevover, the silence of the community to their antics tells me that they are still too afraid of losing their funding to try to reign in their loose cannons.
The temp map shows N.Hamp was a way above average in April. I’d check out some more of their weather stations because on the other side of the northern border weive had an unremittingly cold spring. By the way, it froze in more than a dozen communities in N.H. last night and here are the short term forecasts for tonight – check out Colbrook and few others where it is expected to drop to -3C (26F):
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/usnh0044
“You’re having a giraffe” ( cockney rhyming slang for having a laugh for those of you who are emigres from the mother country) comes to mind as I read Rick’s childish posts.
As he seems to have so much time on his hands that he can waste his life researching a “politics essay” perhaps he would be better employed collating the wealth of published data that refutes AGW and becoming the first to have done that.
He could then publish on the Warmist sites that I suspect are his normal habitat.
Bye Bye Nick…….
Rick, a better angle on your argument is to examine concurrent weather events with each major spike and rise in the temperature trend over the past century. Or each ice melt. Or glacier retreat. Where was the jet stream? What were the oceans doing? What were the trade winds up to? Examine the noise, not the linear statistical line, and the variable in play at the time. The line is not the data. Remember the scene in the Medicine Man? The scientists knocked their brains out trying to find the secret chemical in the flower that cured cancer, sure that it was there but so complicated it would be very difficult to duplicate. They reran analysis after analysis and double checked all the variables conncected to harvesting and preparing the flower extract. Except one. It turned out to be the ants, a variable that was concurrent with the flower and harvest. Might the climate trend turn out to be…the weather? Or can it be dismissed like the ants?
@Smokey (03:22:09) :
I read the paper you cited first a year ago and I found it interesting. I have never cited it in a climate discussion, though, I don’t know what to reply if they tell me that the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons is not the oracle of climate science.
And one more thing Rick. If this is a dissertation, and you are a candidate for a Ph.D., why in the hell are you saying what someone else has said with nothing new to add? Isn’t this activity supposed to prove your worth as an investigator? What makes you worthy of the degree if you can’t say something new, or present a different angle, or question a conclusion? You seem more on a Masters track than a Ph.D. track.
Smokey, I think that’s the last we’ll hear from Rick…
Rick wrote : It doesn’t make any sense to a rational observer. I mean- who wants climate change to happen, not many people- I don’t-
Well Rick, a LOT of people want the power/money they will get by controlling the world’s energy, which is the end result if this issue is believed.
Do you not understand how much money is already changing hands because of supposed AGW? How many more trillions will change hands if AGW inspired energy taxes are passed? Don’t under estimate the financial forces that lurk behind this debate.
Next point, you claim 4 volumes vs Zip, which means you really haven’t been looking very hard.
Worse, the 4 volumes you cite aren’t specifically about AGW. Most will be about some aspect of climate science or only tangentially related to it, a great many with a link saying “if the (most extreme) warming the IPCC predicts happens then …..”
Next point, a great deal of the published climatic data relies on statistical analysis of data. Something that climate scientists aren’t necessarily that good at. The foundational work on global temperatures and past recent climate is in fact done by a fairly small group of researchers and the worst part of that is that in many cases they won’t make their data or methods available for inspection.
See Steve McIntyre’s excellent site http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5962 for many more details on flaws in recent scientific papers and a little more about the value of peer review in climatic science.
Arthur
David Archibald (23:59:55) :
rephelan (20:52:58) :
I already have a cure for cancer.
Dr. Archibald, you are an inspiration. Broccoli sprouts? Well, as Master Kung’s disciples are reported to have said: “I thank you for your instruction and with your permission I will now go to put it into practice.”
Roger Carr (04:21:58) :
I didn’t know that. With typically American ethnocentrism I was sure it was invented here.
Smokey (03:22:09) :
I’ve said before that you were good. Rick is almost certainly a troll but I’m going to have a whack at your reading list. Thanks.
urederra,
It was a peer reviewed paper, written by climatologists. That makes it relevant. And you’re right, it was interesting. It has also been cited here before.
Rick (21:36:34) :
I’m working on a politics essay on climate change- I can’t seem to find a single published paper that refutes the publications detailed in the IPCC. I had thought this was an outrageous claim but it appears to be true.
The quantity of published papers is not the measure of science. Have you read Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”? It might be a good idea before you attempt to write on “the politics of science” — or in this case the politics of a particular scientific issue. Most peer reviewed publications present “normal science.” Anomalies tend to get ignored.
So rather than count up all the papers that supposedly support the claims of the IPCC, you ask whether there is any evidence of anomalies with the IPCC claims. For example, how is CO2 induced global warming supposed to work? The models that IPCC relies upon say that the troposphere should be warming faster than the surface? How’s that working out? The models say that the poles should warm faster than the tropics. How’s that working out? And have you looked at the temperature data for yourself? There is no significant warming since the 1998 El Nino. Global temperatures have either plateaued, or have even declined. Now that’s an anomaly.
I have turned to these blogs by way of investigation- and you guys don’t even seem to bother with peer reviewed science. All of the posts I have followed here lead to unpublished material. Is this really the case?
I’ll suggest a few specific publications for you. But first let me give you some general pointers. First, Roger Pielke Sr.’s web site is a good starting place if you want links to published, peer reviewed literature, that may in some way question the normal science — or conventional wisdom — of climate change:
http://climatesci.org/
Another good place to find references to peer reviewed literature that may in some way challenge the principle tenets of AGW is
http://www.co2science.org/index.php
And a third is
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/
All three of the sites routinely survey and comment upon peer reviewed literature from a “skeptical” perspective. Until you have thoroughly exhausted these resources, you are in no position to say that there is no peer reviewed literature that runs counter to the prevailing normal science of IPCC and AGW.
Can you please post ANYTHING you have that is published, and clearly refutes that very high levels of CO2 does not equal warmer atmosphere????
I sense a bit of logical fallacy here (petitio principii). There are few, even among the skeptic or anti-AGW crowd who deny that rising levels of CO2 lead to warmer temperatures. There is, however, a major dispute over whether the assumed positive feedback role of water vapor actually exists. Without that, the effect of rising CO2 on temperatures is likely to be modest, and not at all harmful; maybe even beneficial. A good place to start reading up on this, with links to peer reviewed literature, would be the following post by Pielke Sr.:
http://climatesci.org/2007/12/18/climate-metric-reality-check-3-evidence-for-a-lack-of-water-vapor-feedback-on-the-regional-scale/
For an example of a published peer reviewed paper questioning the accuracy of the feedback response built into climate models, see:
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/papers/Pierce_et_al_AIRS_vs_models_2006GL027060.pdf
And then there is
http://www.scribd.com/doc/904914/A-comparison-of-tropical-temperature-trends-with-model-predictions
So the literature is out there, if you really want to find it. Are there rebuttals or other points of view? You betcha. And that is the point! There are disputed aspects of the prevailing normal science (“consensus”) of climate change. The science is not settled, and the idiot who first uttered that expression shall go down ignominiously in the annals of science.
Rick (22:23:22) :
“I have a background in biomedical research. And from my perspective I have four volumes of published papers on one side, and nothing on the other. ”
——
Climate science is nothing like biomedical research. You can take the four volumes and throw out any studies that say “we simulated X in a climate model and …”
Would the FDA approve a new drug in which the results are merely described in a computer model?
So far, the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled medical studies show that the drug has some warming and some natural variability but far less warming than predicted in the drug company’s software model. In addition, it appears the results may have been contaminated and adjusted by the drug company vice-presidents themselves.
Meanwhile, the drug-company continues to insist to the FDA that the new drug should be prescribed to the 6.5 billion people on the planet because its 10 runs of the software program predict that the 6.5 billion people will be very ill and even die in 100 years if they do not take this new drug immediately – right now.
The skeptic side would prefer to examine the actual data from a few more studies first and point out that the early studies show the drug may not have the benefits claimed. But the drug company does not believe further data examination is warranted and it would, in fact, be “foolish” to examine the actual data when it contradicts the software model. This actual data from an independent researcher is “nonsense” and will be adjusted in further software runs.
