Bishop Hill writes:
Fred Pearce is on the receiving end of the full fury of the warmosphere for his article about the Lisbon conference in New Scientist. Pearce, discussing who had agreed to turn up, said this:
But the leaders of mainstream climate science turned down the gig, including NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, who said the science was settled so there was nothing to discuss.
Now Josh’s take:
Every day I am more and more surprised at how people just accept that these guys are scientists and what they say is gospel. I had college professors who allowed me to question their lectures they had been giving for 20+ years, and they would even (on rare occasions) open their minds and reconsider their position based on my question. Whether I’m right or wrong this is the behavior of true professors.
These charlatans who keep repeating “there is nothing to discuss” are the worst kind of political activists, not scientists.
I always hear about the debate being over. Are there any records of the minutes of the debate?
Gavin said:
“None of the seemingly important ‘conflicts’ that are *perceived* in the science are ‘conflicts’ in any real sense within the scientific community, rather they are proxy arguments for political positions.”
Sounds like he’s saying the “science is settled” to me.
As a person trained in medicine, I get surprised every day again by nature. You may call me stupid but I think people who claim the science is settled are very closed minded. A scientist should be above all sceptic and humble.
This brought an old quote to mind, not sure where the attribute belongs.
Never argue with an idiot. He’ll drag you down to his level then beat you with experience!
Hm, was Gavin’s finger the index or middle finger? It does make a difference.
Gavin isn’t interested in anything that doesn’t further his fame, career or bank account. He certainly isn’t interested in properly documenting his climate code, Model E, but then that apparently was never in his job description.
At GISS, nothing changes, nothing ever will…they’ll keep pumping out the same old CAGW junk at taxpayer’s expense.
I have a question though – who, if anyone, uses their “climate products” – other than a few scientists in their field? What are we getting for our money? Nothing that probably can’t be done elsewhere at much lower expense…
And Scientists of every stripe and country wonder, “Why?”.
Thanks Gav, ya’ really know how to make a mess!
Imagine, you’re even getting paid for it.
What an unsidedown, screwed up world!
I am thankful for Gavin et al, without them I would not know there was such a thing as AGW.
Funny though the weather seems much the same as it has always been in my 58 short years. Perhaps I should be concerned it hasn’t altered much!
The Little Ice Age and the Midieval Warm Period are mere proxies for politics?
Hey, I think Gavin is a nice guy.
My friend (radun) posted one of my links http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
on his blog, and his answer was perfectly reasonable and civilised as you can see here , acknowledging natural variation.
He said: There are also natural forcings – solar, volcanic, orbital etc, so the magnitude of internal variability (aka unforced variations), cannot be simply defined from the observed record. – gavin
Compare that to Dr.S’s ‘nonsense’, pseudoscience, etc, or the WUWT’s regular Steve Mosher : ‘There’s a guy on WUWT who blathers on about this. i think. i generally tune out’.
I might even post myself on his blog.
When they say “the science is settled”, what they really mean is that they got fossilized circa 2000.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is now a dinosaur gone extinct.
Ah…Nasaschmidt, junker science since 98
If the science were really settled, climate scientologists should welcome the chance to debate their critics, bury them with science, and settle the matter once and for all. That they refuse to debate speaks volumes.
Thank you for providing these links with their sub-links, Anthony, these lead to interesting articles & comments sections.
I’m a not a skeptic of warming per se (I’m unconvinced but believe that mild warming is possible, unless balanced by solar minima etc.). However, I’m highly skeptical of the methodologies, conclusions, claims and models employed by the the very biased Hockey Team bunch. Their leap to “catastrophic” results of warming, leading to nightmare scenarios & end-of-Earth blather, leaves me cold.
A huge problem for me is their insistence upon invoking the “precautionary principle” to save the planet. This is employed all the time in my field of public health, particularly regarding bioterrorism.
However, the only large-scale bioterrorist attack on US soil originated from within the public health infrastructure (Army biologist Bruce Ivins concocted the attack for unknown reasons). I consider much of the precautionary (preparedness) efforts in public health to be a waste of resources, and the likelihood of a foreign bioterror attack is minimal at best.
Similarly, Gavin Schmidt and his ilk wanting to hamstring the US economy for a poorly proven/documented phenomenon such as “global warming” is highly objectionable.
Schmidt et al have taken a position and will not waver . Let’s see how tenable their position is in a couple of years .
I love this quote from the original article
“The meeting was the brainchild of University of Oxford science philosopher Jerry Ravetz, an 81-year-old Greenpeace member who fears Al Gore may have done as much damage to environmentalism as Joseph Stalin did to socialism.”
so he agrees that the “greens” are watermelons? A factious bunch of reds on the inside. LOL
Then too, the first commenter weighs in to assert that he’s a researcher who’s studying how the Arctic produces so much methane that we surely are going to die (ok, I exaggerate). He argued, naturally in all CAPS, for the Precautionary Principle. Waving that stick is code. I’d argue that a Precautionary Principle would say: lets drop the AGW research and add a few 10s of billions of dollars and go all nuclear…both construction and research.
As Anthony said (approximately)…China looks at Thorium while we remember Sputnik.
Once again we are reminded that there never was debate – at least as far as the looney climate cabal are concerned.
They decided back in the 1970’s that they needed to find a simple story that would scare enough people that they would willingly allow the destruction of modern civilization.
