Dueling Hypotheses

That about sums it up!

“At some point, increasing evidence of negative correlations between global average atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global average surface temperature will falsify the null hypothesis and greatly reduce the adequacy of the anthropogenic global warming theory as an explanation of observed global average surface temperature increase”.
There have been negative correlations of increasing CO2 with average annual global temperatures within recent decades but this has not convinced the AGW believers nor the policy makers. How many years of negative correlations will be needed to make them see sense?

‘Their unceasing drum-beat for Anthropogenic Global Warming will ultimately discredit their otherwise worthwhile and necessary programs to reduce human pollution as a result of unrestricted human population and economic growth.’
And that is the reason that some people are so concerned about the miss-handling and miss-use of AGW, and oddly why some will defend the theory until death. As all eco-issue have become linked to AGW in the public mind , through the deliberate actions of WWF Greenpeace etc, should AGW fall the real danger is it takes everything else with it. After all why would you trust the same people and organisation on anything after they were caught out massively lying over AGW?
Most people experiences of this issues has been the hectoring they been getting, the diet of doom they been feed and increases prices they had to pay, in its name.
And they will not forget that in a hurry.

Sounds to me that Dr. Trenberth is trying to cover his own back without actually acknowledging his crass errors in his theories. Theories they will remain.

Michael Lewis
“We can test the theory of anthropogenic global warming with the hypothesis: If observed global warming is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, then we should find a positive correlation between the amount and rate of greenhouse gas production and global average temperature rise.”
Let us do that!
As shown in the following data from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre:
http://bit.ly/gIkojx
1) Average consumption of fossil fuel per year from 1910 to 1940 was about 1 Billion metric tones
2) Average consumption of fossil fuel per year from 1970 to 2000 was about 5 Billion metric tones (an increase by 5-times compared to the period from 1910 to 1940)
b) As shown in the following data from the Climate Research Unit:
http://bit.ly/bUZsBe
1) Increase in global mean temperature from 1910 to 1940 was about 0.45 deg C
2) Increase in global mean temperature from 1970 to 2000 was about 0.45 deg C (no increase compared to the period from 1910 to 1940)
From the results above, the increase in human use of fossil fuels by 5-times has resulted in no change in the global mean temperature.
As a result, the data contradicts the theory of man-made global warming.

First I think your distinction between theory and hypothesis (whilst in common use) is a bit like that between climate and weather — there is no real difference other than one or others tends to be used to cover phenomena in one or other area in a continuous range. Likewise theory and hypothesis really mean the same thing, but theory is used in a broader way than hypothesis.
Still, this is an interesting article, because I’m right this moment struggling with the same lack of rigour in the area of “experimental” archaeology. The problems I have are:
– many use “experiment” interchangeably with “try out” as in “experiment with a recipe”. The idea of controls, testability etc. are not even considered.
– many archaeological “experiments” are neither intended to be scientific nor would they provide the same useful information if they were conducted that way. A good example is the way an archaeologist learnt to form glass vases and by learning the process they could determine that some features suggested as being an artistic choice by the ancients, were actually a natural limit to what could be achieved practically.
– if archaeologists did use the “beyond all reasonable doubt” test of science, then most of history would consist of statements of this or that artefact having been discovered and no concept of how they were actually used less what society looked like.
– finally, how can you apply the “scientific method” to history? History isn’t repeatable, and therefore is not testable – and often there is a very limited number of artefacts which cannot simply be destroyed for “science”.
So, I have some sympathy with the climate “scientists” because in many ways they suffer from the same problems of archaeologists, (although archaeologists are honest and don’t call themselves “scientists”)
– How do you conduct an “experiment” on the atmosphere to test whether CO2 leads to warming.
-How do you have a control?
-How do you make use of historic data from the past in “experiments” which cannot be repeated and where there is huge doubt about the validity of the measurements.
The two share a very common theme, both archaeology and climate science struggle to be more rigorous in their approach and desperately wish to be “scientific” whilst simultaneously dealing with data/experiments which cannot be conducted in a scientific way due to the historic nature of data and the limited scope for meaningful testing of their hypothesis.
There other common theme is that neither climate scientists nor “experimental” archaeologists seem to have a clue about even the basics of the scientific method.

Katherine says:
January 16, 2011 at 3:35 am
I concur with Katherine’s question and comment.
Politicians (and scientists?) should be careful what they classify as pollutants, especially if they intend to take action. Already the path to global warming mitigation is strewn with unintended consequences. Forcing inappropriate applications of natural gas, ethanol, CO2 sequestration, windmills, solar panels are producing negative consequences which overshadow any measureable positive result.

This is so extreme that it may finally be seen as such by other scientists, they may finally see that the Emperor has no clothes…time will tell.