Leif – Slightly off the topic, but some time ago you posted a spectral analysis of the solar activity. You showed how you handled the end points, or what we referred to as “leakage”. Could you please post the reference? Thanks
Well-said, Dave!
Smokey “peer-“reviewed”? I didn’t know surgeons were peers of climate researchers? Isnt’ it the same journal where papers can be found on
-the “myth of AIDS being due to VIH”
-the idea that “smoking doesn’t do any arm”
-the hypothesis that “abortion causes breast cancer”
-Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical
-An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described JPandS as a “purveyor of utter nonsense.”
-Investigative journalist Brian Deer wrote that the journal is the “house magazine of a right-wing American fringe group [AAPS]” and “is barely credible as an independent forum.”
Anthony, you really must have hit a nerve with your Surfacestations Report. It seems there is more troll-noise here than usual — and some of it government sponsored, or at least paid for? My, my. At least their noise brings forth the music of science on this blog and their silly nonsense soon is silenced.
The way it works here is most unsuual for blogs; there is a science lesson from the troll-noise every time rather than a shouting match. The excellent crew of commenters are raising the science IQ of the thousands who read the posts every single day. Your leadership inspires in many ways.
REPLY: What can I say? My blog is like a TV game show: “trolling for scholars.” – Anthony
Rick (21:36:34) :
“I’m working on a politics essay on climate change- I can’t seem to find a single published paper that refutes the publications detailed in the IPCC. I had thought this was an outrageous claim but it appears to be true.”
Self published 5 minutes ago on a blog. It’s focus is a very important aspect of the last IPCC report. Get in a comment lad. Tell me where I am going wrong.
Its called Climate Change ‘a la naturale’
Find it at: http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/
The introduction goes like this:
Good science is plausible. It makes sense. Here is something from the UNIPCC that makes very little sense. It is from section1.4.6 of the most recent report accessible at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter1.pdf
“The mechanisms and predictive skill of ENSO are still under discussion. In particular, it is not clear how ENSO changes with, and perhaps interacts with, a changing climate.”
Has it occurred to those who have endorsed that statement that ENSO cycles might actually be responsible for observed climate change? Can we be sure that the thing that forces change on the inter-annual time scale is somehow inoperative on longer time scale? Of course not. We don’t even know what it is.
This post provides evidence that warming cycles in the tropics (ENSO in the Pacific manifestation) are directly responsible for the change that has occurred.
It is futility to try to convince “Rick” of anything. Aside from the fact that he is a likely a troll, he has evidently never tried to question the “team” on RealClimate. Go into any church on Sunday and stand up and question the doctrine. You will be lucky if you make it out of the church alive. Yet their beliefs are based only on “faith”. It is not a “global conspiracy” we are up against. It is belief system. Let’s look at Dr. Baliunas for example. She has published a number of papers questioning the science. She is no longer publishing these types of papers. She has been threatened with termination by her University. She has a family to support. What would YOU do when faced with this kind of muzzling ? The University is concerned about their funding, so they HAVE to put the muzzle on her in order for the University to survive. Is this a system where science can question and publish freely? Open your eyes “Rick” and stop inspecting your own colon. Face to face, people like “Rick” never have anything to say. Naval gazer. The anonymity of the net allows for “cyber-bravery”, an illusion of power that can be acquired no where else. Once again, Smokey and friends laying the “smack-down”. What will be “Rick’s” next course of action? The Precautionary Principal? Do it for the children? The initial post by “Rick” was pretty transparent. ” I cannot find any published works refuting AGW”. That is because he didn’t even look.
Sorry forgot to add “rant/off”.
Smokey
A thank you for rick as he seems to have lost interest and your efforts should remind everyone that the science is not settled.
J. Bob (07:01:16) :
You showed how you handled the end points, or what we referred to as “leakage”. Could you please post the reference?
http://www.leif.org/research/FFT-Power-Spectrum-SSN-1700-2008.png
The idea is that if your data interval 1700-2008 = 309 years = 3*103 has an integer number of ‘waves’ there will be power at that frequency just because the wave fits. So, there will be some power at 103 years just because of the fact that exactly three 103-yr waves fit into 309 years. To overcome that a bit, compute the power spectra for intervals 1700-2008, 1701-2008, 1702-2008, 1703-2008, …, 1716-2008 [just arbitrary stop year 1716] and plot them all together. If a peak varies a lot it is spurious, as a ‘true’ peak should not depend critically on the precise ‘window’. Anyway, this is the ‘poor’ man’s criteria for peak stability. There are much fancier tools for that, but I like to keep it simple.
The original issue that prompted this plot was to what the 11-year peak was comprised of two precise sub-peaks. I would say from the graph that it isn’t.
“If I get the drift of all these blogs right- you are basically saying that there is a conspiracy theory whereby climate scientists are manipulating science, funding and publications on a mass scale.”
Rick, where have you been? Are you not aware that men have been conspiring to control thought for thousands of years? I hope my tone isn’t harsh, but come on now. You don’t believe in corruption? With millions (billions, trillions) of dollars at stake, you honestly believe men will not lie and cheat to get a piece of the pie.
Welcome to the real world, buddy. There has never been a moment in time where there weren’t organized cons, scams, conspiracy and manipulation. The bigger the prize – the bigger the potential. These things we know.
Indeed, the goals is to destroy an older, smaller power (the authority of science and scientists) and replace it with the new greater power (the state). AGW as legitimate science was never the intention. It was and is the rhetorical device that was chosen to divide people- the believers succumb willingly, and the rest of us are now a smaller group, more easily conquered.
Andrew
David Archibald (23:59:55) :
The the complete recipe would be broccoli sprouts AND chile / red pepper(source of capsaicine)?
Though this is OT ,but kind of weather is not climate story, today i heard on a local radio station (in Lima, Peru) the surprising news that virus H1V1N1 was not new, that strain was found back in 2001 at the city of Pucallpa, Peru, in seven patients…How does it appear now as NEW?….
Rick (21:36:34) :
“. . . [Is there] ANYTHING . . . published . . . [that] clearly refutes that very high levels of CO2 does not equal warmer atmosphere????”
Perhaps many responses missed the mark in considering Rick’s question. Although several relevant articles were offered and I hope that he reads them, I suspect that Rick does not understand the 6 step process of Global Warming Pessimism and that most of the bloggers here reject some step in this process.
Step 1: In laboratory conditions, increase CO2 levels increase temperatures.
(Everybody is onboard with this step.)
Step 2: This relationship between CO2 and temperature holds in the chaotic atmosphere with a multitude of other variables changing.
(Almost everybody stays on board here – if Greenhouse Gases didn’t hold in heat, the earth would be a very cold place.)
Step 3: Human activity is increasing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
(Very few analysts get off the train at this step; majority remains on board.)
Step 4: CO2 increases induce a positive feedback loop that multiplies the laboratory results.
(Substantial departure of analysts on this point – not settled science!)
Step 5: The effect of increases in CO2 increases with feedback loop swamp natural variations.
(Even more departure of analysts.)
Step 6: The effect of CO2 increases is negative and catastrophic.
(Perhaps a minority of analysts are onboard now, but they get the funding!)
One problem with media is that they jump from Step 3 to the conclusion of Step 6 without understanding or inquiring about the weak points of Steps 4, 5 and 6. Moreover, there can be negative impact of humans on local and regional climates outside of GHG – such as deforestation and other land uses. Some of these negative impacts are exasperated by attempts to reduce GHG.
Gary says:
No doubt. But Rick is not arguing against the idea that, say, there are a few scientists associated in some way with environmental groups who are promulgating bad science. Rather, he is arguing against the idea that the entire scientific enterprise in a field has been hijacked…and not only that but the IPCC, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the analogous bodies in all twelve of the other G8+5 nations have been hijacked, as has the AAAS, and the AGU, and the AMS, and the APS.
Basically, the “skeptics” are in the position of arguing that a whole field of science and a bunch of non-partisan scientific organizations are all hopelessly biased and a few scientists most with close associations with right-wing organizations like the Heartland Institute, the Cato Institute, and the George C. Marshal institute are the only ones who are speaking the truth. Just on the face of it, such an argument seems rather unlikely.