They almost succeeded this time. They even may yet succeed (at least in the US), if the EPA is allowed to continue with its stealth Cap ‘n trade.
You will note however that they have failed big time in the developing nations. This means that their destruction will be limited to only the developing nations biggest markets.
Jim Barker says:
February 5, 2011 at 11:55 am
This brought an old quote to mind, not sure where the attribute belongs.
Never argue with an idiot. He’ll drag you down to his level then beat you with experience!
============================
I always heard it as:
Never argue with an idiot; an observer may not be able to tell which is which.
CCR
scientist, egoist, scientist, egoist, scientist, egoist, make your mind up!
There was a debate, Robert W., and the warmistas lost, big time. They learned a valuable lesson about going head-to-head with knowledgeable skeptics. I’m sad that Michael Crichton died before he saw the collapse of the human-caused warming theme.
Check it out:
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/global-warming-is-not-a-crisis/
If the Science is Settled, why are we still spending 2+ billion dollars a year on it? Shouldn’t these people be doing something else with our tax dollars beside rehashing Settled Science?
http://climatequotes.com/2011/01/08/how-can-climate-scientists-spend-so-much-money/
Schmidt and lots of other “scientists” betray that their craft when they take the position that there is nothing left to discuss except what should be done with their findings. Those are the words of politics, not science.
I have been told( by bloggers) that climate scientists are all on the take . Their only reason for existance is the big pot of government money bthey cut in the backgrounds.
Now you are telling me that Gavin turned down a booze cruise and the earthly pleasures of an all expence paid weekend with Moncton.
Hard to believe.
or “Mike’s Nature trick”.
don says:
February 5, 2011 at 11:59 am
Hm, was Gavin’s finger the index or middle finger? It does make a difference.
When you are drawing cartoon characters with four fingers (as in the Simpsons), it is always the middle finger. 🙂
Anoneumouse says:
February 5, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Ah…Nasaschmidt, junker science since 98
It wasn’t funny at Bishop Hill’s. It is not funny here, either.
THE ARGUMENT FOR BENEFICIAL GLOBAL WARMING
Have you ever noticed, when looking at global temperature graphs they tend to concentrate on showing anomalies, rather than actual temperatures? Have you ever consider why? When you deal in anomalies, from the start you are looking for change, while missing the bigger picture.
The naked human body is able to continuously maintain this body temperature only when the ambient temperature is above 28 C (82 F).
http://www.sarec.ca/ice/hypother.htm
That means, should minimum temperatures – such as found at night and in winter – drop below 28 C (82 F) for any period of time, an unprotected human will die of exposure.
The global average temperature for 2010, the warmest year on records was: 13.9 C + 0.6 C = 14.5 C (58 F)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GISTEMP
This means that the earth on average is too cold to support unprotected humans. In fact, there is almost no place on earth where the long term minimum temperature exceeds 28 C (82 F) season to season, year to year. Even today, almost every place on earth is too colds for human beings without access to clothing and/or domesticated fire.
If climate science worked in actual temperatures, rather than anomalies, the affects of long term climate would be more readily apparent. The idea that the earth is somehow at an optimum temperature for humans in not supported. Humans almost certainly evolved in a much warmer climate than the present day earth. The current attempts to limit access to domesticated fire through CO2 reduction will certainly harm the ability of human beings to live outside those very few area where temperatures are consistently above 28 C (82 F).
“Since, in my opinion, the causes of conflict in the climate change debate relate almost entirely to politics and not the MWP, climate sensitivity or ‘ice’, dismissing this from any discussion did not seem likely to be to help foster any reconciliation.”
In other words, the science is settled and there’s nothing further to discuss. Thanks for the confirmation, Gavin…
I love the histrionics… this from a chap who routinely publicly insults people on his own blog. Just a few days ago, for example, talking about Dr Canziani:
[Response: No. The IPCC reports are not just one infirm 87-year-old’s opinion. – gavin]
Source: Number 36 at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/01/getting-things-right/
Ummm hello? And he’s complaining because Tallbloke didn’t quote verbatim? The only reason I go to RC is to scroll through the green (text colour) responses to see how badly they are behaving that day – it’s good for a giggle. The only time I have ever seen the Team on good behaviour was a short period after ClimateGate when they were trying yo defend the indefensible.
Might I suggest a strategy… have a collection of priceless Team quotes collated on a second web site so that people can assess their true nature. All with direct references to their own site where they say them. The public can tell a lot about the nature of the Team by seeing a condensed summary of their more outrageous statements.
Good to hear it’s settled.
That’ll save the taxpayers LOADS of money in unnecessary research grants.
…now, all those consensus scientists will just need to find other lines of work. Their work here is done.
Never argue with an idiot; an observer may not be able to tell which is which
A wise man once told me don’t argue with fools… Cos people from a distance can’t tell who is who
Jay-Z
What a web is woven
I would say there are more cracks in the Warmists wall.
Gavin, put our money where your mouth is. Step in the ring, ….
I just love the unintentional carriage return in the quoted text…
as I read it..
…who said the science was settled so there
which kind of made it sound like they were being really childish! – I guess fairly appropriate when you think about it?
Again Josh was all to kind. It would seem that Garvin and the AGW crowd are insisting on the continuance of the “big lie” mentality. One is lead to wonder if these people have been mesmerized by Johnathan Swift’s satire or if this foolishness is simply the result to having take an extreme and oversimplified view of a complex and poorly understood process.