“…Their unceasing drum-beat for Anthropogenic Global Warming will ultimately discredit their otherwise worthwhile and necessary programs to reduce human pollution as a result of unrestricted human population and economic growth. “

I hate to pick at your last sentence Professor Lewis. Your post is most helpful explaining the difference between hypothesis and theory. But…
World population has grown at an unprecedented rate for the last 400 years. During that time pollution has been declining not increasing; in both absolute and per capita terms. Human control of natural destructive forces, such as fire and erosion, combined with an unceasing improvements in efficiencies of controlled combustion and in the handling and discharge of human generated waste streams – its really hard to argue that the world is “more” polluted today than 50 or 100 or 200 yeas ago. Yes, I know, only anthropogenic pollution counts. Uncontrolled wild fires don’t pollute and are not destructive.
But look at just the anthropic-environment. Our urban and rural environments are dramatically cleaner and continually cleaner, worldwide. The long correlation between our cleaner environment and growth is unmistakable. If these “necessary and worthwhile programs” you advocate are aimed at reducing population/economic growth. I hope they are discredited. The sooner the better.
If you mean the simple rules that have been in place for a long, long time; that you can’t dump your refuse in the commons. Don’t you worry – there is vigorous support for that type of regulation worldwide – and support and enforcement will only increase if population expands and more of us are showing up to use the commons.

Hyperinflated scare stories of sea level rise, catastrophic flooding, heat waves and droughts have been used to justify continued human growth and development in the face of dwindling natural resources and increasing air, water and soil pollution, all in the name of environmental justice.

I there a typo somwhere?

While technically true, I think calling AGW a ‘theory’ gives it way too much credibility. And in fact, the previous theories surrounding the existence of Roman and Medieval Warming periods that IPCC ‘scientists’ attempted to debunk with shoddy tree ring data. In fact the recent divergence from the reality of modern temperature records proves the tree ring analysis was shoddy and ripe with uncertainty, therefore the IPCC hypothesis that the Roman and Medieval Warming Periods were lesser than today’s warm period were weak and proven wrong.
Moreover, the IPCC and others did hypothesize that CO2 increases would lead to a myriad of results. One of which was a .3°C increase in global warming per decade – a hypothesis which has never come to pass. The others were sea level rises, increased hurricanes, droughts and the loss of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035.
The fact is as you stated it – the Earth has been warming for many millennium, and recently for centuries since the Little Ice Age. What has the IPCC proven?
Nothing except they don’t have the data and mathematical analysis to make any claims whatsoever. What we have learned since Climategate is the uncertainty in their past, current and future temperature records and analysis results dwarfs the claimed decadal and century rises. We know there is no way to determine a global average temperature index within a fraction of a degree even today, with the world surrounded by temperature sensors of various types and quality. The idea that the record of global temperature in 1850 is .15°C less accurate than today is mind boggling naive. I would suggest that kind of claim would require a person to return their PhD due to credibility abuse.
If the current definitions of theory, hypothesis and simply wild eyed concept allow what the IPCC passes off as being tested and credible, then science needs to take back science and begin raising the bar back up again. The entire domain of global warming ‘science’ as applied by the IPCC and Al Gore is an affront to real scientific investigation and methods. Hiding a divergence in the data that proves a key proxy is incapable of accurately reflecting even local temps, let alone global ones seems to be a clear case of fraud in my book – and NASA’s.
If that hidden data was engineering data predicting the strength of Shuttle tile or foam to hits by ice chunks, and it was later found out that someone covered up the portion of the data that showed in certain flight regimes there could be catastrophic damage, they would be fired and up on criminal charges.
Since the data hidden by Mann, CRU, Jones, Briffa, et al was about the dangers of CO2 to humanity, it seems the potential impact on the world’s entire population verses a crew of 7 people would make the fraud even worse. But no – no one is looking at the cover up which created the Hockey Stick, which was supposedly proof there has NEVER been warming like this ever before.
We now know all those claims to be false, since Mann, CRU and the IPCC have all had to walk them back in the face of real analysis and the discovery of the cover up of diverging tree ring data. Yet here we have the desperate AGW Klingons still peddling false and misleading claims. When will society hold them to the same standard as a TV commercial? When will society investigate these charlatans – after another 30 years of disproved hypotheses?
The US Congress has an opportunity to correct this mess through fair and balanced and educational hearings. A lot of them. To bring the populace up to speed on the complexity of climate and the falsifying of data will take a long time.
But it will be time well spent.