The point is that a “conspiracy theory” is only reasonable if it seems logical that those supposedly involved in the conspiracy represent a group that is small enough, uniform enough in beliefs, and otherwise structured in a way where it seems likely that the conspiracy can be maintained. I submit that this is not even close to being true in the present case.
An Inquirer (09:57:55) : Step 1: WRONG
http://www.giurfa.com/gh_experiments.pdf
Excerpt:
At the time of Wood’s experiment, it was believed that CO2 and other gas molecules became hotter after absorbing IR. Four years later Niels Bohr reported his discovery that the absorption of specific wavelengths of light didn’t cause gas atoms/molecules to become hotter. Instead, the absorption of specific wavelengths of light caused the electrons in an atom/molecule to move to a higher energy state. After absorption of light of a specific wavelength an atom couldn’t absorb additional radiation of that wavelength without first emitting light of that wavelength. (Philosophical Magazine Series 6, Volume 26 July 1913, p. 1-25) Unlike the glass which reflects IR back where it comes from, CO2 molecules emit IR up and sideways as well as down. In the time interval between absorbing and reemitting radiation, CO2 molecules allow IR to pass them by. Glass continuously reflects IR.
http://www.giurfa.com/gh_experiments.pdf
An Inquirer
I step off in step 2 as there are few observations as to the percentage effect of CO2 with respect to the other GHGs. Most numbers assume well mixed gases. Most models have never heard of Newton or the sun although they like to sometimes talk about PV = nrt but rarely want to talk about the problem in real time. Many assumptions with very few confirmation real world experiments. Lots of money for computer things and papers.
Joel Shore (10:23:43) :
The point is that a “conspiracy theory” is only reasonable if it seems logical that those supposedly involved in the conspiracy represent a group that is small enough, uniform enough in beliefs, and otherwise structured in a way where it seems likely that the conspiracy can be maintained. I submit that this is not even close to being true in the present case
What is such an institution it is a widespread one, based on a supposed “initiatic knowledge”, which choses candidates among middle class and not so clever people and teach them that they are the chosen ones and with time and “progress” along that “initiatic process” they become more “evolved” as to achieve a certain “degree”; and, among other things they are supposed to help their “brothers” so as to all attain more important places in society, in order to make possible for the “order” to apply their most “noble” purposes to humanity.?
It would simply proceed automatically, based on human psyche self indulgement and self conceit and self deception.
Was this “secret society” the one behind French Revolution?
Is is this same society behind the ecological/green movement?
@ Flanagan (07:41:28) :
That’s just a conspiracy…I read about it on the internet. Seriously though, AAPS is laughable, as is energy and environment.
The editor of Energy and Environment has admitted herself that she has an agenda.
Dr Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, says:
“I’m following my political agenda — a bit, anyway, but isn’t that the right of the editor?”
Hello Pot, meet Kettle.
An Inquirer:
I have a problem with “Step 3”. Our contribution to CO2 increase is not a given by any means. Even assuming that Mauna Loa represents an accurate “global CO2” reading (which it most likely does not), our contribution to atmospheric CO2 is miniscule, and it’s ridiculous to assume that the planetary ability to absorb CO2 is static.
In fact, steps 3-6 (accurate as you’ve placed them!) veer directly off into Science Fiction. It’s not much different than thinking that sea levels will rise because my toilet is running all the time.
Also, in regards to “Peer Review”, why is it so difficult for some people to understand just who these “Peers” are that are doing the “Reviewing”???
“Conspiracy” is probably the wrong word, because it is easy to write off conspiracy theories. And it’s also very probable that most people propagating the cAGW line are well intentioned and believe wholly in what they are saying, but that doesn’t make them correct.
Next, those who post here and elsewhere and write off everything done by what they call “RIGHT-WING” anything… you then won’t be offended when I completely write off everything “LEFT-WING” as nutty, worthless, and agenda-driven.
April E. Coggins (20:08:41) :
“Here in eastern Washington state, we are under a late freeze warning. Even our local global warming zealots have stopped writing letters to newspapers claiming that we in danger from warming. They have shifted to claiming that cap and trade will lead to less energy use which will somehow save the planet. They are very vague about the specifics”.
April,
Cap & Trade wil INCREASE the use of fossil fuels.
Why?
It will force the energy producers to take measures aimed at carbon capture and storage.
For a coal power plant the consequence will be that they will use twice the amounts of coal to generate the same energy output.
Besides that, large amounts of fossil fuels will be needed to move the captured CO2 ftom the poqwe plant to the storage facility.
The production and use of bio fuels, how unbelievable it may sound, will also increase the use of fossil fuels and the use of sweet water.
Due to being of a certain age, I’m able to verfiy the NOAA data for Central MN, just a wee scosh below normal temp, and a tad below normal precip.
Ice out came virtually on expected day, planting has proceeded without impediment.
If this is Erl’s departure from La Nina we’re having, then woe to warmening.
It seems that covert weather modifications have been going on since the 50’s. It is nicely documented in the article at http://www.prisonplanet.com/precipitation-enhancement-active-weather-modification-campaigns.html
“Local, non-permanent changes, such as precipitation enhancement, hail suppression, fog and cloud dispersal, are permitted under the U.N. treaty banning weather modification”
They might be non-permanent but if you do it regularly I suppose the effect will add up.
It would be great to match the “non-permanent” weather modification experiments with the weather data where experiments took place.
Bill Illis (14:20:10) :
The Central England Temperature series, linear trend for the month of June for 350yrs shows no rise at all, no warming signal here either.
N.H. winter temperatures dominate the global picture.
Joel Shore wrote:
> Basically, the “skeptics” are in the position of arguing that a whole field
> of science and a bunch of non-partisan scientific organizations are
> all hopelessly biased and a few scientists most with close associations
> with right- wing organizations like the Heartland Institute, the Cato
> Institute, and the George C. Marshal institute are the only ones who
> speaking the truth. Just on the face of it, such an argument seems rather
> unlikely
Hey Joel – how about the Polish Academy of Science, who recently denounced Global Warming as a scientific fraud? Are they a right-wing organization? There is a world outside of America, you know!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Polish-Academy-of-Sciences-Questions-Gores-Man-Made-Global-Warming-Theory-43618922.html
How about Dr. Kiminori Itoh, PhD, a Japanese PhD environmental scientist. Is he a member of the Heartland Institute? How about Professor Ian Plimer, the foremost environmental scientist in Australia, who has repeatedly expressed profound skepticism regarding Global Warming? Is he a member of the AMERICAN right-wing conspiracy? I happen to know Professor Plimer, and I’d love to see you try to tell him to his face that you think he is a liar and a fraud!
Also, when you talk about “a whole field of science” you are talking about “Climate Science”, right? Do you know that the Oxford Dictionary doesn’t even have a definition for “Climate Science” yet? You talk about a “field of science” that is so new that it doesn’t even a dictionary definition!
Flanagan (07:41:28) :
Smokey “peer-”reviewed”? I didn’t know surgeons were peers of climate researchers?
You gotta keep coming back to this inane drivel, insulting every scientist in the world, rather than think for yourself. Intelligent, well-educated professionals, regardless of their major, are critically thinking peers of climate research computer jockies (as opposed to real climate researchers and real computer programmers).
To quote a blog elsewhere http://volokh.com/posts/1126493013.shtml :
I’ve worked with a lot of researchers, freshly-minted Ph.D.s, older Ph.D.s, and others. On that basis I’d like to make several observations:
(1) With a proper grounding in the basics, access to appropriate resources, and a lively mind, it is easy for any intelligent and intellectually-inclined person to master “cutting edge” knowledge/research.
(2) Many Ph.D.s — new and old — that I’ve met and worked with have been morons. Their analyses are cant, their research the misuse of techniques they understand poorly, if at all. One tenured professor at Harvard for whom I worked had an international reputation as a methodologist in political science. His ignorance was such that he could not write out the specifications for the statistical models he used — an exercise requiring nothing much more than a knowledge of high school algebra.