Frank K. says: February 5, 2011 at 12:02 pm
At GISS, nothing changes
Except the historic data 🙂
Judith Curry alluded to the fact that is curious indeed that “deniers” is a term they use on the one hand while claiming they don’t think “the science is settled” on the other. A very odd two-some of positions for one person to hold simultaneously.
Jim Barker says:
February 5, 2011 at 11:55 am
This brought an old quote to mind, not sure where the attribute belongs.
Never argue with an idiot. He’ll drag you down to his level then beat you with experience!
============================
I always heard it as:
Never argue with an idiot; an observer may not be able to tell which is which.
CCR
================================================
I think the one most appropriate to this topic is – “Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk.”
Amazing, they settled science.
Pop an Ipod!
Zone out!
Be cool, Yo!
I think Gavin learned that an open debate is bad for his side from his experience in the Intelligence Squared debate on the subject:
Richard Keen says:
February 5, 2011 at 1:05 pm
If the Science is Settled, why are we still spending 2 billion dollars a year on it? Shouldn’t these people be doing something else with our tax dollars beside rehashing Settled Science?”
I agree completely. In addition they should be living their values. A good friend is a Jehovah’s Witness. They don’t believe in many things the rest of us do (such as celebrating birthdays) The Amish have values much different than their English neighbors. If Gavin et al. really believed CO2 is destroying this planet then they should be ashamed more than anyone else of their contribution to the CO2 budget. None of them should drive, use fossil fuels, use plastic, fly around the world, etc.
It would be like my JW friend lecturing me about not having birthday parties but then throwing himself the biggest parties, Or an Amish man telling me not to plow my field with a tractor yet he uses the biggest John Deere diesel.
I have yet to meet an AGW prophet that is living the values they preach.
But the leaders of mainstream climate science turned down the gig, including NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, who said the science was settled so there was nothing to discuss.
Well, in the interests of our moral duty to fellow humans, someone close to Gavin better clue him into the fact that there are any number of actual infants mightily demanding to be fed and changed 24/7, and many others who are stomping their feet and yelling, “No, you can’t make me,” who would put Gavin’s merely petulant narcisssistic displays to shame. So that Gavin urgently needs to know that he’s going to have to try a lot harder if he wants any real standing among genuine infants!
As for me, I am torn in trying to decide which new motto would be most fitting for NASA, if Gavin were to write them…
NASA – The Science is Settled!! But if you say we said the science is settled, we will call you a liar…
Or the more Prime Directive inspired:
NASA – If minds like these can land us on the moon, then surely the caravan of the Bedouin can reach for Mars…
NASA – The Science is Irrelevant – Our Minds are Settled
These people are showing up as spoiled children. If Gavin is representative of the group he refers to as the “scientific community”, I would suggest to their mothers either a time-out or a duly applied spanking, which ever is their parenting preference.
To most people “SCIENTIST”means ” natural scientist”. Of course there is no such thing as a settled natural science. Everything in natural science is subject to revision, refinement or abandonment to the garbage bin. However, in social science consensus is the foundation of its governing principles especially in political science and jurisprudence. Let’s not forget, natural science split from philosophy less than six centruies ago and social science a couple of centuries later. If we look at the people who insist that the science is settled most of them are social scientists while those who insist the science is not settled are natural scientists. Of course there are natural scientists whose political agenda, financial or other agenda overrule their natural science principles and go with the social scientists. While the science may be settled in social science, the consensus is based on social attitudes that is ever changing. Theories in social science changes with changing social attitudes in the same way new experimental data changes the theories of natural science. Perhaps the Lisbon meeting could have been more significant if it tried to reconcile the decision making paradigm of natural and social sciences.
Sadly Gavin Schmidt may be right when he says;
“No ‘conflict resolution’ is possible between the science community who are focussed on increasing understanding, and people who are picking through the scientific evidence for cherries they can pick to support a pre-defined policy position.”
But which side is which?
Vukcevic,
Interesting graphs. I probably am missing your point, but can you explain/provide links of the physics behind the link between GMF intensity in the z-axis and arctic temperature anomally? Thanx.
In the climate field, there are a number of issues which are no longer subject to fundamental debate in the community. The existence of the greenhouse effect, the increase in CO2 (and other GHGs) over the last hundred years and its human cause, and the fact the planet warmed significantly over the 20th Century are not much in doubt. IPCC described these factors as ‘virtually certain’ or ‘unequivocal’. The attribution of the warming over the last 50 years to human activity is also pretty well established – that is ‘highly likely’ and the anticipation that further warming will continue as CO2 levels continue to rise is a well supported conclusion. To the extent that anyone has said that the scientific debate is over, this is what they are referring to. In answer to colloquial questions like “Is anthropogenic warming real?”, the answer is yes with high confidence.
– Gavin Schmidt
Pamela Gray says:
February 5, 2011 at 4:35 pm
“These people are showing up as spoiled children. If Gavin is representative of the group he refers to as the “scientific community”, I would suggest to their mothers either a time-out or a duly applied spanking, which ever is their parenting preference.”
I believe you are right about Gavin. However, I think a mother could not handle him and his parents might very well need help in handling him. I sense meanness and a desire to hurt. Maybe that’s why his employer gave him “Real Climate,” to keep him occupied.