Picky, picky, time…..
“agendae” is a “false plural”. “Agenda” is already plural, the plural of “agendum”. There is more information than you really want to know about this at http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/agendum
I was remote from being a scholar in Latin, but some things stick in my mind.
IanM

Peter O’Brien says:
January 16, 2011 at 4:22 am
“One day, in my Internet perambulations, I noticed another ‘hockey stick’ graph. This was one graph that I believed. It showed human population growth, and looked remarkably like the IPCC graphs – indeed you could superimpose it seamlessly. What it showed is that, in 1950, world population was 1.5 billion people. Today, we are nearly 7 billion – more than FOUR times in ONLY SIXTY years.”
========================================================
Peter, I can’t help you with what direct effect our heat generation has on the global temps, but I think its rather transient and insignificant. A better perspective might be, in terms of global population, to understand that if we placed everybody in the world shoulder to shoulder, we’d all fit in the state of Texas with room left over. It is every bit as relevant as graphing CO2 in ppm.
Peter, you’ve ambled across the pertinent graph in the whole CAGW discussion. You can indeed superimpose population graphs with hockeystick temp graphs. This isn’t accidental. From Ehrlich to Mann, the message is the same. Indeed, before Ehrlich, Malthus. And a litany of other characters before and aft. The underlying recurrent theme is that humanity is destructive and evil and harms the rest of the world. That, instead of being part of nature, we are an aberration of nature. Further, the solutions to the humanity difficulty is always destructive and harmful to humanity. It is always to control and regulate the very nature of mankind that is seen as a remedy for these perceived difficulties.
Indeed, a recent speaker inadvertently let the cat out of the bag when he stated, “But there’s another kind of doubt that doesn’t rely on the vagaries of Mother Nature. It is manufactured by man, specifically by a small group of influential libertarians in the U.S. who have led a decades-long ideological fight, first against the communists and then the health community and now environmentalism.”
They are all cut from the same cloth. They all seek the same thing. This is why your graphs are identical.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/Climate+change+deniers+skilfully+fuel+doubt/4114099/story.html

The article states:
“The null hypothesis would be stated as: If observed global warming is caused by human greenhouse gas emissions, then we should not find a negative correlation between the amount and rate of greenhouse gas production and global average temperature rise. This is a much stronger test of the hypothesis, since it only takes one instance of negative correlation to negate the hypothesis and weaken the theory as an explanation of observations.”
That is not the null hypothesis. But it could be a theory weakening evidence. It does not even differentiate between coordination and cause. My alarm clock rings every day close to the rise of the sun. There is a correlation that can be found. But the alarm clock is not the cause of the sun rising. There is a huge difference between correlation and causes.
— Mats —

Dramatic Ocean Circulation Changes Caused a Colder Europe in the Past
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110114155336.htm
“Dr Thornalley said: “These insights highlight just how dynamic and sensitive ocean circulation can be. Whilst the circulation of the modern ocean is probably much more stable than it was at the end of the last Ice Age, and therefore much less likely to undergo such dramatic changes, it is important that we keep developing our understanding of the climate system and how it responds when given a push.”
I suppose that is the cookie thrown to the Warmists. But the story confirms otherwise.

James Barker

Just a thought, but rather than trying to measure our possible contribution to GW in a percentage of CO2 concentration, compared to an unknown natural CO2 concentration, is there a way of estimating the human contribution in terms of waste heat generated, compared to natural heat generators?

It’s not our direct production of heat that’s the problem, rather it’s our production of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane. Through estimates of the ratiative forcings of these compounds we can calculate the warming effect of our emissions.

A nice summation of the position apart from the last paragraph which is, in itself, an opinion, not an argument.

John Johnston

about 15 years so far of no statistically significant rise in global temperatures while CO2 concentrations continue to climb.

You appear to be misunderstanding Phil Jones’s use of the term “statistical significance”.