(3) I’ve known many non-Ph.D.s whose research and thought are at the cutting edge of the disciplines they work in and far exceed in quality that of Ph.D.s and tenured faculty in the field.
CodeTech (or others who don’t agree with C02-related warming),
I don’t get the analogy of your toilet running and raising sea level. As a source of C02, it’s true that the human contribution is much less than “natural” contributions – but it’s meaningful because it adds to the natural cycle. Suppose your plumbing can handle only 5 litres per toilet flush and no more. If you keep adding 100ml after each flush, you can see that your toilet will eventually overflow…
Related: I’m not sure if you’re arguing that C02 doesn’t have _any_ warming influence in the atmosphere. If you are, what is this based on? Without any C02, water vapor level in the atmospheric would plummet, atmospheric temp would dive, and the oceans would likely freeze over.
As for Pilmer, have you seen Michael Ashby’s review in The Australian? ( http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25433059-5003900,00.html )
Flanagan (07:41:28) :
Smokey “peer-”reviewed”? I didn’t know surgeons were peers of climate researchers? Isnt’ it the same journal where papers can be found on
-the “myth of AIDS being due to VIH”
-the idea that “smoking doesn’t do any arm”
-the hypothesis that “abortion causes breast cancer”
-Quackwatch lists JPandS as an untrustworthy, non-recommended periodical
-An editorial in Chemical & Engineering News described JPandS as a “purveyor of utter nonsense.”
-Investigative journalist Brian Deer wrote that the journal is the “house magazine of a right-wing American fringe group [AAPS]” and “is barely credible as an independent forum.”
Bravo! Bravissimo! Another Tour de Force of sarcasm, innuendo and appeals to authority by one of the great intellects in our midst. The authorities in question? “Investigative journalist” Brian Deer, a man with his own Wikipedia entry:
“Brian Deer is an award-winning British investigative reporter, best known for inquiries into the drug industry, medicine and social issues for the Sunday Times of London. After graduating in philosophy from the University of Warwick, he became editor and press officer for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and was a member of the The Leveller magazine collective”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Deer
Wikipedia has this to say of The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament:
“The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by Britain. It also campaigns for international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It opposes military action that may result in the use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and the building of nuclear power stations in the UK.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament
And this about The Leveller:
“The Leveller was a British political magazine, c.1976 to 1982, collectively produced by a shifting coalition of radicals, socialists, marxists, feminists, and others of the British left and progressive movements”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Leveller_(magazine)
Quackwatch? To be perfectly fair, there are thousands of entries, both laudatory and not. However, at least one “Consumer Advocate” had this to say:
Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
Delicensed MD Stephen Barrett, of quackwatch.com infamy, announced to his followers (Barrett’s Parrots) last week that: “During the next few days, my sites will be changing servers. It’s possible that the healthfraud list will be disrupted during the switch.”
Barrett critics are concerned about this situation – for several reasons. The questions are: (1) Is Barrett moving his quackwatch.com, etc., servers out of reach of the US Court System after recent Courtroom losses? (2) Is Barrett moving his quackwatch.com, etc., servers out of reach of the US Court System after the barrage of newly files legal actions naming him, and his, as the Defendants? (3) Is Barrett moving his servers out of US Court Jurisdiction to avoid answering legal demands for “discovery” of information on his websites
https://www.healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=8929
As far as the editorial by Chemical and Engineering News, I guess I’ll just have to swoop to Flanagan’s level and observe that I didn’t realize that physicians and chemical engineers were “peers”. I couldn’t locate the editorial and have no idea if it even exists, let alone that it says what Flanagan claims…. and it might not. Flanagan was, after all, the one who posted this on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen thread:
Flanagan (14:08:29) :
By the way, another intersting study
http://politics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/4819/egan_mullin.pdf
people tend to belief in global warming as a function of their local temperature. In cold and temperate places, those supporting global waming are the ones with the highest level of education, whose opinion is relatively constant whatever the local temperatures.
To which I had this reply:
rephelan (09:14:52) :
Tom P (02:40:34) :
rephelan,
I don’t know why you are questioning Flanagan’s integrity. The lower plot of figure 6 in the Egan and Mullin paper shows precisely what he states:
“…people tend to belief in global warming as a function of their local temperature. In cold and temperate places, those supporting global waming are the ones with the highest level of education, whose opinion is relatively constant whatever the local temperatures.”
Perhaps I was too hasty in criticizing Flanagan’s integrity. There is an equal probability that neither you nor Flanagan can interpret a graph. The paper itself was concerned with the influence of non-ideological information on perceptions of global warming. The non-ideological information in question was the local weather. The chart referenced showed that the weather, either hotter or colder, had almost no effect on changing the perceptions of the more educated and had the greatest effect on changing the perceptions of the least educated. The chart does NOT show that more educated people believe in global warming and less educated do not. The authors own legend for that graph should have given you a clue:
“Figures show predicted probabilities of agreeing there is evidence for global warming when local temperature is much hotter than normal (at the 95th percentile, or 14.7°F above normal) and much cooler than normal (at the 5th percentile, 4.3°F below normal).”
The conclusion of the paper, as presented in the abstract, was:
“Our results suggest that when politically relevant information is conveyed without ideological cues, political sophistication may prohibit the integration of this information into political beliefs regardless of the direction of one’s predispositions. “
The bottom line is that whether you are an alarmist or denialist, political sophistication (defined by the authors as either high education or ideological commitment to a party) tends to leave your position on AGW unmoved in the face of your perception of the weather.
Whether Flanagan has an integrity issue or literacy issue, neither choice looks particularly good for Flanagan….
Once again, Flanagan, get some integrity. Try criticizing the papers on their merits.
I’ve really got to learn to use the formatting tools on this site.
Joel,
Do you also believe that the global warming hypothesis could stand without feeding at the public trough?
Just wondering,
Taxpayer Mike
Inquirer: “exasperated by” should be “exacerbated by”
Can we have a round of applause for Smokey’s “little” list produced for the benefit of Rick. It seems to have given him something to think about but sadly it has woken up Flanagan.
Ian (13:43:54) :
“…As for Pilmer, have you seen Michael Ashby’s review in The Australian? ( http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25433059-5003900,00.html )
Ian, are you suggesting that we should not read Pilmer’s book on the basis of a single negative review in a newspaper?
Ian, scroll up until you see the post:
An Inquirer (09:57:55) :
I was responding to that. Apparently it’s not easy for you to connect them, so I’m just helping out.
As for that ignorant hack that insulted Pilmer’s book in the Australian, did you see the sound thrashing he got in the comments section?
CodeTech (11:42:16) :
An Inquirer:
I have a problem with “Step 3″. Our contribution to CO2 increase is not a given by any means. Even assuming that Mauna Loa represents an accurate “global CO2″ reading (which it most likely does not), our contribution to atmospheric CO2 is miniscule, and it’s ridiculous to assume that the planetary ability to absorb CO2 is static.
In fact, steps 3-6 (accurate as you’ve placed them!) veer directly off into Science Fiction. It’s not much different than thinking that sea levels will rise because my toilet is running all the time.
Also, in regards to “Peer Review”, why is it so difficult for some people to understand just who these “Peers” are that are doing the “Reviewing”???
“Conspiracy” is probably the wrong word, because it is easy to write off conspiracy theories. And it’s also very probable that most people propagating the cAGW line are well intentioned and believe wholly in what they are saying, but that doesn’t make them correct.
Next, those who post here and elsewhere and write off everything done by what they call “RIGHT-WING” anything… you then won’t be offended when I completely write off everything “LEFT-WING” as nutty, worthless, and agenda-driven.
Try a “Collusion of Means”. The Agenda goals can be completely contrary to each other – but the means are identical. Therefore disparate groups without organisation and cohesion can drive the same effect.
REF EXAMPLE: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/blackstock5.html
The means is “Control of CO2 Emissions”, the players are various, Governments looking for tax, Companies looking for markets and profits, True believers looking for validation, Media companies looking to sell advertising space from scare stories.
BTW: The politicisation of science funding is a very effective way to shut people up – Scientists have mortgages to pay and families to support too.
No “Conspiracy” is required, but “Collusion of Means” allows for specific players to be very organised.