I have to agree with Joe Romm on one point, and that is any meeting which Steve Goddard attends will not be bothered with by warmists. Anyone who doesn’t get that, just isn’t a player.
Apologies. I have come late to this thread. (It’s the weekend; the lawns need mowing and the hedges clipping!)
Jeremy, in the first post, makes an interesting point about his experience with teachers, whom he contrasts with Dr Schmidt and his colleagues. There is more in this than one might think.
Regardless of our discipline, when we stand in front of a class of students we are under pressure to communicate clearly and to do this we must sort out our ideas. We must defend them against those who do not initially understand them, let alone agree with them. Graduate students are better at this, but even first year undergraduates ask difficult questions that expose gaps in logic and the limitations of the theories being propound. They are likely to ask awkward questions like ‘Where is the missing hot spot your models predict?’, ‘Why is the result so dependent upon bristlecones?’, and ‘There appears to be a divergence between the temperature record and the proxies; why is that?’
These guys (and they are mostly guys) tend to be in ‘research-only’ posts. They escape this daily interrogation. They work in teams and there is much mirroring and bolstering against outsiders, while at the same time there is vigorous internal debate over details (‘we can’t account for the missing heat, and it’s a travesty that we can’t’) They even start to sound like and look like each other! (Could anyone pick Michael Mann from Gavin Schmidt in a line-up if the former wasn’t posing with tree rings??).
Teaching (as opposed to marking 200 first year essays) is good for research for these reasons. Leave aside the corrupting influence of holding a research-only post at a research institute the budget of which is dependent on there being a particular set of results, this is one of the biggest problems with climate science. (Pat Michaels, I think, pointed out a decade or so ago that teaching scientists could not so readily participate in the IPCC process because they had teaching responsibilities; that was my experience with my first invitation – aside f[ro]m the fact that it arrived by snail mail only shortly before the deadline!)
An old and very distinguished friend of mine, Ted Lowi, from Cornell, in his first visit to Australia 20 years ago visited some other universities including the Australian National University whose Institute of Advanced Studies then did no undergraduate teaching. (Old ANU joke: Q: Why do they object at the ANU to classes being scheduled on a Wednesday? A: Because it interferes with both weekends.) Upon return from ANU he said” ‘I get the idea they don’t do anywhere enough teaching at ANU.’
Let me give the final word to Lord Rutherford, who put it well (if in the gendered language of his time (not an exact quote): ‘If the scientist can’t explain to the cleaning lady what he is doing, he doesn’t know what he is doing.’ Think of students as educated cleaners.
I found this sentence to be a refreshing admission:
“The fundamental conflict is of what (if anything) we should do about greenhouse gas emissions (and other assorted pollutants), not what the weather was like 1000 years ago.”
As I recall, it was the alarmists who sought to justify their policy position via a comparative timeline, yet now it does not suit them. The whole point of their exercise was to justify policies to do “something” about greenhouse gases. Who is to say that “something” did not include finding a way to profit off the sale of indulgences.
I hear NASA’s GISS just developed a new sales pitch to get funds from Congress:
“With every purchase of our Propaganda, Agitation, Alarmism and Middle Eastern Self-Esteem, receive a feigned nod towards Aeronautics FREE!”
thegoodlocust says:
February 5, 2011 at 3:14 pm
“I think Gavin learned that an open debate is bad for his side from his experience in the Intelligence Squared debate on the subject:”
My thoughts exactly.
Aynsley Kellow says:
February 5, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Well said! Students are experts at exposing what one did not know one did not know. (Yikes – sorry about the sentence construction!) Even after teaching the same course for 10 years, they ask questions you don’t anticipate, and sometimes lead to very fruitful new ideas. One of the questions we always ask job candidates is how they see the relationship between teaching and research, and the answer is that they indeed reinforce each other. When you teach, you are forced to look at material outside your normal research zone, and the connections that are made can take you in wonderful directions. Being in a research-only environment must be dreadfully narrowing, especially if one consorts only with experts in the field.
I have to agree with what Pamela Gray said too: these pampered researchers like Mann and Gavin do come across as spoiled children: when the real rules of the game get pointed out or imposed, they refuse to play any more.
For those who may not already have a clear understanding of how Gavin Schmidt operates. This helps.
https://public.me.com/ix/williseschenbach/Svalbard.pdf
10) To shut off the scientific questions entirely, they closed down the thread after only
six days.
“the leaders of mainstream climate science”
I must have missed that particular vote.
Schmidt, who said the science was settled so there was nothing to discuss.
————
Seems like the “reading comprehension challenged” are out in force today. Or those too bone lazy to follow a hyperlink.
Apparently Gavin DID NOT say this. It was either made up by Fred Pearce or made up by someone else at the Lisbon conference and lazily reported by Fred Pearce.
So guys, engage brain and develop some skepticism before shooting mouth off.
thegoodlocust 3:14 p.m.: Perhaps a better video of the debate:
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/index.php/past-debates/global-warming-is-not-a-crisis/#dm-col-a
Gosh, ‘The Medieval Warm Period’ on the Agenda.
Like Climate Supermen trying to deal with Kryptonite.
I thought the scientists were supposed to do the science and publish there results and then the politicians were left to implement policy.It seems now the scientists want to do both.
I am absolutely certain that Gavin could conceivable have thought what he did not say.
