November 30, 2015 – Today, on the first day of the United Nations’ twenty-first conference of the parties (COP-21) taking place in Paris, a new book emphatically rejects claims of a “scientific consensus” on the causes and consequences of climate change.
The authors are three prominent climate scientists affiliated with the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). The book is titled Why Scientists Disagree about Global Warming: The NIPCC Report on Consensus.
About the Book
“Probably the most widely repeated claim in the debate over global warming is that ‘97% of scientists agree’ that climate change is man-made and dangerous,” the authors write. “This claim is not only false, but its presence in the debate is an insult to science.”
With these words, the authors begin a detailed analysis of one of the most controversial topics of the day. The authors make a compelling case against claims of a scientific consensus. The purported proof of such a consensus consists of sloppy research by nonscientists, college students, and a highly partisan Australian blogger. Surveys of climate scientists, even those heavily biased in favor of climate alarmism, find extensive disagreement on the underlying science and doubts about its reliability.
The authors point to four reasons why scientists disagree about global warming: a conflict among scientists in different and often competing disciplines; fundamental scientific uncertainties concerning how the global climate responds to the human presence; failure of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide objective guidance to the complex science; and bias among researchers.
The authors offer a succinct summary of the real science of climate change based on their previously published comprehensive review of climate science in a volume titled Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science. They recommend policymakers resist pressure from lobby groups to silence scientists who question the authority of IPCC to claim to speak for “climate science.”
CRAIG D. IDSO, Ph.D., a climatologist, is one of the world’s leading experts on the effects of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life and is chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.
ROBERT M. CARTER, Ph.D., a paleogeologist, is emeritus fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia and author of Climate Change: The Counter Consensus (London: Stacey International, 2010).
S. FRED SINGER, Ph.D., a physicist, is president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project and founder of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).
About NIPCC
The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is an international panel of nongovernment scientists and scholars who have come together to present a comprehensive, authoritative, and realistic assessment of the science and economics of global warming. Whereas the reports of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warn of a dangerous human effect on climate, NIPCC concludes the human effect is likely to be small relative to natural variability, and whatever small warming is likely to occur will produce benefits as well as costs.
NIPCC is sponsored by three nonprofit organizations: the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), and The Heartland Institute.
This volume, like past NIPCC reports, is edited and published by the staff of The Heartland Institute, a national nonprofit research and educational organization newly relocated from Chicago to suburban Arlington Heights, Illinois.
For More Information
For more information about the book, or to interview the authors, contact Donald Kendal, new media specialist, The Heartland Institute, at dkendal@heartland.org or 847/877-9100.
The Heartland Institute is a 31-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
Thanks for your extraordinary efforts in battling the cancerous CAGW racket that has been so destructive to the world’s truly poor…
Also destructive to the middle class
More so to the poorest in our societies.
“failure of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide objective guidance to the complex science”
This makes me mad and since I’m a “common” man, I may be a good barometer.
Sure, if you want to talk about the increasingly unimportant variables related to the numerous fields that have fed from the trough, you can say the science is complicated.
The science was NEVER complicated.
What was complicated was the slight of hand, the turn of the phrase, the initial (and continued) misrepresentation of the data from the ice cores.
Do scientists understand how much damage this has done to the field’s credibility ?
Do they understand how bad it will continue to be unless they hammer home this point of departure ?
When you are robber barons trying to steal the lives and fortunes of billions of people, treating them like so many cattle, damage to scientific credibility is such a small thing. Actually, they really don’t care.
EB
Yup, I suppose your right.
Robber barons executing a massive shift in energy and wealth.
Utilities playing along.
Perhaps many others are saying … “eh, that CAGW is nonsense but if we get cleaner, cheaper, more reliable energy out the deal, let hem have their little lie party”
As for the cheaper part perhaps the bar is even lower.
Perhaps what rolls thru their mind is … “eh, even if it costs me an extra 10%, I can live with that … besides, maybe we’ll get a whole new industry and JOBS out of it”
May be.
The science of climate is complicated. Science pretty much ran out of “simple” in the 19th century, but your typical operator has been in denial about that ever since. The persistance of the need for simple is endemic in many sciences from medicine to geology, not just climate science. The “simple” assumption in climate science is quite linear. CO2 absorbs heat-initiated radiation from the surface, warming the atmosphere. More CO2 will increase this. That is “mainstream” climate “science” in a nutshell. It can’t get any more simple minded. It also can’t be any more wrong. Politics creeps in when someone then says this will be “bad.”
What complicates the politics is the efforts by the “climate scientists” to make it appear simple. Since science really will not support AGW as a significant effect, the – whoever they are – resort to religious reasoning (that is they have faith in their “science”). If the effect is “bad,” and if some people or some society is “responsible” for it, then some knot-head ethicist will hop in and explain why the people or or society are bad or evil or selfish for “causing” this. Politicians can then point fingers that will allow some constituents to feel really righteous – vegetarians (“we don’t eat meat, it’s bad for the climate”), vegans (“we were truly righteous from the first”), bicyclists (“I’m not driving a foul, CO2-exhaling, pollution center”), and on and on.
Duster,
This may have been how politics got involved in the first place, but it has progressed to another level. By being so wrong for so long the political damage the scientific truth has to those who embrace the broken science for ideological reasons is unprecedented and this is why they keep doubling down. It’s become too big to fail! Once the public realizes how wrong the progressive socialists are about climate change they will start applying critical thinking to some of the other progressive dogma and they don’t want this either. The science will not be fixed until it is decoupled from the politics and I don’t see that happening any time soon. The best we can hope for is if a prominent warmist scientist develops a conscience and takes the brave step of acknowledging the scientific truth despite the political consequences. They could even become a hero to the progressive cause by acknowledging that the scientific method is the ultimate arbiter of what is and what is not science, not the IPCC, thus minimizing the political damage and putting space between them and the IPCC which is the progenitor of this evil.
C02
I read what you write. When I read your stuff, I read it with an eye for how is he attempting to shed light on the hoax. I liked a couple pf things you’ve shown me :
1. Don’t dive right in with the buzzsaw. Ask lots of questions. Let them create the conflicting POV.
2. Be conscious of their desire to create absolutes where the absolute serves their appeal to fear.
The most common mistake I see otherwise well meaning scientists make is an open armed approach to discussing any complexity of a variable. In this case, once the huxster establishes the validity of CO2 influencing climate, they then run with the leap that CO2 is bad and needs to be controlled and blah blah.
At that moment, the most often chosen path I see many scientists make is to throw their hands up in disgust that they are dealing with a neanderthal who pulled a strawman and they quickly detach from the conversation. It’s as if they make a conscious decision that framing risk is not their role.
That’s the moment they should be digging in. Holding fast.
Science allowed themselves to be abused on this issue.
What I see on WUWT is that many have learned to fight back.
Gives me hope for science.
Science will still get a hearty butt spanking as the public awakens to the CAGW ruse, but it will be the better for it.
Wow! Seems like an enormous effort to rebut something so obviously flawed as the 97% consensus claim. It must be really important.
I’m as cautious of this document as I am of any overly wrought refutation of any stand. Examine the source in every instance.
Look at pictures from the streets of Paris. Fanaticism should be rebutted.
In spite of the fact that the 97% concensus claim is obviously seriously flawed, it’s still being used by leaders and scientists around the world to push their political agendas.
And since millions of lives and trillions of dollars are being fiddled with by those leaders and scientists–based partly on that flawed claim–I’d say it’s pretty important that the claim be exposed for what it is, wouldn’t you?
Lewis, the 97% was “obviously flawed” the moment the headline was released and thoroughly refuted within hours of publication. The methods are hopeless, which is obvious to anyone who actually glances at them.
However, it has persisted, despite being a transparent lie, and has been repeated by heads of state and across the planet. You can’t fight this with a simple refutation. That stage has long past.