If the AGW Myth (with CAP and Trade) plays out to it’s logical conclusions, Coal Power will still be in place 50 years from now. The Banks, the Government will be too addicted to the trading profits, and tax revenues to allow the goose that lays the golden egg to die. The true believers will be disappointed.
REF: Baptists and Bootleggers in the Prohibition era, did people stop drinking, no. Did the bootleggers make a lot of money, yes. Who were the winners and who were the losers – and reapply the model to the AGW with CAP and Trade.
Interestingly, the “earrrrrrrrrliest everrrrrrr grrrrrrreat heat” in California had near zero effect. Of course the MSM neglected to mention that other than those odd three or four days, California had a normal to cold April.
WRT who is qualified to critique Climate Science (AGW) – to my mind there are only the following requirements.
1. Be Honest.
2. Do the work
The above requirements are sufficient to allow an inquiring mind to discover the missing foundations of empirical observation underneath the AGW Myth.
Rick
You could also wander over to Climatologist Roger Pielke’s site
http://climatesci.org/
There are many listed peer review studies there that question the IPCC’s assumptions of atmospheric CO2 levels as a major climate driver.
Best wishes, ian
Rick
Additionally, there are several publications available including:
1. (the aforementioned) ‘Heaven and Earth’ by Plimer
2. (recently released) ‘Climate of Extremes’ by Michaels & Balling Jr
3. ‘Climate Confusion’ by Spencer
Lastly you may want to check the site of Demetris Koutsoyiannis for peer reviewed articles.
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/dk/
Smokey,
Thanks for that list- that is exactly what I have been trawling the internet for- why is such a list so hard to find? I have come across the more prominent of those only- Christy, Soon, McIntyre etc. Why did you hold back- if you have a full list I would like to have it- can you post it somewhere?
I don’t buy the conspiracy theory crap- I wonder how many of you truly do? And how many of you are simply putting up with it as bedfellows. Seems to me you should separate that from the scientific argument. There are two streams to the argument here, and one stream doesn’t seem at all rational.
I disagree that medical research and climate research are different. Its all probabilities. For example, you may not have a drug accepted without a human trial, but you have many, many drugs rejected before they ever reach a human trial. This may be on the basis of trialing the drug in another animal. Modeling is not such a big deal for knocking something out from the get-go.
This line seems to be a fundamental flaw in the argument- your null hypothesis is that increased CO2 is completely safe. In medical research (and science) the null hypothesis for intervention (and changing the atmosphere is certainly intervention) is that it is unsafe, and must be proved safe. I can’t see how anyone can fault that logic.
Since there is a massive amount of literature saying that high CO2 is ‘unsafe’- I am looking for papers that show that it has no effect. Such papers are hard to find.
I’m not sure what people think my motivations are- there are some paranoid people on the internet. I also don’t think anyone could fault my following summary- which is rational. That the scientific argument (that CO2 is safe) is being lost, but the political argument (no need to take action) is being won- there has been no serious steps taken to reduce CO2 emissions.
Going from the internet- most of the anti AGW blogs suggest that the scientific argument (against the consensus) is being won, and the political argument lost. This does not reflect reality.
Ken Cosco, one of my fav profs at WOU, led us through the process of critiquing “peer reviewed” journal articles. I continue to benefit from his class as an educator directed to apply “research based interventions”, compliments of NCLB, in reading and math. Based on his wise counsel, I have discovered that the phrase “research based interventions” that often accompanies packaged intervention curriculum, complete with copies of the peer reviewed journal article proving its worth, is nothing more than an advertising gimmick and is to be questioned, investigated, and examined as diligently as an occult GI bleed. Trust me, the phrase “peer reviewed” is meaningless. Learn to read with a discerning eye.
Sooo many comments to look through.
Actually I was going to stop posting- I am just visiting. But I notice people seem to think I would see the list of papers Smokey has given and run away and sulk or something. Why?- don’t I just need to go through those papers?? My point here all along has been that there are four IPCC reports with literally thousands of papers in them.
You can’t write an essay with URLs as references. I think some people are very unfamiliar with how formally science works. You will never prove anything without peer-reviewed journal publications. You are banging your head against a brick wall if you think you will convince scientists with gray literature. Hence many of the papers and books posted here are useless- its like me writing a book on fertility or something- no one in the medical profession is suddenly going to accept anything in that book until it is peer reviewed.
I would have to accept the conspiracy theory to accept that the IPCC reports had deliberately left out the papers that showed increasing CO2 has minimal affect on the atmosphere. I additionally have done library data base searches and web searches and can’t find a paper that shows it is safe to increase CO2.
OK- I will be going now, but will check back for the expanded list by Smokey.
And here is another Weather is not Climate Story. By NSIDC. The conclusions are baseless and an embarrassment to the organization. They will likely eat those words. Somebody do a screen capture of this article quick!
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
I’ll take a shot at it…
Rick, it’s not paranoia, it’s “we’ve seen this before”. This is how trolls operate (not the kind that live under bridges, the kind that tow bait all through a forum or blog comment section and hope to stir up a feeding frenzy).
It starts with “I’m just asking questions”, but no matter how much material is shown to the, er, person, it’s never enough. Often the person claims to be attempting to convince someone else.
So far you’ve demonstrated absolutely classic “troll” activity, so if you are genuine that would be a surprise.
BZZT… wrong. Apparently you are unaware that a large number of, you know, Scientists post and read here. And at least one has already explained to YOU that peer review is essentially meaningless. And again, who are these “peers” doing the “reviewing”??
The goal has NEVER been to convince scientists. The goal was to convince the gullible, which has succeeded (but is now beginning to fail as reason and cooling take over).
Science will prevail. Eventually. Right now a mumbo-jumbo form of pseudoscience has the upper hand, but… we’ll see.
Come on Ricky boy, I’m right here. Do you know anything about the IPCC process? Have you read it through? Whatever science you claim to be doing, I hope you don’t get very far, as you seem to have little capacity for research. I think you are a (snip) disturber and nothing more. How did Michael Mann get through “peer-review”? The hockey stick paper (still presented as the focus for the IPCC document, but you knew that, right?) has so many problems that it is laughable. A joke. Dr. Willie Soon has many papers that are peer-reviewed. Dr. Richard Lindzen has countless peer-reviewed papers AND teaches at MIT. It seems that you dismissed them outright without even looking. It is very clear to me what you are trying to do here. Oh, what tangled webs we weave, …
Leif Svalgaard (22:09:48) :
Steve Hempell (20:58:25) :
The math has to be done right.
Ah, I finally see that you are integrating the excess above 1365.60. That will give you the [almost] correct numbers you gave. I apologize for thinking you integrated all the way from zero.
Anyway, the comment about time-constant still stands.
If you have a temperature series that you trust, try to plot that on top of the TSI curve.
So Leif what are you implying here?
1) That the sun’s activity did increase overall from the beginning of the 18th thru to most of the 20th century by somewhat the percentages I indicated?
2) My “math” is done reasonably correctly. ie intregrating by determining the AUC.? Laborious and silly as that method may be.
Now what this increased activity did regarding the climate I have no idea, but I like messing with the idea that it might. As you suggest the time constant is problematic. I have done some work with temperatures which I presented to you last year, but I had the impression from you that the “math” was not done right so my results were nonsensical. If you do think the math is essentially correct, I will revisit what I did before using some of your suggestions. Maybe that will convince me that you are absolutely correct!!
By the way, I don’t think TSI in and of itself, has any important effect on temperatures. But what of all that other increased “activity”? It is possible scientists don’t know everything!
Ha Ha- lighten up guys- what a tangled web indeed. I am well aware of what a troll is- and by definition I *am* now a troll because I have come in and stirred up comment and I intend to leave. I have no defense against that obviously. All that has really happened however, is that I have gotten sucked into this blog thread. Is there something deliberately smart-ass that I have posted or particularly provocative? What underhanded agenda am I trying to push here??