The tipping point could have come when the flat earthers denied the possible quote that was probably 70% correct or maybe 60% incorrect as likely as the met office forecast. Therefore you (not me) should spend your last dollar to prove that in 1 billion years I could, conceivably, have been wrong. There, it is settled.
Aynsley Kellow :
February 5, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I also come late to this thread. I agree with your view of the necessity of teaching for researchers. My professional life ( I am a retired particle physicist) was spent in research institutes, but luckily there was a graduate studies program in conjunction with universities, taking PhD students, and participating in teaching a common graduate course. You are right, preparing a lecture and facing the students really makes you work over assumptions and principles.
After this climate “science” debacle maybe governments would wake up and force researchers to teach, part time at least.
Gavin will not engage because he would lose any debate in short order, so quickly in fact he would be made to look a complete fool.
The so called consensus is so rickety and full of holes he could not defend it even if he tried. The only possible way to defend the CAGW consensus is not to open the can of worms, close down the debate and smear those who try. Its science Jim but not as we know it, you could call it Scientology only Scientology has a firmer base and is run by people with a much better grasp of reality.
The only way to defend CAGW is to attack its critics while spreading sound bite propaganda to all their agents in the MSM.
ge0050, that is a brilliantly insightful point! Well worth repeating far and wide – in fact, I think I shall!
With reference to the 1,000 years comment; Of course he doesn’t want to talk about anything that might refute his position. The past must remain static. Unfortunately for him it is not the elephant in the room, but the penguin on the telly !!!!
LazyTeenager says:
So guys, engage brain and develop some skepticism before shooting mouth off.
I would love to be skeptical and be able to counter what Gavin or the team believes but any type of weather pattern is just a result of global warming as the scare was known way back in 2007. How much 4 few years change the thinking of many people on the streets. Read this article explaining the warm winter that was being experienced in 2007 and compare the team’s quotes to those in recent articles about this cold winter. It really doesn’t matter what anyone say to the contrary to what the teams says because every type of weather points to global warming so they might as well just come out and say the “the science is settled.”
This is the link to the 2007 article quoting both Gavin & Michael Mann. BTW I love how the internet makes these older articles available.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/070125_gw_weather.html
This is the link to a recent article quoting Michael Mann showing that this cold winter also shows that climate change is occurring. Note the same terms like “loaded dice” from the 2007 article but also note the change from global warming to climate change.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41393090/ns/technology_and_science-science/
I would like LazyTeenager to please explain to me how the same examples can be used to explain both global warming and climate change and also how mild winters and severe winters can also explain the same thing? After all aren’t global warming and climate the same thing?
I find it hard to engage with anything Gavin says because it is always intellectually defunct of meaning. This person appears to dwell in another dimension where politically defined objectives rule the lexicon. I recall, for example, the novel “1984”.
This is Gavin’s world. And he is cursed to endure it for the next really cold – cold – cold winters of the next 20-30 years or so. Poor guy. Maybe Gore’s warming induced snow and cold will help him feel warmer.
Gavin Schmidt was educated at The Corsham School, earned a BA (Hons) in mathematics at Jesus College, Oxford, and a PhD in applied mathematics at University College London.
He’s a mathematician. He’s never made a weather forecast in his life. Everything he knows about climate he has picked up second hand. He is NOT a climate expert. He spends most of his time writing computer code. He is also a [snip – ~jove, mod].
I put a lot of the blame for the appalling atmosphere and the suppression of debate on him and that small circle at RC.
Even when they admit to getting it wrong they call it “Getting things right”.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/01/getting-things-right/
Two different errors appear in this discussion, one of fact, one of conceptual inadequacy.
1) As has already been pointed out Gavin Schmidt did NOT say ‘the science is settled’ that was Fred Pearce. The ‘science is settled’ meme is attributed to scientists by skeptics. Interpreting the claims made by AGW theory research as claims ALL the science is settled is an error of the second type…
2) The unstated assumption behind ‘the science is settled’ quote is that it is a bipolar, yes/no dichotmomy that can be applied to everything.
Science is never entirely settled, but the utility of science comes from its ability to ‘settle’ some issues to the point that useful predictions and exploitation of the understanding reached can be made.
A few centuries ago the science was settled for the Heliocentric solar system. No further evidence is going to refute that settled science. That did not mean that the mechanism that explains the settled science of the Sun at the center was certain, the full explanation of all the observed aspects of the Heliocentric system like the precession of the perihelion of Mercury only got explained in the last century.
But the unsettled aspect of Mercury’s orbit did not cause the heliocentric model of the solar system to be doubted, that was settled, it was aspects of the detail of that understanding that required further development.
Science is a human endeavor that can settle some aspects of a problem definitively, but that knowledge is always incomplete. How much of the science is settled is never a whole number, always a fraction. In any field there will be some aspects of knowledge that are beyond reasonable doubt. Heliocentric solar system, evolution by natural selection, HIV resulting from a virus infection, the ozone whole resulting from CFC’s etc, all these are settled, but that does not mean that all the details about those processes are settled. Science always has a large field of further uncertainty about the details of the settled aspects. And of course there are aspects of most areas of science that are far from settled, with little firm knowledge of what is happening or robust explanations of the observations.
The skeptic claim that scientists think that the science of AGW is settled TOTALLY and then pointing to aspects which are not settled to justify the assertion that NONE of it is smacks of a rhetorical trope. The amount of ‘settlement’ in science is always a changing fraction, not a 1/0 – either/or simplistic dichotomy.