Interesting post, and it seems readers would do well to keep the these terms in mind:
Conjecture, Hypothesis, Theory, Model:
Conjecture: Simply an educated “guess” about the something. The key word is EDUCATED. It means the person or persons has the background of experience, education, and knowledge to make the conjecture. Many famous conjectures were based on intuition, and turned out to be true.
Example: You CONJECTURE that your two new work associates, Bill and Sue, who are both single and like to ski, will end up dating.
Hypothesis: An explanation of observable events based on measurement and data.
Example: You see Bill & Sue (from the example above) at a bar in a dark corner laughing and having drinks and you make the HYPOTHESIS that they are dating.
Theory: A explanation of a general phenomenon that has been throughly tested through observation, experiement and analysis and is ususally accepted by the majority of experts.
Example: You see Bill & Sue kissing passionately in the parking lot and then she gives him and quick swat on the butt before winking and getting into her car and driving away so you THEORIZE that they are likely dating. You discuss this with other co-workers and they add their similar observations to yours and so the THEORY that Bill and Sue are dating is created. One co-worker had never seen the two of them together in a romantic way and disagrees with your THEORY.
Model: A mathemetical or physical construct that represents the dynamics of some phenomenon or group of phenomenon. Models are based on established prinicipals, laws and observations. Models of non-chaotic systems will tend to be more reliable and accurate than models of chaotic systems, or systems existing on the edge of chaos, such as the climate. Models are constantly being refined with new observations.
Example: One could create a mathmatical MODEL of Bill and Sue’s relationship, giving various values to variables such as attractiveness to each other, common interests, values, etc. and predict the liklihood that they would get together and how their relationship might progress. Similar kinds of MODELS actually exist, and are the basis of such web services such as match.com and eharmony.com.
In general, a CONJECTURE can become a HYPOTHESIS, which can then become a THEORY. MODELS are independent of all of these and can exist at any stage, but tend to come in at the hypothesis stage and develop and change constantly.
Let’s look at the history of the AGW Theory (at least some could argue it is now a theory)
______
1859 – Tyndall first CONJECTURES that changes in GHG’s could bring about climate change.
1896 – Arrhenius CONJECTURES that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 could warm the planet and publishes the first calculation for this effect.
1897 – Chamberlin produces the first MODEL for global carbon exchange
1938 – Callendar, using collected DATA, makes the first HYPOTHESIS that AGW is underway and is being caused by CO2.
1956 – Phillips produces the first computer MODEL of the global atmosphere.
1956 – Plass uses a MODEL to calculate that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will have signficant effects on the radiation balance.
1958 – Keeling makes the first modern direct measurement of CO2 in the atmosphere at 315 ppm and begins making regular readings.
1963 – It is first CONJECTURED that feedback with water vapor could make the climate much more sensitive to CO2 increases.
1965 – Lorentz et. al., first CONJECTURE that the climate, being a chaotic system, could be subject to sudden shifts.
1967 – Manabe and Wetherald make a mathematical MODEL that doubling CO2 would raise world temperatures a couple of degrees.
1969 – Budyko and Sellers present MODELS of catastrophic ice-albedo feedbacks.
1975 – Manabe et. al. produce complex computer MODELS which show a temperature rise of several degrees for doubled CO2.
1979 – US National Academy of Sciences report finds the CONJECTURE that doubling CO2 will bring 1.5-4.5°C global warming to be highly credible.
1981 – Several scientists CONJECTURE that the greenhouse warming “signal” should be visible by about the year 2000.
1985 – Ramanathan and collaborators CONJECTURE that global warming may come twice as fast as expected, from rise of methane and other trace greenhouse gases.
1990 -First IPCC report makes the HYPOTHESIS that the world has been warming from CO2 and future warming seems likely.
1995 -Second IPCC report detects “signature” of human-caused greenhouse effect warming, declares and THEORIZES that serious warming is likely in the coming century.
2001 -Third IPCC report states that anthropogenic global warming, unprecedented since end of last ice age, is “very likely,” and THEORIZES possible severe surprises.
2002 -Studies find surprisingly strong “global dimming,” due to pollution, has retarded arrival of greenhouse warming, but dimming is now decreasing.
2007 -Fourth IPCC report warns that serious effects of warming have become evident; cost of reducing emissions would be far less than the damage they will cause.
2007 – Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and Arctic Ocean sea-ice cover found to be shrinking faster than expected.
2009 – Many experts warn that global warming is arriving at a faster and more dangerous pace than anticipated just a few years earlier.
2009 – Level of CO2 in the atmosphere reaches 385 ppm.
2009 – End of the warmest decade on record.
2010 – Tied for warmest year on record, and is wettest year on record globally. Atmospheric water vapor continues to rise (a far more potent GH gas) as first conjectured to be a result of increased CO2 in 1963.
It would seem that the AGW conjecture first became a hypothesis in about the 1930’s and probably sometime in the 1990’s made the transition to become a theory. As such, as Trenberth clearly points out, the burden of proof would be on competing theories to explain the body of global climate phenomenon that AGW Theory does. A competing theory or theories would have to at the minimum explain the combined and simultaneous occurances of:
* Declining sea ice (seasonal and decade to decade)
* Increasing ocean heat content
* Increasing atmosphereic temperatures (decade to decade)
* Decreasing stratospheric temperatures (decade to decade)
* Melting permafrost
* Acclerations in the hydrologcial cycle
* Increasing atmospheric water vapor levels
* Increasing ocean acidity
Many competing hypothesis are out there, but they are mostly incomplete, and don’t explain the simultaneous occurance of all these phenomenon as the AGW Theory and related models do. It will be interesting to see if any ever can, and if one should arrise, and be accepted by a large body of qualified scientists then it would become a competing theory to AGW. I won’t be holding my breath on that one.

robertvdl

The question is , would it be so bad for our Earth to be warmer than today when we know that in the past Earth nearly always has been warmer than today.