I haven’t made anything up. I’m not doing any science- I am a grad student working on a semester long politics project. I am currently visiting a climate research institution (so you would probably assume I am biased) as part of this research- which is how I got onto this blog in the first place. I’m looking for lists of scientific papers- which someone here has provided part of- I actually have a decent list now- but I’ve knocked those into peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed groups. Thats the only question I have asked here- I am not doing any scientific assessment.
I think my summary is still fair- that one the one hand you have a science debate- and on the other you have conspiracy theories. I have been reading the IPCC reports- they are the obvious starting point for this issue. I’m not sure how many people here have looked through those, because there are literally thousands of papers in them.
Also, I do have a background in bio-med. I don’t buy this whole peer review is nonsense- its what has kept me posting- I disagree with many of you.
Its a really big call that peer review is worthless- you can’t expect that anyone is simply going to accept that from reading a blog- no matter how many times you say it.
Things get published in peer reviewed journals that turn out to be incorrect. They are *always* overturned by another publication in a peer reviewed journal. It the contrary finding is not worthy of publication, it won’t overturn the previous.
One poster here writes- ‘trust me, peer review sucks’ or some such. This is the point- why should we trust you? Peer review is how science operates- if you disagree with something- then publish your work. I can’t think of a single notable scientist, or scientific discovery, that has not submitting to the publishing process (in the last 400 years).
I think we are at a stalemate with that line of argument- you can’t convince me that peer review is crap.
Rick –
WRT Peer review – check out this paper
REF: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
Tim Clark: are you living in Wonderland?
“(1) With a proper grounding in the basics, access to appropriate resources, and a lively mind, it is easy for any intelligent and intellectually-inclined person to master “cutting edge” knowledge/research.”
So, it means everyone can actually calculate the quantum energy levels of NH3 in the J-J coupling mode? I mean, everybody can easily have access to the basics of quantum theory, everybody knows what ammonia looks like, so can you please tell me about these levels? What about the relativistic effects?
Or maybe we could speak about dynamical systems, since this is the main topic. Can you please remind me how one can extract the bifurcation curves from the Fredholm alternative? And how the Poincare development of resonances helps in understanding co-dimension 2 convergence of manifolds?
There is a BIG gap between understanding more or less things and doing them properly, confront them with real numbers.
“(2) Many Ph.D.s — new and old — that I’ve met and worked with have been morons. Their analyses are cant, their research the misuse of techniques they understand poorly, if at all. One tenured professor at Harvard for whom I worked had an international reputation as a methodologist in political science. His ignorance was such that he could not write out the specifications for the statistical models he used — an exercise requiring nothing much more than a knowledge of high school algebra.”
I would say the proportion of “morons” as you say is much less with highly educated people than with the rest of the population.
“(3) I’ve known many non-Ph.D.s whose research and thought are at the cutting edge of the disciplines they work in and far exceed in quality that of Ph.D.s and tenured faculty in the field.”
So you can I suppose give me loads of examples of cutting-edge results widely acclaimed in the field of climate science, which were obtained by laymen?
I never tried to convince you that peer-review is crap. I still don’t believe you are telling the truth about what you do. You claim to have got sucked in, yet you made contentious points in your post. What did you think would happen? This is another indicator of your misrepresentation. As a bio-med student, you would know that many medications pass testing due to unscrupulous drug companies. It is their own interests they have at heart. How is that such a far stretch from climate science. Does it not bother you that these people who claim the “sky is falling”, stand to make millions of dollars off the notion that Co2 is harmful? People who work underground are often in conditions of 4,000ppm with NO ill effects. Greenhouses boost Co2 to 1,000ppm and consumers cannot tell the difference. Your logic is flawed. As a student of politics you clearly have an agenda. Politicians go which ever way the winds of votes blow them. It is currently the green agenda that is driving politics, but that is quickly coming to a close. People aren’t buying the rhetoric anymore. Anthropogenic C02 is going up, yet the planet is cooling. AGW is a theory that is dead in the water. People are realizing this , and the paradigm is shifting. Wouldn’t that be an interesting paper to submit to your “peers”?
Rick –
WRT Peer review – check out this paper on the Mann Hockey Stick
REF 1: http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/others/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
Especially page 40 in section 5.
And also.
REF 2: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/StupakResponse.pdf
The Mann et al hockey stick is a good case in point. The avenue to refute or otherwise their methods was clearly in the peer reviewed literature. This is the point I am making. People tried to, and did, publish their claims against this paper. I am told that subsequent reconstructions took note of some of these criticisms- this is the way it should work.
Similarly, it looks like people are trying to publish their work that is contrary to the observational centers. Though there is definitive as yet in a journal.
“AGW theory” is a little amorphous, but lets just say- of greatly increased CO2- totally safe? or potentially unsafe?
Whether you agree with it or not- the scientists currently saying it is ‘unsafe’ have a large body of work. Conventional (consensus) science will only be overturned if and when there are peer reviewed publications that demonstrate elevated CO2 is ‘safe’- and I guess that means showing that increasing CO2 will not elevate temperatures. Is there anything contentious about this line of reasoning?
David Ball- I’m not sure who you think I am or what I am up to. I did simply get sucked into this thread (is that not self evident?)- a troll would have gotten bored ages ago. I am a serial blogger in European Football forums, and this blog is positively church-like in comparison. Its actually stopping me doing work now.
Hence I am loathe to start this 😉 But I don’t think you can say that drug companies are perverting science. There have been many examples of unscrupulous behavior (which takes in a whole host of activities)- but that is a minority when you take the whole- a great percentage of our population is currently on medication, and it would be hard to argue that western medicine hasn’t delivered mass improvement in health. There are thousands of drugs on the market that are a result of good science. And where do you think bad science is categorically exposed? In the peer reviewed literature of course. The FDA won’t ban something without a formal study.
You can’t put the cart before the horse- you need to publish your results first.
Rick:
Your premise is fundamentally flawed. No one on the skeptical side has to prove the AGW wrong, they need to prove that they are right. They are the one’s demanding that the world embrace positively disasterous policies based on their assertions that the science is settled, which should be all the clue you need to decide that they are full of it. Of all the things out there purporting themselves to be a science, climate science is close to the least likely one to be able to claim to have settled anything. Compared to climate science, psychology and sociology look like euclidean geometry. There is also the point that the AGW promoters, having now morphed into the Climate Change crowd, have essentially declared that their theory is unfalsifiable, since everything that happens in any direction is still attributed to human actions. Since you claim your project is political in nature, you might be better served spending your time researching the political lineage and connections of the members of the IPCC panels, rather than trying to amass meaningless bibliographies of papers which are mostly notable for wild leaps beyond the data. Personally I don’t have a clue what is driving the climate, but from what I’ve observed in quite a few years of wading around in this stew, no one else does either, no matter what their scientific pedigree may be. You seem to think it would require a vast conspiracy to assemble the unified front of the AGW crowd, but conspiracies need not be vast to be effective. If you get control of the money, you control the agenda. I’ll repeat a recommendation I’ve made here before and suggest you Google “the Cloward-Piven strategy” and consider the politics of AGW in light of what you find there.
Well, I for one welcome Rick’s arrival. I mean, prior to this, who’d have thought to actually attempt fighting this scourge via official channels?
Clearly, publishing is the key. Thanks Rick.
Frank K: “There’s no “conspiracy” in the climate science world – but…your funding proposal is rejected… papers submitted to journals…are similarly rejected.”
So there’s no conspiracy – but conspiracy-type stuff keeps happening. This train of thought has now become unavoidable for climate sceptics in the face of the reality that few sceptical papers are published in the top science journals.
This fact of the paucity of top-flight publication by climate sceptics can be explained as a result of:
a) The low quality of papers by climate sceptics
b) A conspiracy to marginalise climate sceptics.
For obvious reasons, climate sceptics will reject (a), hence the preponderence of (b) in sceptic thinking, including among top names in climate scepticism. This is the case whether the specific claim is conspiracy, collusion, groupthink, greed, power-lust, fame etc.
In other words, the default argument for the paucity of sceptic publication is based on ideology rather than science.