And for those that think that some science is settled such as the Heliocentric solar system, well not everyone would agree…. –
http://www.fixedearth.com/
LazyTeenager says:
Seems like the “reading comprehension challenged” are out in force today. Or those too bone lazy to follow a hyperlink.
I have read the piece and my reading of it was that the only thing that was left to do was to work out the policies to deal with the problem.Now to my small understanding that was saying that the science was settled.
So with your much more superior comprehension skills maybe you could tell us exactly what Gavin said.
Mark II says:
February 5, 2011 at 2:59 pm
I’m happy with all three. Gave me a good laugh before breakfast.
Steve Allen says: February 5, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Vukcevic Interesting graphs. I probably am missing your point, but can you explain/provide links of the physics behind the link between GMF intensity in the z-axis and arctic temperature anomaly?
On this one I appear to be a one-man band, trying to open a new front in the climate research.
Immediate effect is, as I see it, through stratospheric ionisation and the GMF acting in concert. http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
The longer term it has to be via ocean currents, and that is the next stage of this project as shown in here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CDr.htm and
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO-ENSO.htm
Although in the polar regions Z component is more than 95% of total field, that is not the case in the Equatorial area where Bz drops to zero, and defines the magnetic Equator. There appear to be some correlation too:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC20.htm
Dr. L.S. declares all this ‘just coincidence’, but climatologist Dr. J. Curry has expressed some interest.
Sorry, can not be of more help for time being.
ivaz says:
“In any field there will be some aspects of knowledge that are beyond reasonable doubt. Heliocentric solar system, evolution by natural selection, HIV resulting from a virus infection, the ozone whole (sic) resulting from CFC’s….”
Just a minute! You slipped that one about CFCs and ozone into an otherwise reasonable argument. I, and I suspect that many other WUWT readers, have serious doubts about CFCs causing the ozone hole!
Jeff says:
I found this sentence to be a refreshing admission:
“The fundamental conflict is of what (if anything) we should do about greenhouse gas emissions (and other assorted pollutants), not what the weather was like 1000 years ago.”
I think it also reveals that for these guys, anthropogenic climate gases are simply assumed a priori to cause dangerous climate change, while periods of larger climate fluctuations than we’ve seen in the last 100 years are just downplayed as “weather”. It’s so strongly rooted in an ideological/religious belief system that even a sudden onset of a global glaciation wouldn’t make them change their minds.
Vuk
I enjoy your participation and only wish I found your material easier to understand, not least because I suspect there is traction there. The Punch and Judy show here between you-know-whom I find by turns funny, sad, provoking in a good way, and boring – and I expect most here experience much the same. I’ve now studied EU, motivated by both sides. Recently I’ve been pushing Steve Mosher’s position re the iniquitous paragraph in AR4 that allows mainstreamers to continue using the iniquitous Jones & Wang on UHI, and ignore McKitrick & Michaels and all our stuff. But I disagree with him quite strongly in some other issues.
Thank God for WUWT debate.
Espen says:
February 6, 2011 at 3:20 am
“I think it also reveals that for these guys, anthropogenic climate gases are simply assumed a priori to cause dangerous climate change, while periods of larger climate fluctuations than we’ve seen in the last 100 years are just downplayed as “weather”. ”
‘These guys’ do not assume as an a prior that GHGs cause climate change, (the ‘dangerous’ part is the political spin) It is a rational conclusion from the known physics of energy absorption by anthropogenic gases and the laws of thermodynamics.
Periods of past climate fluctuation are NOT dismissed as weather, the appropriate explanation is sought. So the glacial cycles of the last ~2 million years are explained by the orbital variations and the closing of the Panama ithmus and the LIA by increased volcanism and decreased solar activity.
Roger Longstaff says:
February 6, 2011 at 3:07 am
“Just a minute! You slipped that one about CFCs and ozone into an otherwise reasonable argument. I, and I suspect that many other WUWT readers, have serious doubts about CFCs causing the ozone hole! ”
Others may have doubts about evolution by natural selection, but the fact that some here have serious doubts about other aspects of established science does not improve the credibility of the position of those that express doubt over AGW.
izen says:
‘These guys’ do not assume as an a prior that GHGs cause climate change, (the ‘dangerous’ part is the political spin) It is a rational conclusion from the known physics of energy absorption by anthropogenic gases and the laws of thermodynamics.
Since we have no firm knowledge of which way the feedbacks work, the known physics of CO2 energy absorption only allows for a rational conclusion about entirely benign global warming.
Periods of past climate fluctuation are NOT dismissed as weather,
Yes they are. Please read the Gavin quote again.
Lucy Skywalker says: February 6, 2011 at 4:18 am
……….
No.1 – WUWT is great ( Anthony is kind of a modern age Gutenberg).
No.2 – to paraphrase Mark Twain ‘the more I think about it, the more I don’t understand it’.
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 4:35 am:
“Others may have doubts about evolution by natural selection, but the fact that some here have serious doubts about other aspects of established science does not improve the credibility of the position of those that express doubt over AGW.”
Izen, I believe that the case in point is “settled science”. I often challenge CAGW proponents thus “There is no evidence at all to support the hypothesis that anthropogenic carbon dioxide will cause any harmful global warming”. I now challenge you to refute:
There is no evidence at all that CFCs have any effect on what has been described as “the ozone hole”.