Throughout human history the earth’s climate has been pretty stable. When temperatures were a lot hotter than they are now, that’s when dinosaurs ruled the earth and the only mammals were small rodents.
You also need to consider the rate at which the planet is warming. A gradual change, as most past climate changes have been, would give us and other species time to adapt to the new conditions, but the current rate of warming is, when compared with previous changes, very rapid, such that if we experience warming of more than a couple of degrees C before the end of this century the major adadptations our societies would have to make, particularly the agricultural sector, would be extremely difficult and would likely result in food shortages in some regions, particularly teh equatorial regions where subsistance farming is common.
For more info see the Skeptical Science page on this and the IPCC’s Working Group 2 report, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

R. Gates

Decreasing stratospheric temperatures

This would seem to be the fingerprint of an enhanced greenhouse effect and so would be a toughie for any hypothesis that denies there is such an effect, and it surely falsifies any hypothesis postulating that the warming is down to the sun since then you would expect to observe stratospheric warming, not cooling.

Smokey

AGW cannot make accurate predictions

Untrue. The theory predicts that human emissions of greenhouse gases will have a warming effect on the planet. This has been observed. The anthropogenic warming signal is clear above the noise of natural variation.
The theory predicts that we should observe a cooling in the stratosphere. This has been observed.
The theory predicts that we should see a reduction in outgoing radiation at the wavelengths that CO2 and methane absorb energy. This has been observed and measured.
The theory predicts an increase in ocean heat content. This has been observed.

dp says: “I expect archeologists to map the locations of the findings and endeavor to place them on an historical timeline, and to associate them with other similar finds. Is that a wrong notion?”
Having spent most of the day on the “theory of archaeology” I’ve not come across anyone who doesn’t think that archaeology isn’t primarily about the people and society of the past. Even a group led by Binford in the 1960s who coined a term called “scientific archaeology” or processualism, thought archaeology was “anthropology of nothing”.
Worse still, it is proving very difficult to pin down what they mean by “science” e.g. one website states: “In archaeology and the social sciences more generally, the term “theory” has a greater diversity of meanings than is usual in the natural sciences and the philosophy of science. Usually it means any kind of discourse that is abstract”.
(Theory In Archaeology – Theory as Abstract Discourse, Theory as Explanatory Structure, The Postmodern Challenge http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/6562/Theory-In-Archaeology.html)
The interesting thing is I’m beginning to here the same terms and criticisms of the climate science community. E.g. I read here someone criticising the climategate people for being “post modernist”
“Skeptical postmodernists have challenged modern theory and nearly all of the key foundational assumptions that underlie research programs in archaeology. This critique follows from their rejection of modern views of truth, objectivity, a materialist reality, reason, history, and science, among many other concepts that are integral components of modern inquiry.
Now, if you begin to realise that this idea of “most modernism” or “laise-faire science” as it might better be called, came via the social sciences and movements such as “feminist archaeology” and “Marxist archaeology”, and you realise the left-wing “anti-nuclear” philosophy of the climategate scientists, it seems to me I’m beginning to know where this rot in science that allows people like Trenberth to spout the rubbish they do came from.

Smokey, it is of no use presenting Otip and Gates with anything. They do not read what you post. That much is clear. A civil debate is useless. They aren’t smart enough to wrap their head around anything other than Co2 has caused dramatic and extreme weather (NOT) and look at the paleo record (not just the parts that suit them and what didn’t suit them they tried to change, i.e. hockey stick ). The possibility that there might be another explanation is lost on them, investing their limited capacity on a losing horse. Now Trenberth, who is playing a devious game by pretending to be disconnected from the scam and appear neutral yet is right at the heart of it all, is trying to apply “post-normal science” to climate because he cannot defend his position!! Thankfully the general public is refusing to drink the kool-aid, but will it be enough to stop this civilization killing juggernaut?

D. King

We know, as evidenced in Europe and the U.S., that economic growth reduces populations without having to restrict/control human reproduction through government edict.

Education is an equally important factor, particularly the education of women, as evidenced by the state of Kerala in India:

A steadily aging population […] and low birthrate […] make Kerala one of the few regions in the developing world to have undergone the “demographic transition” characteristic of such developed nations as Canada, Japan, and Norway.

Smokey

Ocean heat content is rising.

No, it’s not. That assumption has been thoroughly debunked.

Have you read Robust warming of the global upper ocean by Lyman et al (2010)?

Otto,
My advise: Don’t bother with Smokey too much. In his mind, he can only be right. For example, he said:
“But AGW cannot make accurate predictions.”
Of which I outlined several that AGW Theory made and have proven accurate and any competing theory would have to predict the same occurances and explain the dynamics behind them. AGW Theory does all this, and accurately, and it drives the skeptics nuts…as you can see.