Rick (21:45:05) wrote in part: “I can’t think of a single notable scientist, or scientific discovery, that has not submitting to the publishing process (in the last 400 years)…”
The web, the internet, is a disruptive media, Rick. It has superseded many well-established institutions. I believe it will supersede the “journals” you speak of, and that right now, on WUWT?, we are a part of that process of creating a new-way which will become the-way.
People like me are untutored bystanders who can only puzzle, cheer and question from the sidelines. But perhaps even this is a part of the new peer-review; the innocent little boy who noticed the emperor had no clothes?
Particularly interesting to me is that scientists here of international reputation willingly respond to even simplistic questions. They suffer fools gladly, and we all benefit.
…publishing process … in the last 400 years… Mmm; and I have not had to ride a horse to the post for half a century now…
Leif Svalgaard (21:40:58) :
I have no problems with your numbers but we still have 0.5 W/m^2 TOA. The potential is one cm^3 over m^2 H2O + 1 Deg C every 8.368 seconds or 60 Deg C cm^3 over m^2 H2O every 502.08 minutes. I know this is not realized and my math may be wrong but percentages are so passe.
“People like me are untutored bystanders who can only puzzle, cheer and question from the sidelines. But perhaps even this is a part of the new peer-review; the innocent little boy who noticed the emperor had no clothes?”
Yes, yes, yes.
Steve Hempell (21:07:12) :
1) That the sun’s activity did increase overall from the beginning of the 18th thru to most of the 20th century by somewhat the percentages I indicated?
It is the ‘overall’ that is too broad IMO. Solar activity has not reached higher levels since back then, they have lasted somewhat longer, as you show.
It is possible scientists don’t know everything!
We certainly don’t, but we do know something.
MartinGAtkins (04:52:33) :
but percentages are so passe.
And often inappropriate. E.g. In 1810 the sunspot number was zero, last year, the sunspot number was 2.9. What is the percentage increase?
Flanagan (22:33:23) :
Tim Clark: are you living in Wonderland?
(1) If I was interested in those topics, I could master them.
(2) I agree with significant segments of the general population being morons.
(3)First, you research the authors on every paper written on every aspect of the climate debate in the last 20 years, including but not limited to: geology, oceanography, hydrology, dendrology, physics, paleontology, biology, sociology, computer science, cartography, kinesiology, plant physiology, etc. Then determine the percentage of PhD’s versus M.S.’s, etc. and then I’ll discuss the relative importance of non-PhD influence.
BTW- My focus *is* on politics (but not conspiracy theories). I am incredulous that people here are telling to to not bother even looking at the science. I am visiting a research center this week. How many of you have done the same and spoken to scientists face to face? How many have bothered to read the IPCC reports? To say thi sis unnecessary is truly bizarre.
Dave Wendt (23:48:15) :
Rick: Your premise is fundamentally flawed. No one on the skeptical side has to prove the AGW wrong, they need to prove that they are right.
I put it to you that it is your premise that is flawed. What you are saying is that CO2 concentrations are not increasing. OR you are saying that they are increasing, however this has no affect on climate.
You cannot take this position as a null hypothesis- since increasing atmospheric CO2 is essentially an intervention.
Following your argument would mean that a doctor administering a drug takes the position that it is safe until proven unsafe, with the onus on someone else to prove it is unsafe. This is clearly not how it works.
The climate scientists have a wealth of published papers showing that they believe CO2 increases are ‘unsafe’.
From a public health perspective- this cannot be ignored. You cannot dismiss these claims without doing any studies yourself to prove your null hypothesis. There is no way that would stand up in a court of law should litigation take place (and it probably will come to that, and the scientists seem to welcome this).
Hence you need to do these fundamental studies. I cannot find papers where ‘skeptical’ scientists have shown that CO2 is not increasing, or where they have done their own temperature reconstructions, their own modeling of CO2, their own modeling of natural climate mechanisms, laboratory studies of CO2 and radiation.
All these things have been published many times from the climate scientist.
In order to prove that action needs to be taken immediately and drastically, that requires much more work. But to clam that skeptical scientists need do nothing at all is also bizarre.
All this needs to be done to prove the case that CO2 is ‘safe’.
You HAVE to be kidding. Do you actually think the group of people posting here all just decided to ignore everything and not even look at what has been presented? Seriously? You can’t be serious.
Do you actually think that YOU, Rick, are the first person to stumble across a “skeptic” site, and that YOU, Rick, are going to educate everyone? Do you think that you are going to present any data that the majority of regular posters here have not seen a hundred times? YOU?
Rick, you’ve definitely missed your calling. Although, I think the role of “Jesus” is already taken.
What you’re missing is:
1) There is no reason to believe that the increase in CO2 recorded at Mauna Loa is either accurate or anthropogenic. Oh yeah, you’re going to scoff and say it has to be, or pull out some “peer reviewed science”. But you’d be wrong. Rising ocean temperatures preceed rising CO2. CO2 concentrations always lag temperature, and are not a driver.
2) It IS up to the AGW believers to provide evidence and documentation, which they have NOT. Oh yeah, I see the papers and I see the simulations and I hear the hand waving panic inducing rants, and am forced to watch the absolutely ridiculous TV ads telling us that buying this or that product or sending money here is going to “save the planet”. But if you were to actually look around and read for yourself, there is NO credible demonstration that CO2 is affecting climate, IN ANY WAY. Only theory. Oh, and the stupidly naive “precautionary principle”.
3) Nothing falsifiable is even on the table. That is not science. Everything is our fault, warming, cooling, drought, flood, bird migrations, etc. etc. NOT ONE THING warned of has come to pass. NOT ONE. Where’s the troposphere heat? Where’s any extra heat? Why have we been cooling since the giant 98 El Nino?
Public health perspective? Now I’ve lost all doubt. You ARE a troll.
Understand this, Rick: most, if not all, regular posters here USED TO BELIEVE. Now why do you think we’ve switched to the “dark side”?
Rick, the NCLB law has spawned a clearing house website that reviews “peer reviewed” research articles on interventions the authors say “work” to improve academic performance. Only a very small percent of reviewed research articles make it through the clearinghouse process and are said to demonstrate what the authors say about the intervention. If what you say is true, that peer review is all you need to show that something is true, why the need for a clearinghouse? Many of us here read these climate research articles with a discerning eye. That is the only proper way to read such articles. You seem quite gullible, too gullible to be entering into politics. Gullible politicians tend to get tarred and feathered rather frequently as of late.
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
I have to laugh.
The map shows New Jersey’s April as above normal temperature.
So why is my recollection that it was cold and miserable?
Why are my local farms just now, today selling asparagus, with still no strawberries in sight?
Normally, the strawberries are coming on strong by now.
The Strawberry Festival here is scheduled for June 6th, and that, according to the farmers I talked to, will be too early for enough local strawberries for the festival.
They will either run out, or import them from Delaware, to the South.
Warmer than normal, my ass…
Oh dear, personal abuse now 🙁
I’m not entering politics, I’m certainly not gullible and I’m not a troll (although by your definition anyone new here with a different viewpoint is a troll- you should get on some other blogs to see what a troll is). And yes- this week has has been my first introduction to skeptic sites- so what? Can’t I put my view forward?
By ‘public health perspective’ I was merely extending the analogy with medicine that I outlined earlier- whats the problem? You still have to prove that doubling or tripling CO2 over a 200 year timeframe will *not* affect the atmosphere, if that is what you plan on doing with atmospheric chemistry. Otherwise its an uncontrolled experiment that you are happy to take a chance on (well with future generations, not your own- funny that). This is a responsible policy perspective.
And in answer to Code Tech on the literature. That is exactly what I am saying, that no one here is familiar with the literature. I think you probably know that you are not truly familiar with the literature (except what you got second hand of the web), or else you don’t have a clear idea of what this means in science. And no one here has spent any time at a research institution with working climate scientists- I reckon I could pretty confidently call that.
To claim that you have been through the attribution papers, absorbed them, understood them and rejected them on scientific grounds based on your own understanding of physics and statistics is a joke. You seem to have assembled a list of ideas from the blogosphere- 98% of them completely unpublished anywhere peer reviewed- and thats about as much actual *work* as any of you have done on this subject. I find this amazing.
