Guest post by Steve Goddard
Archimedes had his eureka moment while sitting in the bathtub. Newton made a great discovery sitting under an apple tree. Szilárd discovered nuclear fission while sitting at a red light.
There was a time when observation was considered an important part of science. Climate science has gone the opposite direction, with key players rejecting observation when reality disagrees with computer models and statistics. Well known examples include making the MWP disappear, and claiming that temperatures continue to rise according to IPCC projections – in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Here is a simple exercise to demonstrate how absurd this has become. Suppose you are in a geography class and are asked to measure the height of one of the hills in the Appalachian Plateau Cross Section below.
Image from Dr. Robert Whisonant, Department of Geology, Radford University
How would you go about doing it? You would visually identify the lowest point in the adjacent valley, the highest point on the hill, and subtract the difference. Dividing that by the horizontal distance between those two points would give you the average slope. However, some in the climate science community would argue that is “cherry picking” the data.
They might argue that the average slope across the plateau is zero, therefore there are no hills.
Or they might argue that the average slope across the entire graph is negative, so the cross section represents only a downwards slope. Both interpretations are ridiculous. One could just as easily say that there are no mountains on earth, because the average slope of the earth’s surface is flat.
Now lets apply the same logic to the graph of Northern Hemisphere snow cover.
It is abundantly clear that there are “peaks” on the left and right side of the graph, and that there is a “valley” in the middle. It is abundantly clear that there is a “hill” from 1989-2010. Can we infer that snow cover will continue to increase? Of course not. But it is ridiculous to claim that snow extent has not risen since 1989, based on the logic that the linear trend from 1967-2010 is neutral. It is an abuse of statistics, defies the scientific method, and is a perversion of what science is supposed to be.
Tamino objects to the graph below because it has “less than 90% confidence” using his self-concocted “cherry picking” analysis.
So what is wrong with his analysis? Firstly, 85% would be a pretty good number for betting. A good gambler would bet on 55%. Secondly, the confidence number is used for predicting future trends. There is 100% confidence that the trend from 1989-2010 is upwards. He is simply attempting to obfuscate the obvious fact that the climate models were wrong.
Science is for everyone, not just the elite who collect government grant money. I’m tired of my children’s science education being controlled by people with a political agenda.
h2o273kk9 (21:43:01) :
Really? Which is it? Particle theory limits Wave theory or Wave theory limits particle theory?
They are both correct. We can talk of the wave length and frequency of light and at the same time talk about the momentum of photons. Even in optics we still talk about light ‘rays’. In the limit of very long waves, we don’t use the particle picture. We talk about ‘radio waves’ not ‘radio photons’. In the limit of very short waves we tend to talk about X-ray and gamma rays as photons [particles] rather than waves. So there are two limits and two limiting cases.
Robert,
You aren’t answering the question because you can’t. Below are two interpretations of CO2 vs. temperature through the geologic record of the last 600 million years
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd137/gorebot/Geological_Timescale_op_927x695.jpg
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif
Neither shows much, if any, correlation between CO2 and temperature.
As far as the ice cores go, all that they show is that CO2 is less soluble in warmer seawater (take physical geology 101 at your community college.) That is a small effect of 50% change in CO2 concentration which follows large changes in air temperature.
The much larger effects of 1000-2000% changes in CO2 are seen in the geologic record.
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd137/gorebot/Geological_Timescale_op_927x695.jpg
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif
Don’t try to BS your way out of it.
vigilant fish
“I agree with the general drift of your comments, though, especially concerning Newton and Huygens.”
As I’ve pointed out…which is it?
“Particle theory limits Wave theory or Wave theory limits particle theory?”
In the case of “Newtonian mechanics” vs. “Einsteinian relativity”…Mercury’s precession, anyone?
I have to wonder whether holographic gravitation might play a similar role 100 years from now.
vigilantfish (21:51:38) :
Whaaat? Darwin’s name is a household word because he did know the mechanism by which EVOLUTION worked
He did not know how natural selection could work its magic, namely by the digital nature of heredity that ensures fidelity in preserving that which has been selected. Today we know the gory details [DNA, genetic code, etc] and that is what makes evolution a fact. We may have a slightly different view on what a ‘fact’ is. My view is that it is a fact when it is no longer under debate by people who know the field. In this view, ‘facts’ are not absolute, but then nothing is [except in mathematics – but there perhaps ‘fact’ is not the best word to use – mathematicians don’t use it themselves].
Leif
“They are both correct. We can talk of the wave length and frequency of light and at the same time talk about the momentum of photons.”
” So there are two limits and two limiting cases.”
And that’s my point. One did not limit the other. They became different narratives depending on the circumstances.
In other words, it’s not a “fact” to discuss wave theory in some circumstances and particle theory in others (two slit experiment for example).
It’s contextual…at least thus far.
Steve Goddard (21:54:18) :
Simple explanation from William M Briggs, statistician.
Has warming occurred? Yes! There is no other answer. It has increased.