What are you talking about Gates? You guys (all of you alarmists) have been predicting runaway greenhouse warming and catastrophic weather (hurricanes as an example hahahahaha) and now you’re still trying to claim that model predictions have been accurate? The northern hemisphere is covered in effing snow!!! Have you stopped taking your meds again? A shotgun at 50 paces is bound to hit something. How many model runs have been done? I have never seen such spinning. It is an insult.

Anyone going to tackle this one?

The theory predicts that we should see a reduction in outgoing radiation at the wavelengths that CO2 and methane absorb energy. This has been observed and measured.

Smokey

I would have though you’d take it as a compliment being compared with Barrie Harrop

Please stick to the issues and try to avoid any personal attacks or name calling, even if you genuinely believe the subject may take it as a compliment.

The IPCC said most of the warming over the last 50 years is very likely due to human activity.
What an oxymoronic double-speak statement. The words “likely” and “most” have no meaning in science That’s like saying at least half of climate change is likely not attributable to human emissions of CO2. Both mean nothing with out numbers that are not pulled out of the air.
Hell, even polsters back up their claims with the words “19 times out of 20” when refering to their doubious stats. What’s the IPCC’s definintion of “most” and “likely”?

* Declining sea ice (seasonal and decade to decade)
* Increasing ocean heat content
* Increasing atmosphereic temperatures (decade to decade)
* Decreasing stratospheric temperatures (decade to decade)
* Melting permafrost
* Acclerations in the hydrologcial cycle
* Increasing atmospheric water vapor levels
* Increasing ocean acidity

It would seem to me that, apart from the last item, all of these are symptoms of a warming world. Since it’s generally accepted that the world has been warming (since the Little Ice Age, or, going back to the original post, since the last ice age), then the hypothesis that what we’re seeing is part of natural cycles would explain all of the above apart from the last item.
Where things get critical is in the actual numbers. To be precise, we need to know what is the amount of current warming from natural cycles, and what is the amount of warming due to human activity. That’s where AGW seems to be weakest.

Roger Otip says:
January 16, 2011 at 11:57 am
Smokey

AGW cannot make accurate predictions

Untrue. The theory predicts that human emissions of greenhouse gases will have a warming effect on the planet. This has been observed. The anthropogenic warming signal is clear above the noise of natural variation.

I wasn’t aware of this last point. Can you please provide some links to where this has been shown? I haven’t been able to find anything along these lines.

Throughout human history the earth’s climate has been pretty stable.
That’s false. Most of the major oil fields can be shown to be from periods of “global warming”. Plus throughout the past 500my glacial periods like we are in now were rare.
When temperatures were a lot hotter than they are now, that’s when dinosaurs ruled the earth and the only mammals were small rodents.
The last great global warmer period, 55mya, is when the major mammalian clades emerged all around the same period.

Mike Haseler gave me an idea. If James Hansen were to write a popular book about the future of Earth, it would most likely be so over the top, so uber-Boschian (Hieronymus), that the surrealists would hail it as another curtain removed, another leap forward for surrealism.

The closest thing to a hypothesis that Warmista have produced is: “Increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere caused by humans will cause an increase in atmospheric temperatures and, in turn, that will cause an increase in water vapor in the atmosphere and, in turn, those clouds will cause increased temperatures in the atmosphere.” The latter part, about what clouds cause, is the “forcing” beyond what is caused by CO2 alone. This so-called hypothesis must be restated in a rigorous form that embodies some measurement regime. That has not been done. Then the hypothesis can be tested against observations in nature. Of course, as time passes, if the hypothesis is not always and everywhere falsified then it will have a record of confirmations and can be taken seriously. At this time, no such record exists for this hypothesis. Actually, the first step should be to create a new temperature measurement regime that is acceptable to all parties to the debate. After some years of refinement, this hypothesis might lead the way to the climate science that the Warmista believe they have in hand today.
As regards chaos theory, it is a total Red Herring in this debate. Everything is a chaotic system. Introduce the wrong tiny little germ cell into a human body and the result can be chaotic destruction of that body and the particular path of destruction can be totally unpredictable. The fire in my fireplace is a chaotic system. Introduce too much fuel and the house burns down; introduce the wrong fuel and the neighborhood burns down. Everything is a chaotic system.

Hoser says:
January 16, 2011 at 2:04 pm
I understand your drift and you are on the right path. However, a theory (a collection of hypotheses deserving an honorific) and a model are far from the same. A model is a set of equations that specifies one or more sets of ordered pairs (n-tuples) and each set of ordered pairs is what is called an interpretation of the model. In simplest terms, a model specifies the relationships between the inputs and outputs of a computer run.
By contrast, a theory is a set of statements in English, or some natural language, that specifies an infinity of observation conditionals, statements such as “If it is a raven then it is black.” The statements of the theory, hypotheses, actually describe some regularity in nature and are true or else false. Models are neither true nor false.
The clearest account of hypotheses and scientific method for a beginner is in Thomas Kuhn’s Copernican Revolution, which was written before he decided that no statements are true or false. You want to read the parts about the transition from Copernicus to Kepler and about the contributions of Galileo and Newton. If that is a bit much, Google Kepler’s Laws and there are many good accounts of them on the internet.