This is what first alerted me to eco-warriors. As always – follow the money! I would be interested to find out what other WUWT readers think.
vukcevic says:
February 6, 2011 at 5:06 am
“Lucy Skywalker says: February 6, 2011 at 4:18 am
……….
No.1 – WUWT is great ( Anthony is kind of a modern age Gutenberg).”
Personally I tend to see Anthony more like Wycliff, translating the incomprehensible into the vernacular and challenging the orthodoxy – and being seen as just as much a heretic by the Magisterium (which the Pope Mann and his followers resemble extremely) and its secular self-interested supporters.
@Izen-
Perhaps there are cases where “settled” science has been proven wrong that you could share with us.
“Never argue with an idiot. They’ll drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.”
There’s a corollary probably older and from which the above was derived. It might be more apt in this case because climate boffins are not idiots they’re ideologists. The old saying is:
Never wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get covered with filth but the pig will enjoy it.
Aynsley Kellow’s post reminded me of this quote from David L Goodstein:
‘Fenman was a truly great teacher. He prided himself on being able to devise ways to explain even the most profound ideas to beginning students. Once, I said to him, “Dick, explain to me, so that I can understand it, why spin one-half particles obey Fermi-Dirac statistics.” Sizing up his audience perfectly, Feynman said, “I’ll prepare a freshman lecture on it.” But he came back a few days later to say, “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t reduce it to the freshman level. That means we don’t really understand it.”‘
Terrific point! I’m printing it out and sending around.
Makes me understand better why I instinctively want to move to Hawaii, or the Caribbean—especially as I look out on our mountains of snow here in Massachusetts. . .
/Mr Lynn
sleeper says: February 6, 2011 at 5:55 am
“Perhaps there are cases where “settled” science has been proven wrong that you could share with us.”
Phlogiston, ether, Piltdown man, Larmarkian evolution, non-relativistic space, light being something that comes from the eye, the non-existance of bacteria.
ivaz says:
“In any field there will be some aspects of knowledge that are beyond reasonable doubt. Heliocentric solar system, evolution by natural selection, HIV resulting from a virus infection, the ozone whole (sic) resulting from CFC’s….”
You are not covering the entire story. There was a time when Newton’s accounts of gravity and cosmology were beyond serious doubt. Newton’s accounts are extremely useful even today. Newton’s equations are used for calculating probe launches within our solar system. Newton’s equations can be deduced as a special case from Einstein’s equations by limiting the speeds and masses considered. Yet Newton’s “vision” of the universe has been replaced by Einstein’s “vision.” In addition, geometry has changed fundamentally since Newton’s time. In cosmology, geometry has been replaced by topology, which in simple terms is geometry done on the surface of a ball. So, when people criticize a science or parts of a science, they do not necessarily mean that the science is false in all contexts and no longer useful at all. They might mean simply that reformulating the science to take advantage of a new system of mathematics is too difficult to be worth the trouble.
Consider Darwin’s science. If that were all we knew of evolution then the study of evolution would be the province of archaeologists employed by museums. For all Darwin’s talk about natural selection, he never provided horse breeders with something they did not know and horse breeders have not created a new species through natural selection. Darwin knew that there must be a mechanism of heredity but he had not a clue what it was. Mendel discovered that the effects of heredity could be studied statistically and gave birth to population genetics. But Mendel, too, had not a clue about the mechanism of heredity. The science of genetics was created by chemists who pushed a highly labor intensive task for decades before Crick and Watson took the glory with the Double Helix. Now we have genetic engineering. Can all this work be tied together? The answer is no. It is not possible to take the information provided by genetic studies and use it to retrodict the evolution of species through natural selection. In principle it is possible, so Darwinian evolution is sound on methodological grounds. But in fact it is not possible to discover the specific history of a species’ traits and those traits’ selection by the environment, except for something like drosophila whose environment can be manufactured.
The moral of the story is that science is never settled, never complete, and never fully satisfactory. There are “some aspects of knowledge that are beyond reasonable doubt” regarding direct falsification from predictions, but none that are beyond doubt from improvements in fundamental principles or in mathematical systems.
Izen,
“A few centuries ago the science was settled for the Heliocentric solar system. No further evidence is going to refute that settled science. That did not mean that the mechanism that explains the settled science of the Sun at the center was certain, the full explanation of all the observed aspects of the Heliocentric system like the precession of the perihelion of Mercury only got explained in the last century.”
What you say is true, but irrelevant. All you have done is cherry picked a few examples for your ‘settled science’ against which only a few refinements were later made. Conclusion: AGW is settled science so it must be as reliable as the heliocentric model of the universe. Well, leaving aside the fact that it is only one side of the debate that is actually claiming the science is settled, I would like to take you on a brief history of the science of cosmology, since you were the one who raised it.
Before Hubble in 1926 it was settled science that the universe was only the size of the galaxy and was static. Since hubble it was settled science that the universe was expanding at a decreasing rate, because gravity must slow down the rate of expansion. We now know differently.
How settled is settled science?