Today was warmer than yesterday. Has warming occurred? Yes! there is no other answer. It has increased.
But is it a climate change? No.
The Met Office uses climate models to make their (almost always incorrect) seasonal forecasts. They have been consistently wrong since 2007, when they predicted a sizzling summer that turned out to be the most miserable wet summer on record.
http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd137/gorebot/Geological_Timescale_op_927x695.jpg
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif
Leif
“Simple explanation from William M Briggs, statistician.
Has warming occurred? Yes! There is no other answer. It has increased.
Today was warmer than yesterday. Has warming occurred? Yes! there is no other answer. It has increased.
But is it a climate change? No.”
Aaargh. Climate is always changing. You know full well that the question is “is it Anthropological”. I don’t believe the case is proven…and we probably agree on that…but “No.” Sheesh. A little more humility, please!
h2o273kk9 (22:13:09) :
In other words, it’s not a “fact” to discuss wave theory in some circumstances and particle theory in others (two slit experiment for example).
You have lost me. They are both facts.
Leif,
If winter snow extent has increased, does that means it has decreased – as the models predicted? Are the models correct?
Leif
Particle theory does not explain the two slit experiment, for example. They are accepted facts, yes, but self-limiting with their own domain.
In other words, it still leaves the door open for a better explanation.
Leif,
I apologize for not being more clear. Let me put it this way…does Huygen’s theory mean that light is in “fact” a wave or just that it acts like you would expect a wave to act.
That’s the difference.
Leif Svalgaard (21:40:37) :
You are exactly right. Wish I had never used the word “storage” many posts ago, it might have given other fertile minds the false impression that you could store it away above physics laws and local temperatures. Big wording mistake!
Wish WUWT has a tab on “Common Scientific Truths” that are unquestionable; so those constant realities didn’t have to be said over and over and over again. That re-stating is where one wrong word and here comes everyone to tell you how wrong you are or how little you know, missing the whole point of the comment. I’m not good in wording so I get a good dose of that. I’d prefer to say I know and adhere to the Common Scientific Truths and here’s the real message of my comment.
While commenting to you, don’t you get the sense that some here are trying to sequence items in climate science instead of viewing a continuum of processes? Like, it’s not going to evaporate until … then it will evaporate, and when it evaporates … and then …. Seems they don’t grasp that bulk matter always radiates, bulk matter always absorbs radiation, water always evaporates, and water always condenses, always simultaneously. It is the differential of parameters that matters at the interface and even when the difference is exactly zero, both sides are still happening only in equal proportion.
A clarification of that fact would help many frequenting here. Something like a mini-course you could just point them to; without Wikipedia to scrabble their minds.
h2o273kk9 (22:28:33) :
“Today was warmer than yesterday. Has warming occurred? Yes! there is no other answer. It has increased.
But is it a climate change? No.”
Aaargh. Climate is always changing.
The weather is always changing. I would not call it a climate change if it over 1 day, or one year, or 15 years. Up around 30 years it begins to be climate change. That’s how far my humility goes.
Pasted the wrong link on that Met Office story.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/08/weather.theobserver
R. Gates,
I guess I’ll have to watch “The Day After Tomorrow” again to understand how global warming is going to cause an ice age.
Probably best to stop digging, Steve. I enjoy Watts, but your first article was full of holes. This one would have been embarrassing if it had come out of a school statistics class.
(By the way, Szilard didn’t discover fission at a red light. It was the concept of the chain reaction that occurred to him while at a red light. Wasn’t it Hahn and Strassman that discovered fission? In a lab….)
Arctic Ice area is back to within one std dev of the mean. No wonder NSIDC is talking about an “Arctic death spiral.”
Comments from the director of the Rutgers Snow Lab
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g1jo1gT0843vxrD4oRUd1Ufm4F5AD9DRBO880
“Leif Svalgaard (19:01:26) :
Steve Goddard (17:55:23) :
Over geologic time, there is little if any correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature.
Methinks I showed you there was, when you asked me to ‘prove it’… Have you already forgotten?”
He asked you to prove it too? Hilarious!
“ginckgo (19:44:11) :
not even wrong.”
Post of the year. Says what my heart feels. gincko, you’re a poet.
“I want every “scientist” on the public dole to provide the taxpayer with a valid reason for funding him or her. And “the furtherance of human knowledge” doesn’t cut it with me. I want practical results, not phony claims, not Chicken Little bull crap. And if they cannot justify their expense, then off with their funding.”
Tell me what I want to hear or I cut off your funding! Yes, I’m sure that approach will get you better science.
“Peter of Sydney (13:53:21) :
“Before we can even attempt to try and get back on the right track (namely the truth) with climate research, we have to get rid of many of the leading “scientists” that corrupt, twist, hide and/or distort the data and findings.””
But, Peter, shouldn’t we have at least one person who is a “skeptic” of AGW? Wouldn’t your rule decimate their ranks?
Wayne said: “Whereever there is HEATING, there is equal COOLING somewhere else; unless you are speaking of long year+ time periods.”