I all respect to those who have developed the AGW Theory over the years

Of course you do, just like cultists respect what their leaders have done for their cult. Those Heaven’s Gate folks really respected their leader, in fact.

I’m amazed how many things it has gotten correct so far considering they are dealing with a system undergoing change on the edge of chaos.

So, in other words, it does not take anything to amaze you?
Seriously, I don’t think you have a grasp of what the actual predictions of AGW theory are, or, for that matter, what a prediction based on hypothesis consists of. Each of your “predictions,” except one, is a consequence of processes related to the whole AGW issue, but not tied to it, i.e., they are not predictions of AGW, they are predictions (nay, consequences) of basic physics (or common sense.)
Mark

Everything is a chaotic system. Introduce the wrong tiny little germ cell into a human body and the result can be chaotic destruction of that body and the particular path of destruction can be totally unpredictable.

Being chaotic with the introduction of a perturbance though normally existing within the bounds of a stable equilibrium state, e.g., the body is not falling apart, is completely different than the chaotic climate system argument. In the latter, chaos rules its pseudo-equlibrium state, which is far different than your example of the body and a germ. In the latter, it is difficult to predict what will happen tomorrow, and harder still to predict what will happen farther into the future. It is easy to predict, from a position of statistics, how long a person will live given just a few starting conditions. Similarly, the odds of picking up that harmful little germ are not difficult to derive using frequentist statistics.
Mark

Finally, I’m beginning to understand how someone like Trenberth could possibly call himself a scientist and come out with the nonsense he does. It seems that there has been a movement called “post-modernism” which objects to the concept that science derives truth by using the scientific method or to quote:
“The science wars were a series of intellectual battles in the 1990s, between scientific realists and postmodernist critics, about the nature of scientific theory. The postmodernists questioned scientific objectivity, and undertook a wide-ranging critique of the scientific method and of scientific knowledge,…The scientific realists countered that objective scientific knowledge is real, and accused postmodernist critics of having little understanding of the science they were criticising.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars
As post-modernism was particularly endemic in the left-of-centre and politically active groups at a key time in the formation of the global warming scare, it seems pretty clear to be the present “climate war” is not so much a struggle about the interpretation of climate data, but much more fundamental: a struggle about the nature of science and the application of the scientific method.
Because they hold a very loose interpretation of science based on these post-modernist philosophies, they simply don’t understand us when we insist that the scientific method is key to science, and that is why no matter how ridiculous they look in our eyes, such criticism that they are not following the scientific method is shrugged off them like water off a ducks back, because they simply don’t believe the scientific method is important!

Mark T says:
R. Gates said: “You are simply wrong on every one of your responses, and the data are quite clear on that.”
How am I wrong on any one of my responses? Seriously.
_____
* Declining sea ice (seasonal and decade to decade)
Global sea ice has remained fairly constant, if not increasing. WRONG. Global Sea ice has displayed a slow decline as the Arctic component has been falling more rapidly (year-to-year) than the Antarctic has been rising. Currently, they are both below normal, and hence the global sea ice is far below normal. See: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
* Increasing ocean heat content. Not according to those that are measuring it.WRONG. As measured since the mid-70’s, OHC has increased greatly. See http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
* Increasing atmosphereic temperatures (decade to decade)
Uh, it has been flat for more than a decade, and furthermore, the hypothesis is that this is correlated to CO2. The correlation is really poor so there’s not much of a victory here. WRONG. I said decade to decade. 2000-2009 was the warmest on record. No one ever said CO2 should correlate every single year with temperatures and it wouldn’t as there is too many other short term forcings going on.
* Decreasing stratospheric temperatures (decade to decade)
Looks pretty flat the last 15 years to me and nobody seems to know understand why this would be an expected consequence of GHG warming anyway. This is seemingly something people like you postulate after the fact in order to get something in the win column anyway. “Hey, look, [something is happening], let’s say it is the result of AGW and then claim we predicted this!” WRONG. Strato temps have fallen in general during this time period and the physics as to why is clearly understood as more GHG reflect more LW back to the surface and prevent it from warming the stratosphere.
* Melting permafrost
That’s a prediction from simply being warmer, not of AGW. WRONG and a big DUH to you. If x causes y and y causes z, then x causes z indirectly, and so z can be predicted from the existence of x.
* Acclerations in the hydrologcial cycle
What?
Yeah, I thought so. Might want to research this a bit (a BIG bit), beginning with this introduction:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/global-warming-river-flows-oceans-climate-disruption.html
* Increasing atmospheric water vapor levels
Again, a function of warmth, not a specific AGW prediction. WRONG. See comment on permafrost above and also refer to the article on the acceleration of the hydrological cycle.
* Increasing ocean acidity
The ocean is basic and will always be basic, therefore it cannot be more acidic, only less basic. This is also a direct consequence of increased CO2, not AGW hypotheses. You have a point here, sort of. Though increased levels of acidity may affect plankton, which do seem to affect the climate, so it could be an x causes y causes z event. See: http://www.seaturtle.org/PDF/Hays_2005_TrendEcolEvol.pdf