The only way to fight an idea is with another idea. The idea we are fighting is “unified science”, and the idea we are fighting for is “internal scientific conflict exists and is good”.
World leaders know this is a cool even cold way to raise taxes on us and exploit our labor while promising we will be allowed to exhale safely. This is so like the stories thousands of years ago telling about foxes spooking chickens into the fox holes, etc. Or Chicken Little screaming the sky is falling.
As always, it depends on how you ask the question. It the question is ‘Does CO2 effect the surface temperature’, then 97% is reasonable. If the question was ‘Is the effect of CO2 the predominate driver of the climate to the exclusion of natural variability’, then 97% is unreasonably high. If the question was ‘Is the effect of CO2 emissions large enough to spend trillions on mitigation strategies that will have no meaningful impact’, anything over 0% would be absurd.
The problem is, 100% of scientists have never been ASKED to explain exactly what they believe about CO2. So ANYONE claiming to know what they do or do not agree on, is a liar of the first order.
“Seems like an enormous effort to rebut something so obviously flawed as the 97% consensus claim. It must be really important.”
You’re doggone right it’s important! It’s a piece of blatant propaganda intended to brainwash the gullible and ignorant majority of science-illiterate public into accepting this massive hoax as settled science that is irrefutably endangering their lives. If this propaganda is permitted to continue unchallenged, and repeated often enough, it will become the “truth” that will be the final straw in the destruction of our way of life.
Why did you cherry-pick that report?
A strawman indeed.
Just wondering – do either of those references mention the word “beneficial”?
In May of 2013, Barack Obama put out a tweet that said:
Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.
Where did he go? never to be heard from again, but still claiming to be wise.
Thanks Billy
I’m going to agree with oldnwise4me on this one. He’s right. 97% of scientists dont agree that climate change will be dangerous. Nor do they agree with the “IPCC consensus” that most of the recent warming can be attributed to anthropogenic CO2.
In fact 97% of scientists agree that anthropogenic warming has had some impact on climate and that’s all. If you look closely at Cook et al’s paper, you can see that only about 3% of scientists support the IPCC claims of “most”.
Many papers that imply “dangerous” in whatever they’re studying also have an implicit and unsupported assumption of “if current trends continue”.
Sigh….no on here is saying that 97% of scientists agree. Everyone here, including the authors of the book agree that “that claim is not only false, it’s presence in the debate is an insult to science. ”
Clearly you missed what 1oldnwise4me’s original argument is all about. Do some reading .
Here is oldnwise4me’s original statement.
So what is oldnwise4me’s original argument about?
You only need to agree with him in this case. Its political spin that makes AGW “dangerous” and the book also supports that in the way the argument is put in the quoted statement from it, anyway.
See? The claim from the book isn’t that scientists say AGW is dangerous, the claim is that its a “widely repeated claim”. So scientists dont say it but that doesn’t make it any less true that the claim is “widely repeated”.
In short that statement by the book is accurate and simultaneously 97% of scientists don’t agree that AGW is dangerous.
No timmy….here is his original statement-be factual or be quiet.
“So the premise of this book is “‘97% of scientists agree’ that climate change is man-made and dangerous,”
….
If you examine the ERL report ( http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024;jsessionid=D5454169ECE6711D77523A3D23867CA1.c4.iopscience.cld.iop.org) you will NOT find the word “dangerous.”
..
So it looks like this “book” is nothing more than a strawman.”
I don’t see what your argument is here Aphan.
He is agreeing that 97% of scientists aren’t saying that climate change is dangerous.
So all you need to do is point out he’s right that scientists aren’t saying it but politically motivated people are saying it – and that the book quote he quoted, isn’t making a strawman argument because its factual and applies to the “widely repeated claim”, not the scientific claim.
Comprende?
There’s nothing more to his argument at that point. There’s simply no need to suggest pointless searches like you suggested ie “global warming, dangerous” because that is completely irrelevant.
Tim The Tool Man says:
I don’t see what your argument is here Aphan.
Maybe I can explain it. May I try?
Thank you:
Without the “dangerous” narrative, what are we left with? We are left with a very *minuscule* change in global T over the past century, of only ≈0.7ºC.
That is nothing! There isn’t another comparable time frame in the geologic record in which global temoperatures have been so flat and unchanging. We have truly been enjoying a “Goldilocks” global temperature:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lPGChYUUeuc/VLhzJqwRhtI/AAAAAAAAAS4/ehDtihKNKIw/s1600/GISTemp%2BKelvin%2B01.png
Therefore, the alarmist crowd must… alarm the public! How do they do that?
They do it by claiming that we’re headed for “dangerous” um… “climate change” (which used to be called ‘global warming’ — until global warming stopped.
So the alarmist cult has no choice: they must claim that “dangerous climate change” is in the works. Otherwise, the public will collectively start yawning.
Comprende?
dbstealy writes some stuff.
And? How is that relevant to whether or not 97% of the scientists agree about whether AGW is dangerous or not? We all know that the activists spin it to be dangerous.
TTTT says:
How is that relevant to whether or not 97% of the scientists agree…
First, I gotta ask: have you bought into the ‘97%’ crapola, too? I trust not, because your previous comments seem rational. That 97% number has been so thoroughly debunked that only wackos still believe in it.
I asked:
Without the “dangerous” narrative, what are we left with?
But what I should have asked was: “What are they left with?”
That’s why they are forced to call harmless CO2 “dangerous”. The money being wasted is only justified if it’s actually dangerous. But it’s not; there is not a shred of evidence supporting their ‘dangerous’ alarmism.
Now they’re squirming, because their feet are being held to the fire by reminding them of their own scare word. But since there is nothing dangerous about CO2, they have no credible argument supporting the huge waste of money that props up their ‘man-made climate change’ scare.
DB,
Regrettably, IMO most people who have hear the 97% figure believe the lie, usually in reference to “of all scientists”, not just 77 of 79 “climate science specialists” (actually 75/77 for both questions).
Well that depends. I’m part of the 97% or more who believes anthropogenic CO2 has had some impact on our climate. Aren’t you?
You can read my other posts in this thread just above this one if you are unsure what my position is.
It should be clear to anyone even marginally informed on this topic that no scientific consensus exists, or even can exist in the near future. Scientific consensus is formed by repeated experiments, and there is no evidence of that, even among members of the IPCC as evidenced by the failure of any two models developed under the CPIC5 program to agree with one another. Until such time as consistent, predictive models are developed based on AGW theory, there can be no scientific consensus.
What consensus does exists isn’t scientific, it’s social. Certain subgroups of scientists share an opinion on what factors effect climate and how those factors influence it. They may share opinions on what future effects could be observed, but these are only opinions and don’t represented a scientific consensus even though the opinions may held by multiple scientists.
I was recently involved in a debate over the accuracy and precision of ice core based CO2 measurements and cited a recent paper on the subject. I was then rebutted by an individual who claimed the paper had been superseded by another written by the same authors, who contradicted their earlier work. My observation that the science was obviously not “settled” if the very same group of authors could publish two papers in less than 3 years in direct conflict with themselves; if that was even possible there clearly was no consensus. I was met with banal claims I was just another Denialist oil monkey. It was a convincing argument and caused me to immediately change my religion to devout Alarmism.
🙂 You must remember the rules. Never quote an unalarming study but only for rebuttal. Quote the most alarming study available, even if it very suspicious or controversial. Always leave the door open for even worser alarmism. Don’t even try to find the truth, send a message.
Truly understandable. If the great unwashed would have stopped polluting CO2 every time they exhale we would not have been forced to institute our breathing taxes on the peasants.
When the policymakers themselves (Obama, Kerry, Biden, et al) are throwing out the “D-nier” epithet, the lobbying group has become the policy maker. Of course the D-nier epithet is used not just to silence skeptical scientists.