If anyone *had* done any fruitful work worthy of publication, it would be published. If you were rejected by one journal, you would try another, and another- thats how science works. The publication records speak for themselves. And I reiterate.., that the requisite papers proving your case do not exist- its what started me looking in the blogs in the first place for a list of such papers. They don’t exist anywhere apparently. Where are Smokey’s additional papers?
The novel idea I have been introduced to here- that publishing on blogs will replace peer review one day, well… that is just plain ignorance from people who have obviously never submitted a paper to a journal- period. Next time you need a novel surgical technique performed on you- why don’t you suggest the alternate one you read on a blog somewhere, that no one had published, and that the other bloggers advised was just super. I doubt you will be doing that- but again, I’m the gullible one apparently.
If someone here *has* published something in climate science in the last 40 years, please disabuse me of this argument, and bring forth your publication. Otherwise, I’ll just go with the weight of expert literature thanks. Apparently thats stupid.
I was reading one of the links above to Ian Plimer. Google Scholar reveals that the man has a long list of peer reviewed publications in geology. But nothing- zip- in climate science. So I guess he either lost faith in the whole peer review process overnight (the one he used to build his reputation as a scientist), or else he knows he has done no work in climate change other than glorified op-ed pieces. Very suspicious behaviour (and again, apparently I am the gullible one). There is a massive credibility gap going on here- all I can find is unpublished opinion- no published science.
So essentially all you have, at the end of the day, is a conspiracy theory that peer reviewed research in climate science is rigged and that climate scientists (and scientists from various other disciplines)- all around the world- are willing co-conspirators in this sham. That is the *only* line any of you can come up with to explain the massive amount of published papers by climate scientists. And the small handful of published papers by skeptical scientists- none of them fundamental. No reconstructions, no modeling, no lab work- just reviews from people with no publication record themselves.
Rick (21:51:03) shouts: “…The novel idea I have been introduced to here- that publishing on blogs will replace peer review one day, well…”
That is a very subtle twist of what I wrote, Rick; and manages very well to inject uncertainty to suit your purpose.
Do that; but please stop insulting the scientists who post here.
“Callow youth” are the words which spring to mind when I search to define you… but then, wisdom is not even a given with age, and humility is a very common lack.
There’s so much wrong with every single paragraph in your last post, Rick, but one point stands out that you clearly do not understand.
No, Rick, the onus is not on anyone to prove CO2 is safe since that is the null hypothesis. The hypothesis that CO2 is not safe (as put forth by the climate community) must make it through the process of falsification before being accepted, and to date, it has not done so. That’s how science works. In between all your criticisms of everyone’s experience and/or background, perhaps you should look at your own and ask yourself if maybe you have it backwards.
Oh, and for the record, the phrase “climate science” is ambiguous. There are actually very few people in the world that are degreed as “climate scientists.” The field actually involves many other fields that are equally important. Geology is certainly one of those fields. Statistics another. Signal processing, software engineering, control theory, physics (Hansen is a physicist) and many, many more as well. There is no way for a “climate scientist” to be an “expert” simultaneously in every related field, so hence your stated opinions on the matter are nothing other than a mixture of argumentum ad verecundiam and, of course, argumentum ad hominem. Many in here DO have relevant experience in these fields, and quite obviously can be called experts, so your appeal to authority may even be a choice of lesser authorities.
Mark
Rick:
I’ll give you this: you’re persistent. But you’re also a VERY bad reader. I recommend comprehension classes, they might help. And believe me when I say, the credibility gap is in your mirror.
Nothing more to say. You’ve now demonstrated exactly what you are.
I’m not a scientist, but I play one in a movie, and I’m telling you that the earth has a fever. -Al Gore
I still don’t know what I am supposed to be?
You have missed my point on the null hypothesis.
Why is the null hypothesis that CO2 has no affect at all on the atmosphere? Because no one thought of that when they originally started producing it? Because its too much trouble to change now?
Thats not objective science at all.
No- the null hypothesis for intervention (and changing atmospheric chemistry is intervening)- is that it is unsafe until proven so. This didn’t happen originally because it wasn’t thought of, and what we have now is a legacy practice.
As explained earlier- if I wish to regularly put a substance into a river, the null hypothesis is that it is unsafe. Ask the EPA. Even if the substance is water, if it comes from my (eg) factory- I need to show it is safe *first*. I don’t start pumping and then tell the EPA to come up with an argument that it is unsafe, and then ask the EPA to falsify that argument. I think it is you that does not understand this concept.
Now, given that there is a wealth of scientific material showing that doubling and tripling CO2 will affect climate. That needs to be answered in the literature, and it is clearly not.
Falsification?- this is what I exactly am talking about. *You* could do this by doing your own modeling studies, reconstructions and lab work. And no one has.
What is stopping you? If you think its all a house of cards- what is stopping you publishing work that proves this. Some conspiracy? Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.
Your efforts to explain your lack of work (well, we don’t have to) are seriously thin if you truly take this seriously.
My appeal is to the authority of the literature. If you have experts here, then produce your work on this subject that you have submitted for publication as every scientists does in the course of their work.
I note that no-one has responded to any of my points regarding the abject *lack* of literature supporting your arguments, and that you continue to gloss over this fact.
Rick (23:25:08) :
You have missed my point on the null hypothesis.
No, you do not understand what the null hypothesis is, or why it should be as I stated.
Why is the null hypothesis that CO2 has no affect at all on the atmosphere? Because no one thought of that when they originally started producing it? Because its too much trouble to change now?
Because the hypothesis put forth by the “consensus” is that CO2 is bad. By default, the opposite (or simpler), i.e., CO2 is good, is the null that must either be disproven, or the proposed CO2 is bad hypothesis must be proven. That’s how it works. Additionally, we KNOW that CO2 is plant food and required for all life, which actually works as proof of the null. Sorry if you do not understand all of this, but it is how science works.
Thats not objective science at all.
Yes, actually, it is.
Falsification?- this is what I exactly am talking about. *You* could do this by doing your own modeling studies, reconstructions and lab work. And no one has.
Again, you display your ignorance of the scientific method. It is enough to show that existing models, reconstructions, etc., are insufficient. That’s how falsification works. Lab work has been done in spite of your pleas to the contrary, reconstructions have been shown to be statistically flawed (basically untenable) and models have been shown to fail in nearly every respect (they are unphysical, so this is not a surprise). If you understood the scientific method, you would understand this.
Your efforts to explain your lack of work (well, we don’t have to) are seriously thin if you truly take this seriously.
Maybe your head is in the clouds, but plenty of work has been done, and published. Just because you haven’t read it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It takes very little to disprove, just one counter example.
My appeal is to the authority of the literature.
And your point is?
What is stopping you? If you think its all a house of cards- what is stopping you publishing work that proves this. Some conspiracy? Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.
Work does get published. You just don’t read it. Furthermore, drop the conspiracy angle. It makes you look… well, silly. It does not take a conspiracy to keep valid work out of journals that are considered “main stream” (Nature, Science).
I note that no-one has responded to any of my points regarding the abject *lack* of literature supporting your arguments, and that you continue to gloss over this fact
Um, now you’re dreaming. First, there is no “lack” of literature discounting consensus science. There’s plenty, you just don’t read it. Second, Most of what gets published, actually, does not say “CO2 is bad” or “warming is bad” or even “this is caused by man.” Most of what gets published simply says “the earth has warmed.” Read more than just the press releases and you’ll see this. The literature that does continually harp on this is, not surprisingly, coming from only a handful of authors.
Mark
To Rick
I agree with the fact that CO2 does have an effect on the atmospheric temperature and that the activitys of man increases the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The argument for these changes being unsafe are based upon climate models providing unfalsifiable long term predictions which so far have been diveregent from observation. Therefore the argument revolves around quantifying risk not just safe or unsafe. At this moment in time my belief derived from the accuracy of models would be that the risk is low and actual detrimental effects uncertain.
Seeing as you like peer review here is a paper backing up the inacuracies of models.
http://ephysics.fileave.com/Climate/Douglass-IntJClimatol.pdf
This is my favourite site for a realistic view of climate change http://climatesci.org/