What get’s cool when the solar energy arrives from the sun? What we’re talking about the the exchange of energy. So yes, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form, and furthermore, we know that the law of entropy will tend to run this old universe down until there is equal cooling everywhere…hundreds of billions of years from now.
Be on earth, since the majority of energy comes from the sun, and this is nuclear energy transformed into EM radiation that travels to earth, enters the atmosphere, and then heats up the land, the oceans, and the molecules of the air itself. All the energy (or at least the vast amount) in the oceans comes from the sun, and unless there was some way for this energy to get released from the oceans, they would get way to hot. In this regards, be thankful for hurricanes and big storms. They release such incredible amounts of energy.
And here is personal experience to illustrate how the HEAT from oceans can lead directily to big snowfalls. Back in the winter of 1982, just a few days before Christmas a big hurricane was brewing out in the pacific. It eventually was downgraded to a tropical storm, but the moisture from that headed in over California and eventually wound up right here in Colorado where I live. That Christmas Blizzard of 1982 was one of the biggest on record, and all started from WARM waters over the pacific, that eventually combined with cold air over Colorado and created a monster storm. In Denver specifically, the SNOWIEST months are usually March and April, when the warmer temps over the oceans can draw up huge amounts of moisture off the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico and slam it into the cold air over Rocky Mountain. These same storms often head southeast of here over Oklahoma and bring snow, and if the condidtions are right, tornadoes. All this because of WARMTH, not COLD. Cold is lack of energy in the atmosphere, and needs HEAT to bring in moisture before you can get snow…just like the Colorado Christmas Blizzard of 1982, and just like the East Coast storms of 2009-2010.
“We may have a slightly different view on what a ‘fact’ is. My view is that it is a fact when it is no longer under debate by people who know the field.”
Well, well…a return to the good old days when scientific “LAWS” were all
the rage. I was afraid that such bold pronouncements of academic
superiority had gone the way of the Dodo…only now I see that that “Laws”
have merely been replaced with….”Facts”. I
Leif
“The weather is always changing. I would not call it a climate change if it over 1 day, or one year, or 15 years. Up around 30 years it begins to be climate change. That’s how far my humility goes.”
And this 30 year time frame was established where, precisely? I must have missed that meeting.
So, if I throw out your arbitrary 30 year time frame and pick, oh, say an EON…can I now say that the climate is “always changing”?
I’m not trying to bust your chops…ok, maybe just a bit…but without the appropriate reference frame…these statements are most certainly challengable.
R. Gates (23:11:40) :
What get’s cool when the solar energy arrives from the sun?
An equal amount of LW radiation + albedo of incoming solar radiation, therefore cooling. Look at an energy buget drawing.
R. Gates, it’s a balance. Think more of the closely balanced temperature over thousands and thousands of years, only a few degrees one way or the other. Input equals output, or this globe would be a block of ice or a cinder.
Even if there are small variance of solar irradiance the changes to matter here would be very slow and ruled by conductivity, over years.
It sounds like you are talking on a month scale event. That is where if something here is WARMER, something there is COOLER. Stay in physics.
Leif:
IMO, evolution over long periods of time is an observable fact: just look at the fossil record. However, the absence of gradualism in that, at least to my mind, challenges neo-Darwinism as providing a complete theory. Maybe one day it will have its “Einstein” come along to significantly refine it.
Where this relates more to matters in hand is that there are AGW supporters who are just as wedded to orthodoxy as are neo-Darwinists, and any departure from that is a dangerous pursuit for a career scientist. One lot gets labelled as oil-funded deniers, and the other, as crypto-Creationists.
A fellow can’t hold a dissenting view without being vilified, and that is very bad for science in the long run, because some of its most admired geniuses were at one time dissenters. Science can’t evolve without dissension, and sure, what you pay for that is having to put up with some whose dissension is unwarranted.
IMO, neither neo-Darwinism nor AGW can fully explain the past or predict the future. The former doesn’t explain the lack of gradualism and didn’t predict the size of the human genome, and the latter doesn’t explain the past (such as the MWP or LIA), and didn’t predict the increasing snow extent over the period Steve has focussed on. And that, for me, is what I’m getting from his post. I’m not, and I don’t think Steve was (he can correct me if I err), attempting to say much more than that. This kind of stuff is interesting for folk like me who are engaged by the climate controversy, and it doesn’t require me to understand statistics in-depth, which I can’t and don’t pretend to do.
Sometimes, forgive me for saying so, your tone sounds rather haughty and dismissive, and I often don’t quite see what it is you are driving at or why. Folk like me like to be here and to try to learn, and I immensely enjoy the exchange of ideas that go far beyond the obvious, delving into many interesting highways and byways. One learns about much more here than simply climate science, and I feel it’s a shame to disturb convivial debate. If I have misinterpreted your tone, please accept my apologies, but even so, maybe it’s useful for you to be aware of how you are coming across, at least to this one responder.