IMO, the alarmist’s use of the D word has a primary purpose to dissuade neutral non-climate related scientists and un-indoctrinated engineers and academics from examining the evidence for themselves and then speaking out. It is an a priori pernicious attempt at intellectual suppression. That’s thought control at its worst, and pactised by our current US policy makers.
Looks like you need a lesson in punctuation and quote attribution. Awkward!
Hint….what is being quoted in the text? Not the word dangerous. Not even the words man-made. JUST the qualifier “97% of scientists agree”.
And “who” are the authors attributing that appeal to authority to in that paragraph? NO ONE in particular.They say it’s the most widely repeated claim “in the debate”.
Thus, “the debaters” are repeating the claim. And that term can apply to anyone who is debating about climate change, not just scientists or people who publish papers. You see, the premise of this book is not what you claim it is…the premise of this book is “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming”. I can only assume it’s the title of the book because that’s what they actually wrote the entire book about.
Congrats for not even getting past the first paragraph correctly. This book might be beyond your skill level.
Oh sweetie…type google scholar into your browser. Then click on Google Scholar, and enter the following into the search bar:
global warming, dangerous
Refine the search to exclude citations and patents. I also refined the search to “since 2011”.
If you can follow directions correctly, you will see that the estimated number of docs that fit the search is “about 17,500″.
So that particular word…”dangerous” has been used in 17,500 scientific papers that also include the term “global warming”. Which is weird, since you so confidently claim that scientists don’t use the word dangerous.
(42,400 results for the same search but exchanging the search phrase from global warming to climate change…climate change, dangerous)
notOldnwise,
Re-read, focus, concentrate and try to comprehend.
Aphan is right.
Again, there are TWO sets of quotation marks in the article paragraph. One reflects the article author quoting what the BOOK says, and the second reflects the authors of the book quoting the phrase “97% of scientists agree”.Period. Even my 12 year old knows that ALL the authors are quoting is what appears between the internal quote marks!
YOU create a strawman argument by implying/assuming that the authors meant something that they did not actually say, and pretending that in that paragraph they are referencing all “consensus studies” when they clearly ONLY quote a phrase that originated in a consensus study.
So, which is it? You don’t comprehend basic punctuation rules, or are you just logically dishonest?
1oldclueless,
If it’s not dangerous, then why are all those jamokes charging off to Paris?…
…oh, wait. You’re right. It’s a scam. A HOAX! Thanx for pointing that out.
oldclueless1,
You made me larf!
Your first link was by the neo-Nazi cartoonist John Cook. If you tried, I doubt that you could find a less credible person. Are you also a neo-Nazi? Or do you just like to cite them?
Your second link listed Stephen Schneider as an author. You know: the same guy who said it’s A-OK to lie for a cause. Then he had the gall to write in the paper:
The authors declare no conflict of interest. Sure. As if.
The rest of your links were copied from the neo-Nazi’s bogus science blog, and they say the same thing. But calling on a fake “consensus” is being done for only one reason: the alarmist crowd has failed miserably in their ‘dangerous AGW’ hoax.
So let’s just total up the number of ‘scientists’ who wrote those papers in your links, and compare that number with the 31,000+ science profesionals, each named, and each with degrees in one or more of the hard sciences, including more than 9,000 PhD’s who have co-signed the OISM statement that the rise in CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere, and that it’s harmless. That flatly contradicts your mostly un-named ‘scientists’ (including your neo-Nazi) that comprises your bogus “consensus”.
Better yet, I challenge you to produce the names of even 10% of the OISM’s number of co-signers who contradict the OISM statement. If you can’t, then the consensus is with the 31,000 co-signers, not with your pathetic handful of propagandists.
Science is not done by consensus either.
Consensus can be studied, but it should not be presented as science. No one should even begin to pretend it has any scientific meaning. Yet you continue to push the point as if it does. Mostly, though, you failed at reading comprehension so your continued efforts to derail on this non-point reveal much of your motives.
I’m hoping you meant this response for 1oldnwise4me, and not me. 🙂
If they don’t believe that its dangerous the whats the big deal? Not worth spending billions on is it?
” 1oldnwise4me@reagan.com
November 30, 2015 at 2:17 pm
JohnWho, you are 100% correct, but the subject of “consensus” can itself be studied, as it has been in the research papers I linked to.”
Let me phrase this so you’ll find it acceptable: “97% of Climate Science Consensus Studies are bogus”.
1oldy sez:
…science is not done by petition.
Nor is science done by consensus. If it was, then skeptics would easily win the debate because skeptics of the “dangerous AGW” hoax far outnumber alarmist scientists. And as I’ve regularly posted, NASA is not credible any more. Their #1 priority is now “Muslim Outreach”, and they routinely ‘adjust’ the temperature record to falsely show rapid warming, and your link is nothing but government-paid propaganda, which credulous, unthinking people believe.
You are the poster boy for the “don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up” scientifically illiterate segment of the population.
Next, your ‘John Cook’ link is not from NASA, so you do in fact copy your links from SkS and similar alarmist blogs. It seems the internet is not your friend; it’s telling us what you wrote isn’t true.
Finally, if you stop posting your misinformation, I’ll stop “following you”. As I’ve explained many times, I do not correct the misinformation posted by credulous people like you; I correct the record so new readers are not misled.
So stop posting your false factoids, and I’ll stop correcting them. The choice is all yours, poster boy.
Mick says:
If they don’t believe that its dangerous then whats the big deal? Not worth spending billions on is it?
That is the central point. If ‘climate change’ isn’t DANGEROUS, then no one is going to waste any time or money on that scare.
And 1oldy tries to re-frame my challenge by requiring that only pal-reviewed papers can be used. heh. As if. Nice try, chump.
Alan Robertson commented below that 1oldy could not be any less disingenuous. That’s true, as shown in 1oldy’s attempt to arbitrarily allow only pal reviewed authors. He’s trying to bypass my absolute, incontrovertible proof that the ‘consensus’ (for whatever that’s worth in science; not much) has always been heavily on the side of skeptics of the “carbon” scare.
Could oldy be any less credible? Probably not. He proves it again here with his impotent attempt to eliminate my central point: he is incapable of producing the names of even 10% of the OISM’s numbers.
I very much doubt if 1oldy could produce the names of even one percent of comparable scientists and engineers who contradict the 31,000+ OISM co-signers. In fact, I don’t think 1oldy can produce one-tenth of one percent of alarmists who contradict the conclusions of the 31,000 OISM co-signers. That’s less than 3 dozen names.
That’s my challenge to 1oldy. But he tucked tail and ran away. Now he’s back, trying to re-frame my challenge, by not referring to those 31,000 professionals.
Could 1oldy be any less credible? He’d have to try real hard!
1oldnwise4me@reagan.com
Funny thing. Today, last week, and for the past years, we have been told by our president, sec of state and the national security adviser that climate change is more dangerous than a tribe of 6th century people who ARE actively trying to kill us and enslave the world.
With blizzards hitting TEXAS I don’t think too many there think we are going to roast to death any time soon! 🙂
@ur momisugly 1oldnwise4me@ur momisuglyreagan.com
Just how long has it been since the last Bartender refused to let you sit down on one of his bar stools and banned you from ever entering his establishment again?
Old1,
Why would there be any need to limit GHG emissions if their increase were not considered dangerous?
I like Dame Margaret Thatcher’s take on ” Consensus “.
Consensus is getting a bunch of people to agree to something that none of them actually believe.
Or words to that effect.
g
1oldnwise4me@reagan.com
True, too true. They are ignorant, over-zealous socialist extremists who desire no less than domination of their will and their “religions” (of socialism, communism, anti-capitalism, anti-christian, pro-world-government, and extreme hatred) over the country. They are doing it through the words and reputation of the “scientists” they proclaim as “the consensus” whom they have bought with 40 years of billions of dollars in directed funding and intimidation and self-selecting promotion.