I also read that theory and data must conform with each other always. If they contradict each other, data must prevail, theory must give way and revert back to being a mere hypothesis to be subbjected to another round of tests.

Mike Haseler says:
January 16, 2011 at 4:27 pm
“Finally, I’m beginning to understand how someone like Trenberth could possibly call himself a scientist and come out with the nonsense he does. It seems that there has been a movement called “post-modernism” which objects to the concept that science derives truth by using the scientific method or to quote:”
Extremely well-written. I have lived and worked with these people for more than forty years. Some of them do not understand science or scientific method but many of them had the same training that I did. In the case of the latter, to a man they have made a Marxist turn and insist on describing and analyzing science from the point of view of a human value system. By far the most popular value system among these people is Marxism. And many people have succumbed to Marxism without knowing it. Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions is thoroughly Marxist because of its fundamental postulate that our systems of belief, especially science, act as causes which override our attempts to act as neutral observers as we perceive the world, converse with others, or judge our hypotheses. In other words, it invites the propagandist to take over science education. Post-modernists believe that the fundamental role for the scientist is activist. If permitted, they will take over science, through its funding agencies, and they will dictate what is accepted science.

Smokey: only one of those is actually a “prediction” of AGW theory (whatever that is.) The stratospheric temperature one would fall under that banner, if anybody could actually find out where that prediction was made. Willis had a post back in April where he requested a citation that did not seem to elicit a response. Apparently it is a prediction, but nobody actually predicted it.
As for the rest, they are better described as inputs to the theory, i.e., the world is warming, CO2 is rising in the atmosphere and the oceans, ice is melting, etc., are all data points, not predictions. A prediction is “if this then that” and predictions should preferably be somewhat (if not completely) unique to a given theory from which they were made. It does not do any good to say that ice will melt as a result of AGW when simply being warmer will do that – you want your predictions to be isolated enough that the only reason it has happened is because of your theory.
Gates does not understand that. I wonder, too, how many climate scientists understand this (or do they assume they can be so weak on this point because the general populace, those like Gates, do not?)
Mark

I’m with you up to “… otherwise worthwhile and necessary programs to reduce human pollution as a result of unrestricted human population and economic growth.”
Has it occurred to you that perhaps this narrative is itself a product of gross exaggeration and misstatement for ideological reasons, as are the catastrophe predictions of AGW alarmists?

Peter O’Brien, sorry to have to agree but it’s true, you are not the sharpest tool in the box, realists have seen this sort of ‘I am a denier stuff before’ to cover for someone who is really an alarmist. You know and I know that the all AGW scam is based on exactly what you claim to have been thinking about, what humans do to contribute to warming the planet!! So let me get this straight, what are you proposing? That we all freeze, well here in UK a lot of us are as we cannot afford our heating bills due to levy’s foisted upon us in the name of AGW, we cannot afford to drive as petrol is now almost £7 a gallon (in fact our police patrol’s cannot afford to use their patrol cars), we can barely afford food, a loaf of bread not costs £1.30. Of course this does not affect the elite’s, just the middle classes who are working for a living. You may get your wish, but be careful what you wish for!!

Theo Goodwin says: “If permitted, they will take over science, through its funding agencies, and they will dictate what is accepted science.”
Well said!

anne says:
January 16, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Anne,
you miss my point entirely. I am not proposing the we humans discard our standard of living in order to alleviate some putative global warming. Certainly we can do some things better in order to use a finite resource more wisely. That’s just technological advance. But it doesn’t include taxing carbon (as our government here in Australia is proposing), closing down coal fired power stations or wasting billions on futile solar and wind power generation.
My point is – it seems to me anyway – that the heat we generate, which is a natural and inevitable (and indeed desirable) result of human development, is a more likely contributor to global warming (whatever it may be) than CO2 emissions. I believe that whatever warming has already occurred is part of the natural cycle and, in the main, beneficial.
I am certainly not an ‘alarmist in denier’s clothing’!