Like the pope, they are both the result of who they listen to, the policies they demand be implemented, and the goals they seeks – but their culture and their knowledge are the result of what they “are” as people, not their own internal (lack of) knowledge. Likewise, by utterly rejecting ALL economic advise from anyone OTHER than international socialists and Keynesian indoctrinated bigger-government theorists; by deliberately rejecting ANY international intelligence from ANYONE who disagrees with their policies towards the MidEast, Israel, and the Muslim and former and current world communists, they condemn themselves to isolated ignorance and will never be able to solve the problems they have created. They ARE the people they listen to. Economically, politically, religiously, scientifically, and morally.
They are ignorant, over-zealous socialist extremists…
1oldy fits right into that subset, and like any fellow traveler he has no reluctance to be a chameleon; pretending to admire Reagan. If he had used ‘Uncle Joe’ instead, he would at least be honest about something.
Maybe so, but the media keeps using the word dangerous, inferring that the “97%” agree on this, and the many other claims about expected sever weather, droughts, etc that were not addressed in the survey. Those referring to the 97% never define what this means. I doubt if many know or care since it is only a political wedge issue.
The President of the United States used the term “Dangerous.” In fact, I think that the quote above is an exact quote of what the President said.
The POTUS uses the word dangerous as well. https://twitter.com/barackobama/status/335089477296988160
I’m sorry to be a bore, but could someone please take the time to explain to me (a layman) whether we know if there’s an inherent lag in the planet’s climate system that locks in the effect of current co2 emissions for decades. Is this the core of the alarmist argument? Apologies for asking something that may be elementary to you all. Thank you.
Committed warming. Interesting there is no Wikipedia article on that.
The article on sensitivity includes ECS but does not go to details about why warming continues. Different estimates at least show that the science is not that settled and it has not produced much improved estimates in 25 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity
OHC growth measured in Hiroshima bombs is IMO an alarmist argument used to say we have seen nothing yet. I’m not very convinced it is a relevant and factual argument, but OTOH, I haven’t published anything. Cook has.
Some of us say wikipedia is crap since anyone can write there, but on the contrary, it might be biased with its sources because the community is tribal and politicized. Wikipedia is, in any case, a good starting point when you want to learn about central claims covered by peer-reviewed and pal-reviewed (UEA) papers.
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I’ve avoided Wikipedia for the reasons you outlined, but I’ll read more.
I’m trying to understand why, when plants and the oceans gobble up so much co2, there can be so much left to cause catastrophic climate change. I’ve read conflicting reports on co2’s ‘lifespan’ and trying to find out what is true.
Thanks again.
. .DVan , CO2 makes up only 0.04 % of the atmosphere !!!
Sure. I understand how minuscule co2 is. I’m just super confused why they claim there is such a long lag? It strikes me that they’re clutching at straws. I’d just like to know how they can claim it.
Alarmists argue about a variety of things, and the only consistent thread that I know of is the belief that CO2 levels are the major determining/driving factor of global average temperatures.
“Inherent lag”…what do you mean by that? “Locks in the effect”? What does that mean?
As far as I know, there are estimates of lag time, predictions, but I don’t think we “know”.
Well quite. I heard someone say on the radio today – and read the same claims – that the human contribution of co2 will be locked into the atmosphere and we won’t feel the results for decades. How can this be possible? Surely, if increased co2 drives positive feedbacks, the effects would be observed in a much shorter timeframe.
DVan,
I also read the same “lag time until we see the real effect” claim, today. I suspect that this is just the latest propaganda memo sent out to all the usual suspects. Remember, they are trying hard to explain why none of their catastrophic predictions have come true.
A molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere is said to “warm” the planet because it intercepts a photon of infrared energy which would have otherwise been radiated into space and then re-radiates that photon after a “lag/delay” of from pico- to- milliseconds… there’s your delayed action.
My understanding is that the argument is two fold. One is that the residency of CO2 in the atmosphere is long 100’s if not thousands of years. The second is that the effect of a doubling of CO2 (~ 1 deg C) is amplified by the increased water vapor that the warming will cause. Both are in dispute based on present measurements. Added to this is the assumption that there will be catastrophic release of methane from the Arctic or the oceans due to the warming.
If CO2 goes from 400ppm to 800ppm then the extra 400ppm is supposed to heat the atmosphere 1degC.
400ppm = 1part in 2500. How does I molecule of CO2 thermalize enough “heat” to heat up the other 2499 molecules of N2 and O2??
DVan:
You ask
It says there
In other words, it was expected that global temperature would rise at an average rate of “0.2°C per decade” over the first two decades of this century with half of this rise being due to atmospheric GHG emissions which were already in the system.
This assertion of “committed warming” should have had large uncertainty because the Report was published in 2007 and there was then no indication of any global temperature rise over the previous 7 years. There has still not been any rise and we are now approaching 75% of the “first two decades of the 21st century”.
So, if this “committed warming” is to occur such as to provide a rise of 0.2°C per decade by 2020 then global temperature would need to rise over the next 5 years by about 0.4°C. And this assumes the “average” rise over the two decades is the difference between the temperatures at 2000 and 2020. If the average rise of each of the two decades is assumed to be the “average” (i.e. linear trend) over those two decades then global temperature now needs to rise in the next 5 years by more than it rose over the entire twentieth century. It only rose ~0.8°C over the entire twentieth century.
Simply, the “committed warming” has disappeared (perhaps it has eloped with Trenberth’s ‘missing heat’?).
This disappearance of the “committed warming” is – of itself – sufficient to falsify the AGW hypothesis as emulated by climate models. If we reach 2020 without any detection of the “committed warming” then it will be 100% certain that all projections of global warming are complete bunkum.
Richard
That 0.4°C over the next 5 years is almost bound to happen as GISS, NCAR, NCEI work the surface temperature record as they have in the recent past to meet the expectations of politicians at COPxx (whatever it will be in 2021).
The satellite record, who knows?
Ah, but the data need adjustment, yet.
My understanding of lag: If production of CO2 was to stop tomorrow, the amount of CO2 (in PPM) in the atmosphere would remain until it is used/removed/absorbed/whatever. That is the ‘lag’ time.
A short lag time would imply that actions to reduce CO2 emissions today would show results sooner than if CO2 had a long lag time.
Similar to the concept of a half-life in radioactivity.
The only number we have is the measured CO2 PPM. The total production and reduction numbers are almost impossible to determine, so ‘lag’ is an attempt to predict future CO2 PPM values…
In the laboratory, increased CO2 partial pressure in a volume of gas instantaneously results in increased absorption of some wavelengths of infrared, with a concomitant transfer of that energy, either per collisions with “non-radiative” gas molecules, or per emission of infrared photons madly off in all directions, some of which would be towards the ground.
All of this would, theoretically, result in a predictable temperature rise in the larger volume of gas.
In the big laboratory that we know as Earth, the predicting part went ahead smoothly but the observing part presented some problems. To some degree (ha,ha!), retroactive adjustment of measurements curbed the recalcitrance of the data, but, soon, it became clear that a more powerful force would have to be invoked.
Funnily enough, the skeptical crowd had just the thing and the consensus luminaries realised, one by one, that “natural variation” could be embraced by all and credited with the magnificent feat of “masking” the warming.
Masking is, of course, a cute way of saying “delaying” and voilà; we have a “lag”.
It proves to be an excellent explanation for instances where events fail to corroborate the theory. Quotidian applications can often be expressed in the form; “I was going to…. but….”
@mebbe –
I wonder if that volume of gas in the laboratory was of a fixed size?
The Earth’s atmosphere is not enclosed and the overall volume can, and does, expand and contract.
That’s the problem isn’t it JohnWho? The idea that results of doing something under controlled circumstance in a lab can ever be extrapolated onto a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system seems idiotic at it’s foundation. They keep telling us that “it’s impossible for us to conduct lab experiments to prove our theory is correct because we only have one Earth” and yet in essence, that’s exactly what they want us to believe they can prove in a lab….
Mebbe,
You said
“In the laboratory, increased CO2 partial pressure in a volume of gas instantaneously results in increased absorption of some wavelengths of infrared, with a concomitant transfer of that energy, either per collisions with “non-radiative” gas molecules, or per emission of infrared photons madly off in all directions, some of which would be towards the ground.”
When an energized GHG molecule collides with an O2 or N2 molecule, none of the vibrational energy of that energized molecule is converted into the translation motion of any molecule. All that happens is that collisions increase the probability that an energized GHG molecule will emit a photon and return to the ground state. If a GHG molecule collides with another GHG molecule, more complex kinds of exchanges are possible, but no direct mechanism converts that kind of state energy directly into translational motion. In the lab, energy is transferred to the container by its absorption of GHG wavelengths and then transferred to other gases.
Of course, molecules in motion and photons hitting a temperature sensor are indistinguishable even though molecules in motion indicates the temperature of the matter around the sensor while photons indicate the temperature of the distant matter emitting those photons. This means that increased temperature measurements of a gas do not necessarily mean increased velocity of N2/O2 molecules
when GHG molecules are involved and only means that the sum of the two has increased.
Obama is going to have lunch together with holland, place des Vosges !!!
Obama is probably starving as Putin has been eating his lunch for about 4 years now.
Nah, he’ll be ok. He’s been eating from Michelle’s school lunch menu.
No, wait…
From the apocryphal Nelson Diaries:
“Thomas Malthus’ claims about mankind’s immanent demise due to catastrophic Global Warming is a scientific fact. Poke out my eye and cut off my arm if I’m wrong,” -Lord Nelson
Oh…me! me! Pick me!!!!
1oldnwise4me@reagan.com
November 30, 2015 at 11:22 am
————————
Hello 1old… (whoever you are)
It’s difficult to see how your post could be any more disingenuous.
Since you now have a history of such truculent and deceitful posts, one might suspect that your artfulness is likely explained as meretricious mendacity.
In any case, it’s easy to see why you wouldn’t want to out yourself by using your real name in connection with such blatant dishonesty.
(Reply: On this site, people like Mr 1oldn… are known as ‘anonymous cowards’. -mod)
“meretricious mendacity”
Is it proper to say that without an ascot and generous sized pipe ?
What, is my webcam on?
(visualize a hillbilly, inheriting a huge, library- sized dictionary, some 40+ yrs ago)
Typically honest, hardworking and proud people.
I realize the following story isn’t CAGW, but perhaps relates to when you don’t know something, the best course of action is to stop and reconsider (a wiser choice for Paris if they just can’t let go of the whole ruse).
My ole dependable diesel truck went ruh ruh when I tried to turn her over on the weekend. Batteries were fine. No shorted wire bundles typically easy to find if you just shake em. My farmer’s son neighbor came over and saw me banging knuckles trying to figure it out.
My ego got the best of me and I dove into trying to figure it out, full knowing that I was in over my head.
My other neighbor popped his head in and let me borrow his new battery operated ratchet kit. Dangerous in the hands of a man hellbent on demonstrating to his ego that he knew what he was doing.
My farmer’s son suggested I let it go and so look at it cause he’s honest and knows what he is doing. Offered his truck if needed. I stopped, thought about it and having only wounded one knuckle decided he was right.
Turns out it was the starter.
Easy fix.
There is a moral to the story there, and I’m sure it will sink in soon.
knutsea,
I used to sit down and read through that old dictionary for long periods and not only found it fascinating, but hoped to increase my vocabulary in the process. Now, I understand that “no one talks like that” and using that enhanced vocabulary will probably just put me in a bad light. Instead of trying to reach that same suave level of erudition as William F. Buckley (one of my heroes,) maybe I should have just been happy knowing that I was better looking than Bill.
Alan
Far worse things to do with your time, like dreaming up ways to influence the world.
I’ve learned alot reading from WUWT. 2 recent biggies.
1. Sciencewise (knuteville unabridged dictionary), the ice core data released my mind from any sort of disillusionment concerning CAGW. I could go on and on about polar bear nonsense, or CO2 and ice sheets but all that is extra and primarily meant to create a false sense of validity to a “theory” that should have never seen anything other than the bottom of my boot, let alone reside in my brain for far too long.
2. The rekindling of my interest in Hoffer’s book The True Believer was number two. It’s a tad spooky how accurate it is to describe the group consciousness concerning CAGW.
I read your stuff and always try to absorb it.
Keep on whipping out those new words and phrases.
I see them as fun, but I also see a sincere person with ta sense of humor behind them.
Re: Anonymous cowards. Hey mod, just want to point out that sometimes nicknames are better identifiers than real ones. Given Bulldust is a real life nickname (with the HHH). I am more readily identifiable with that moniker than my very generic real (mundane) name. I realise this I am an exception that tests the rule.
1oldnwise4me@reagan.com
The papers you cited are surveys of other published papers. If you had read the abstracts you would know that “dangerous” wasn’t one of the search terms in their algorithms. Did the papers they surveyed include the word dangerous? Who knows?
These surveys never searched for that term. In addition to that, they only searched the abstracts and not the actual content of the papers, most of which are pay-walled.
Since AGW Climate Change is a religion, it should not be allowed in publicly funded schools or on public property and buildings.
Because the atmospheric sciences, starting with meteorology, shun empiricism in favor of consensus as their primary methodology. IOW, the low empirical standards of meteorology have infected all of its sub-disciplines, including climatology. In real sciences arguments are ended with experiments. In the atmospheric sciences arguments are the basis for ever-expansive, and potentially profitable, new platforms of endless discussion–like this forum.
I think the problem is that the disciplines have accepted meterorology’s methods and high uncertainties, including gut feelings and half-understood connections, without including meterology’s caveats. Everyone knows not to trust the weather report more than a few days out. The problem is that they try to establish these rough estimations as unchallengeable foundations for their positions, and it just crumbles under the contradiction
I have yet to find any money here …
Bubba
I’m in it for the free ticket to heaven. I hear that in the Middle Ages the Inquisition offered free passes to those that turned in heretics. I realize this a potential slippery slope drama reach, but ya never know what 1B followers may want from their Pope.
knutesea
Would you be interested in buying a slightly used “Indulgence”?
michael
Touche’ Mike
Maybe you keep yours and we open the Carbon Indulgence Exchange.
or at least we get a trading seat and give em hell (sorry la papa).
The Pope sets the rate of exchange.
Some rules :
You can chose.
CAGW skeptics burn in hell. Sorry, no choice there.
If you have coal dust on your hands you get tortured first.
CAGW skeptic but support windmills and those shiny things and you do purgatory time.
CAGW skeptic and molten salt SMR supporter you still do purgatory time but more than winders and shiny thing worshipers.
Recycling provides negotiable tender but not much.
Eligibility for the Inquisition is tenure in CAGW support (>10 years, well published). Consideration for higher level positions if you supported all the above (>10 years, lead author >10 X).
It’s all very doable and orderly.
No special clothing necessary.
They’ll provide that too.
now I’m the one laughing.
thanks I liked that. Sometimes you have to stop being to serious.
michael
Yeah Mike
I see the con and it ain’t pretty.
Ya gotta laugh or it will drive you crazy.
Glad I tickled the funny bone.
Bubba and Knute: Here’s a song about indulgences (sort of)
Is there a link to the song ?
Do I have to pay for my indulgence ahead of time ?
Okay
I pledge to tithe an additional 5% of my annual income to the newly ordained Gaia Ministry under the leadership of the current Pope. I understand that the Gaia’s work for the Jesuits and are sworn to defend the spin of CAGW for the Pope.
In return, I will receive reliable energy from the Papal Power Consortium at the same rate I pay now. Because I’m an early tither, I shall receive an opportunity to join in the IPO that will be building Chinese made Molten salt SMRs.
For an additional 5%, I will be allowed to maintain my CAGW skepticism with free commenting privileges at WUWT, Climate Etc and JoNova.
I will not be allowed to hold public office.
I will not be allowed to express CAGW skepticism to minors.
Knute…you’re killing me! ROFL!
Aphan
You strike me as genuine in an arena that tries to undermine it.
You and your compadres here have taught me wonderful things that awoke me from my haze.
It’s a splendid gift that inspires satire and it makes me happy to make you laugh.
I think someday people will look at back at this period and say to themselves that this charade would have never happened to them. That they know better. Of course we know that a repackaged version of some con will also happen to them and they too will rely upon the tools that are discussed here to protect themselves.
The scientific method coupled with the skill to identify fallacy gives man a shot at managing his bias. It provides a foundation for making his mind safe from things that can fool him.
What you do matters beyond just your area of expertise and thank you for it.
Aww….*she sniffs and wipes away the tear rolling down her cheek* that was so sweet! I’ll put you on my Christmas list and start looking for a cheap indulgence to put in your stocking! 🙂
That’s because the 97% agree it exists is due to CO2 and is dangerous is the message that was conveyed.
This is patently false, as we know the actual survey said that the climate has changed and man influences the climate. As such, the actual study does not claim such. However, that is what has been repeatedly said to us and the public in general.
There is a final thing not mentioned in the above, which is the gap between science and message, which is wide. I could even agree with the majority of what was said in the IPCC reports. However, the message has been conveyed such that it is full of lunatic falsehoods. Including such articles as defining disagreement with the alarmist position as insanity.
I hope nothing comes out of these “climate talks”. If it does you know it won’t affect the wealthy or the poor it’ll be the middle class that carries the burden. It always is.
Britain would absolutely love to increase its temperature by two degrees – both in winter and in summer , it would be much more pleasant than it is now – whats wrong with warmth for goodness sake , if it was a bad thing then why do we have central heating ? In summer an extra two degrees would cut down on near hypothermia when at the beach .
Because the scientists think that warmer is dangerous…. See article above
Lots of wordsmithing but very little content in most of these “responses”. Concentrate on the following:
There is no empirical evidence (none, nada, zilch) showing that co2 has EVER had ANY impact on the planet’s warming, even over geologic periods when co2 level was several TIMES higher than now.
If the alarmist/warmists have any enlightenment related to that claim, that would be the place to start.
The kind of “science” recently exhibited by our top warmist is when he visited Alaska and pointed to two receding glaciers, indicating that was due to “climate change”. (and we all know the meaning of that expression to alarmists- namely that human activity is the PRINCIPLE cause of our current global warming). But alas, one of the two glaciers, “Exit” has been receding since 1750, so 100 years BEFORE co2 level even began increasing, But there’s more…. What about the half dozen other ADVANCING glaciers in Alaska (including “Hubbard” and “Taku) ? ObamaScience is now the norm, even the major news media, unfortunately.
I find that type of comment (however typical on this site) completely baffling. Cursory research will point to an avalanche of references linking CO2 to warming. No one disputes that CO2 has been higher in the past (a fact entirely acknowledged by virtually everyone), but that the full GHG effect is also related to OTHER variables, such as the planet’s albedo and the all important solar output (which was dimmer in the past, and progressively increases as the sun ages). I know that, so why don’t you?
Dan Hue,
The more you post nonsense like…
Cursory research will point to an avalanche of references linking CO2 to warming.
…the more ignorant you sound. “References” mean nothing.
What is meaningful is data. Do you have data showing that CO2 is the cause of global warming? If you believe you do, then post it here. You will be the first.
All the factoids you keep coming up with prove nothing. What we need is a clear example of cause and effect, in which the effect is the result of the cause, which cannot be anything else.
The only examples we have are that ∆CO2 is caused by ∆T. But there are no similar examples showing that temperature changes are caused by changes in CO2.
So you know what you can do with your “cursory research”. Use some vaseline, that will make it easier on you. ☺
Collecting data about global temperatures is a huge undertaking, as you obviously know, so no, I don’t have any more data than you do, certainly no original data. I could point you to NASA’s (or others) web site, but I’m sure you have all those links at your finger tips. Their graphs show warming, and yes, I trust their collection methods and the fact that their adjustments increase quality. (And I’m not willing to entertain the idea that smart and accomplish people like most climate scientists could be wasting their professional lives pointlessly faking data.) The question is: why is the globe warming? It’s just that simple. So I read some about it (e.g., http://scienceofdoom.com/2014/06/26/the-greenhouse-effect-explained-in-simple-terms/), and it makes sense. But I am also open minded, so here I am.
@Dan Hue –
We’ve (you and others here) have been down this road before.
Why did the globe warm between 1850 (roughly end of the LIA) and 1950?
When that is answered, then it is up to the “warmists” to show that that natural cause somehow stopped and human CO2 became the only possible cause of the warming since 1950.
If you are really open minded, that should be one problem that should contribute to your skepticism.
Also, just for the record, the overwhelming majority of folks, from what I’ve gathered, on WUWT accept the concept of the Green House Effect and that CO2 is one of the GH gases. However, when analyzed on this planet, the warming caused by additional CO2 from human sources is very minimal and does not appear to be discernible by our current measuring methodologies and equipment. Not that I speak for the others, but that is a re-phrased summation of what I’ve often read here.
Dan Hue says:
The question is: why is the globe warming? It’s just that simple.
No, Dan, that is not the question. The planet has warmed many times before, prior to any human CO2 emissions. It has been much warmer than now — naturally.
The central question is this: does the current warming trend indicate that human emissions are the cause?
The answer is a decisive No. What we’re observing now has happened in the past, repeatedly:
http://snag.gy/BztF1.jpg
[click in charts to embiggen]
Even arch-Warmist Dr. Phil Jones shows that the current warming trend has repeated exactly before human emissions could have had any effect:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
Finally, you’re being a worry-wart over the flattest temperatures in the entiire geologic record:
http://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2015/10/Global-2-copy.jpg
EVERY scary prediction made by the alarmist cult has been 100.0% wrong.
When one side is always wrong, without exception, then only religious True Believers will still put their faith in that side of the debate. Rational folks, OTOH, will reject the alarmists’ aruments simply because they have been flat wrong from the get-go.
An even more amusing thought… What if NO glaciers were receding? Would that not imply that our next ice age, (or at least a little one) was once again underway?
W are currently in an interglacial period within an ice age. An ice age consists of the the entire period of time from the onset of ice forming on the planet, through waxing and waning ice, to all of the ice disappearing planetwide.
We’re in a waning period, but the “current” ice age won’t end until all the ice is gone, just like every other ice age ended. But for some reason, CAGWers seem to think we should, and can, stop the Earth from doing what it always has. It’s unnatural!
The next cycle in the ice ages starts when the ice starts to advance again. The interglacial periods in the last 2million years varied roughly between 10-30,000 years with 20,000 the average. We’re ~19,000 from the ice starting to melt, so another ice cycle is in the offing- maybe this year, maybe next, or maybe not until 12,000 AD.
An IPCC “false postulate” mentioned in the pdf as “Co2 Does Not Lead Temperature” is that increases in CO2 precede and then force parallel increases in temperature evidencing the ice core record: “… in such circumstances, changing levels of CO2 cannot be driving changes in temperature, but must either be themselves stimulated by temperature change, or be co-varying with temperature in response to changes in another (at this stage unknown) variable …”.
That is puzzling, surely increasing CO2 as a GHG can be and undoubtedly is both a temperature forcing factor and an outcome of rising temperatures.
“surely increasing CO2 as a GHG can be and undoubtedly is both a temperature forcing factor and an outcome of rising temperatures.”
Christopher, The main atmospheric GHG is water vapor, by magnitudes.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html
Something which is a “forcing factor” and also an “outcome” would have already set into motion a chain reaction event of whatever the forcing might be, in a spiraling effect. In observation, the last decade and three-quarters have shown anything but that. The only evident rising of global temperature is the natural stair-step increase common to previous interglacial epochs.
When this El Nino ends we will (judging from recent trends
—> see http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-november-28-2015 )
we will see a drop further in SSTs in the Pacific than the previous in ’99 and a cold oscillation emerging in the Atlantic. The future is still better predicted by knowers of the past, than modelers of the future, IMHO.
Sorry about the redundancy of “we will”.
The NASA article is outdated, here’s a better explanation.
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html
“The main atmospheric GHG is water vapor, by magnitudes …” I’m aware of that Dawtgtomis, the past 18 years of temperature stasis suggests that whatever effect the rising level of CO2 is having it is being overwhelmed by other factors which falsifies the the CO2 ‘control knob’ hypothesis, but not fact that it is a GHG and must be having some effect albeit subsidiary.
Agreed. The error is in how much additional warming each doubling of CO2 produces. Observation shows it doesn’t match the model predictions, which suggests that it is logarithmic rather than linear in its effect. If that is what nature shows then additional CO2 will not be an issue, particularly if the historical cycles now about to repeat themselves (oceanic and solar) have similar implications on the weather over the next several decades, making them a repeat of cool cycles, not unlike the 1790s-1830s.
Christopher Hanley:
You write
“Some effect”? Yes.
Real effect? No.
Please understand the Null Hypothesis.
The Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed a system has not experienced a change unless there is evidence of a change.
The Null Hypothesis is a fundamental scientific principle and forms the basis of all scientific understanding, investigation and interpretation. Indeed, it is the basic principle of experimental procedure where an input to a system is altered to discern a change: if the system is not observed to respond to the alteration then it has to be assumed the system did not respond to the alteration.
In the case of climate science there is a hypothesis that increased greenhouse gases (GHGs, notably CO2) in the air will increase global temperature. There are good reasons to suppose this hypothesis may be true, but the Null Hypothesis says it must be assumed the GHG changes have no effect unless and until increased GHGs are observed to increase global temperature. That is what the scientific method decrees. It does not matter how certain some people may be that the hypothesis is right because observation of reality (i.e. empiricism) trumps all opinions.
Please note that the Null Hypothesis is a hypothesis which exists to be refuted by empirical observation. It is a rejection of the scientific method to assert that one can “choose” any subjective Null Hypothesis one likes. There is only one Null Hypothesis: i.e. it has to be assumed a system has not changed unless it is observed that the system has changed.
However, deciding a method which would discern a change may require a detailed statistical specification.
In the case of global climate in the Holocene, no recent climate behaviours are observed to be unprecedented so the Null Hypothesis decrees that the climate system has not changed.
Importantly, an effect may be real but not overcome the Null Hypothesis because it is too trivial for the effect to be observable. Human activities have some effect on global temperature for several reasons. An example of an anthropogenic effect on global temperature is the urban heat island (UHI). Cities are warmer than the land around them, so cities cause some warming. But the temperature rise from cities is too small to be detected when averaged over the entire surface of the planet, although this global warming from cities can be estimated by measuring the warming of all cities and their areas.
Clearly, the Null Hypothesis decrees that UHI is not affecting global temperature although there are good reasons to think UHI has some effect. Similarly, it is very probable that AGW from GHG emissions are too trivial to have observable effects.
The feedbacks in the climate system are negative and, therefore, any effect of increased CO2 will be probably too small to discern because natural climate variability is much, much larger. This concurs with the empirically determined values of low climate sensitivity.
Empirical – n.b. not model-derived – determinations indicate climate sensitivity is less than 1.0°C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 equivalent. This is indicated by the studies of
Idso from surface measurements
http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/Idso_CR_1998.pdf
and Lindzen & Choi from ERBE satellite data
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
and Gregory from balloon radiosonde data
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/OLR&NGF_June2011.pdf
Indeed, because climate sensitivity is less than 1.0°C for a doubling of CO2 equivalent, it is physically impossible for the man-made global warming to be large enough to be detected (just as the global warming from UHI is too small to be detected). If something exists but is too small to be detected then it only has an abstract existence; it does not have a discernible existence that has effects (observation of the effects would be its detection).
To date there are no discernible effects of AGW. Hence, the Null Hypothesis decrees that AGW does not affect global climate to a discernible degree. That is the ONLY scientific conclusion possible at present.
Richard
Excellently understandable summation by Richard Courtney. Consider me a student.
Richard – You sound like somebody who is trying really hard to convince himself that what must be true is true. Problem is, no amount of emphasis added to your demonstration will obfuscate the fact that the world is in fact warming, and if not for CO2, then what? Even if you don’t trust the temperature measurements, there is plenty of physical evidence, such as the awesome plunge in Arctic ice, sea level rise, species migration, worldwide glacier retreat, and some many others. You can try to explain away some of these phenomena, but at some point, with virtually all observations pointing in the direction of warming, you have to start reassessing your thinking.
Oh…you so did NOT just say that to Richard. ROFL. He will eat you for breakfast and spit you out for lunch.
Aphan – I don’t pretend to know the science (beyond a sketchy understanding). However, I can spot BS when I see it. Richard’s explanation is at odds with mainstream science, and to be taken seriously, he should at least acknowledge that, and not say it’s the ONLY (his emphasis) conclusion. Clearly, it’s not.
Dan, the evidence is increasingly pointing to the planet’s rotational eccentricities (Milankovitch cycle) as the cause of the onset of each ice age. In between these have been gradual warming epochs, each one not achieving as high of a peak as the previous one. This means that in the big picture, the planet is gradually cooling off. Warming is only happening in the NH at present and the warming has coincided with warm phases of the PDO and AMO. History suggests that when they are in their cold oscillation phase, the ice will rebound, with the big question being the role of heliospheric conditions during low ebbs of solar activity like we are about to witness. As we have said here before, CO2 is the ant pushing the elephant.
Maybe we should organize “Retilt the Earth Day”
Ya know. Hold hands, lean to the left. Chant, pray, rap, whateveh.
Unite the world.
:::: excuse the perky bad humor …. happens when I see a few things more clearly than before ::::
Dan Hue,
Thank you for admitting that you “don’t pretend to know the science”, because clearly you have no idea what the Null Hypothesis is. You also seem to think that the world’s scientists have figured out our climate system to an understandable degree and that they have eliminated every other possibility except CO2-so that it is the ONLY thing left to blame. That’s not even close to being true.
You also shouldn’t pretend to know what Richard means if Richard doesn’t tell you he means something. For example, Richard didn’t say that the Earth wasn’t warming. Richard also didn’t say that he knows what is. He merely pointed out according to the Null Hypothesis-one of the very foundations of science as we know it, has NOT been satisfied by today’s scientists, and that any theory that doesn’t is a shady theory at best.
In other words, Richard might be at odds with mainstream science, but that is only because mainstream science is at odds with the very foundations of science itself-like the Null Hypothesis.
Dan Hue says:
…the world is in fact warming, and if not for CO2, then what?
Boy, have you got a lot to learn! But you are correct when you admit:
I don’t pretend to know the science (beyond a sketchy understanding)…
You don’t even have a ‘sketchy’ understanding. Based on everything you’ve written, all you are doing is visiting alarmist blogs, and then parroting their nonsense and misinformation here.
Do us a favor, and read the WUWT archives for a few months. Try to get beyond your ‘sketchy’ understanding, which is really misunderstanding.
You can begin by reading about natural climate variability, and the planet’s recovery from the LIA. You have not given one example of anything that cannot be fully explained by natural variability. Nothing observed now exceeds past climate parameters. Everything being observed has happened in the past, repeatedly, and to a much greater degree. And it happened before CO2 began to rise.
Those facts debunk everything you’re trying to sell here. You just don’t know enough to wing it, so do what I recommend: get up to speed. Right now you’re not. You have a long way to go before you’re at the level of understanding of the average WUWT reader.
DB
Hit em with the ice cores first or later ?
What’s most effective in breaking the cognitive dissonance ?
Knute,
I don’t think anyone is going to penetrate Dan Hue’s cognitive dissonance.
Perhaps not. Send him over the Pope.
I looked at the “visits” counter and I see that’s 3M visits in 2 weeks ?
So that’s roughly 200K/day.
Those 200K talk to perhaps 2 to 4 a day.
So conservatively penetration of 500K/day.
Doing that little opera handclap for Mr Watts, associates and bloggers.
You guys did something very special.
It’s far cheaper than going to a CAGW therapist and you can become aware at your own pace.
Too bad it’s not billable to ObamaCare.
I see I wrote “rotational” instead of “orbital” eccentricities, my bad.
dbstealy – You are nailing my strongest objection to everything I am reading here, which is that (and I paraphrase) “as long as observed changes are within past or present natural variability, there is nothing to be concerned about”. That, IMO, is a reckless position. Even when variability is natural, *something* (some physical cause) is at play. Even if you believe that global temperatures are stable (which I don’t), how can you tell that they should not be naturally falling (i.e., that we are not super-imposing some man-made warming)? An understanding of the climate is paramount, and short of 100% knowledge, we have enough of that to determine that not acting is beyond tolerable risk.
Dan
What do you fear will happen if the climate changes ?
Well then, Danny, why don’t you just tell everyone what the ‘physical cause’ of natural climate variability is? It must be “*something*”, according to you.
But of course you’re simply parroting an eco-religious series of talking points. As you admit, you’re ignorant of science. All you’re doing here is essentially saying, “But what if…?”
I doubt that you understand what the climate Null Hypothesis is, or what it means. Most readers here know, and they also know the Null Hypothesis has never been falsiified. Thus, global T is well within normal parameters.
There is nothing either unusual, or unprecedented happening. You’re just trying to manufacture a scare out of something completely normal: natural climate variability. Why? Because you’ve been watching the newsbabes on TV, and you’ve started head-nodding along with them?
There’s a lot you don’t understand, Dan, and it’s not limited to science. You don’t understand that you’re being led by an invisible ring in your nose, by people with a self-serving agenda. Your problem is that you’ve tried to parrot their nonsense here, where readers know better. That’s why your eco-beliefs are getting no traction.
knutesea – My biggest fear, beyond human hardship due to food shortages or water conflicts, is loss of bio-diversity. I want to live in a world that has more to offer than bugs, rats, pigeons and invasive plants. The idea that top predators like great white sharks, tigers or blue whales (the biggest animal species ever) could disappear causes me great distress.
dbstealy – I would throw what you say back at you, and ask you how you know that you are not yourself misled? I often hear “follow the money”, as if that should lead to renewable energy entrepreneurs or climate scientists. But how can the fossil fuel industry be left off the hook? Aren’t you curious about what is lurking in their internal emails? I am no leftist, but I sure am.
“knutesea – My biggest fear, beyond human hardship due to food shortages or water conflicts, is loss of bio-diversity. I want to live in a world that has more to offer than bugs, rats, pigeons and invasive plants. The idea that top predators like great white sharks, tigers or blue whales (the biggest animal species ever) could disappear causes me great distress.”
Are you afraid that man is currently making the planet too warm ?
Dan Hue says:
The idea that top predators like great white sharks, tigers or blue whales (the biggest animal species ever) could disappear causes me great distress.
But apparently Dan is A-OK with raptor-chopping windmills.
And:
I would throw what you say back at you, and ask you how you know that you are not yourself misled?
I am not misled because like most readers here, I was well educated in the hard sciences. Therefore, I can understand what makes sense, and what is just bloviating. On the other hand, Dan frequently admits that he’s not up to speed on basic science. That makes him an easy target for climate scare propaganda. He is a prime example of the “don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up” subset of the population.
I often hear “follow the money”, as if that should lead to renewable energy entrepreneurs or climate scientists. But how can the fossil fuel industry be left off the hook?
Dan is nothing if not inconsistent. But maybe he actually believes that skeptics are subsidized by the evil Big Oil cartel. If so, Dan just doesn’t understand where the big money comes from, and whose pockets it goes into. That’s because he gets his misinformation from the thinly-trafficked alarmist blogs he inhabits.
About 97%™ of the money in the climate debate comes from the federal government, and it goes straight to alarmist scientists and universities that parrot the government’s preferred narrative. Government grants do not go to scientists who tell the truth: that there is nothing unusual or unprecedented happening, and that there have never been any measurements quantifying the “dangerous AGW” scare that the gov’t wants the public to believe. The entire CO2=dAGW hoax is based on an unproven conjecture.
Dan ends with:
I am no leftist, but I sure am.
That makes as much sense as the rest of Dan’s pixel emissions.
From an article in the news today: Eight ideas to deal with climate change and save the planet | Newsday has this harridan offering the SO2 solution: Joyce Penner is a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Michigan and a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
‘As the world struggles to address global warming, some propose geoengineering– intentionally altering the planet’s atmosphere — as a way to lower temperatures. The most studied technique would work by adding sulfate particles to the stratosphere, which is similar to what happens as a result of large volcanic eruptions. Those particles reflect solar radiation, preventing some of the sun’s rays from warming the Earth.
While this type of solution sounds promising, it must never be considered in isolation. Without agreements in place to significantly decrease carbon dioxide emissions, we would have to continue pumping more and more sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, perhaps for millennia. We don’t know the consequences of such large and prolonged tampering.’
My comment: this is insanity! SO2 is extremely toxic!!! Not to mention, this would definitely plunge the planet into colder than the Little Ice Age climate. I have said in the past, these people want us to turn back the clock to the Little if not the Big Ice Ages.
SO2 is not sulfate. Of course, sulfuric acid is a sulfate, but we’re talking minor concentrations, and sulfate aerosols settle out of the stratosphere in a year or two. It won’t plunge us in the a repeat of the LIA, though we may be heading that way on our present roller coaster.
However, don’t worry, it will be a long time before we get around to pumping SO2 into the stratosphere or Winooski VT gets its dome.
Like the story of the apprentice and the brooms…we know that things will be done out of control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain
Acid rain that melts marble statues, makes people have lung problems and erodes metals, is…SO2. Drum roll, please. Why you imagine SO2 isn’t dangerous baffles me.
emsnews said-“Acid rain that melts marble statues, makes people have lung problems and erodes metals, is…SO2.”
Correction-acid rain CONTAINS SO2, which is sulfur dioxide, but acid rain “is” NOT pure SO2. It also contains nitrogen oxides and of course H2O.
And the “dirty” SO2 is more corrosive than pure SO2, from what I learned operating flue gas desulfurization equipment.
You can now see sulfate extinction current levels at
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/particulates/surface/level/overlay=suexttau/orthographic
and surface concentrations of SO2
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/orthographic
(It’s fairly new, so I thought maybe I wouldn’t be ‘Captain Obvious’ here, for once.)
Josh, you just keep getting better, man.
+1
Does anyone else notice the resemblance between the person in the cartoon saying, “this pause is unprecedented” and a certain Georgia Tech climate scientist?
Looks a lot like JC to me.