I should have added a very important practical point. Our most fundamental science is physics. Yet physicists are keenly aware that their science is not settled and not satisfying. In fact, they have suffered from a huge itch and they created the CERN project to scratch that itch. The CERN project could very well deliver some falsifications of some theoretical statements in physical theory. Given that our most fundamental and most high level science is unsettled and unsatisfying to the tune of megabillions for the CERN project, how could anyone claim that a less fundamental science is settled, except for a trivial claim such as “The science of citrus fruit in south Florida is settled.” /not sarc
As a mildly humorous aside, if Schmidt worked for CERN he would insist that Earth marks the site where the newest black hole will appear and that Congress must pony up mega-gazillions to study how to fill it. Talk about Dr. Evil! /sarc off
Because of my interest in Fred Pearce, who is a fine professional journalist, I read some comments on the Pearce-Schmidt dustup at New Scientist. I have some advice for some of the commenters. They remind me of a group of harmless academics who are discussing a “trick” that one of them learned. This trick enables him to save money on taxes, insurance, whatever, but the trick involves a “minor” deception. It never occurs to them that what they are doing is conspiring to defraud the government, an insurance company, or whomever. It never occurs to them that what they are doing makes them subject to major penalties including years in prison. I do not mean that they are actually committing such fraud. I mean that their conversation is clearly in a bubble that is designed to protect them from the real world, the world that they view as a place of lesser intelligence and lesser morality. I call it the John Kerry syndrome. You have to remember his yacht.
@-Roger Longstaff says:
February 6, 2011 at 5:39 am
“ I now challenge you to refute:
There is no evidence at all that CFCs have any effect on what has been described as “the ozone hole”.”
Okay, tho it is perhaps of more relevance in the Antarctic warming thread where it is an important component in the SAM intensification.
The chemical reactions that occur between haloalkanes and ozone driven by UV are confirmed by direct observational evidence both in controlled experiments under various conditions (including simulations of the stratosphere) and in-situ measurement in stratosphere using balloons. NASA went one better and adapted a redundent U2 spy plane to take measurements.
But I find the best evidence for the robust finding that CFCs destroy ozone is in the historical development of the theory from speculation through hypothesis to well established theory.
It starts with Dobson developing a spectrophotometer in the mid 40s to measure the amount of ozone above the sensor. It was known from balloon measurement that most of this ozone was in the stratosphere and is formed by the action of UV from sunlight on the O2. One of the motivations for the development of the Dobson sensor was to test the theory that slow equatorial to polar air currents in the upper atmosphere moved ozone from the tropics, where most is produced, to the poles.
The Brewer-Dobson hypothesis was that this horizontal movement would maintain ozone levels during the polar winter despite the absence of sunlight.
This was confirmed by the measurement of ozone levels at the pole which were observed to decrease, but not fall to zero, during the winter before increasing when sunlight returned. This established the existence of this horizontal current that was given the name Brewer-Dobson circulation. No ozone hole in the polar spring was observed at that time.
In the 60s-70s there are concerns that chemicals introduced into the stratosphere by human activity might increase the breakdown of ozone. The main culprits were thought to be water vapor and NOx from space launches and high altitude aircraft. Further work on the amount and reactivity of these compounds indicated that they did not pose a significant problem. In 74 Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina put forward the hypothesis that CFCs could also catalyze the destruction of ozone and estimated that if production increased it could result in a reduction of 5-7%.
There were several objections to this hypothesis. It was doubted that CFCs would migrate to the stratosphere in significant amounts. It was uncertain whether they would be a significant source of Chlorine compared to possible natural sources and the rate of reaction seemed to limit the possible impact.
Lovelock developed a sensor for CFCs that soon showed that CFCs were well mixed globally and certainly did reach the stratosphere, including at the pole.
Measurements of haloalkanes in the stratosphere showed that insignificant amounts of natural compounds reached that level. Like water vapor they were ‘rained out ‘ before that altitude.
Then in 85 the direct measure of ozone over the S pole revealed a ~50% decrease in ozone in the spring when previously ozone would increase. The correlation of this new behavior with the increase in CFCs inevitably raised the possible role of CFCs in this much larger decrease in ozone than had been predicted from the basic chemistry already known.
Further research by ballons and that US spy plane revealed that the destructive potential of CFCs on ozone was enhanced by ice crystals formed in the very cold conditions of the polar cold season. With the return of sunlight this ice crystal matrix vastly increased the rate at which the photochemsitry acted with CFCs to destroy ozone.
That history of the development of the idea, the predictions from it, the sceptical response refuted by direct measurement and the eventual discovery of the enhanced effect because of the special conditions at the S pole is evidence I find impossible to regard as anything but extremely robust.
However if you prefer the actual scientific papers that established all this chemistry this would seem to be a good link references as it does many of the key papers. –
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v347/n6291/abs/347347a0.html
“The possibility that the stratospheric ozone layer could be depleted by half at certain latitudes and seasons would have been deemed a preposterous and alarmist suggestion in the early 1980s. A decade later, the statement is acknowledged as proved beyond reasonable scientific doubt. Observations of the composition of the Antarctic stratosphere have established that the chemistry of this region is highly unusual because of its extreme cold temperatures, leading to a greatly enhanced susceptibility to chlorine-catalysed ozone depletion.”
If you want a simpler description with pretty graphics of the chemical rprocesses try; –
http://www.theozonehole.com/ozonedestruction.htm
@-sleeper says:
February 6, 2011 at 5:55 am
“@Izen-
Perhaps there are cases where “settled” science has been proven wrong that you could share with us.”
Mike Haseler has mentioned some options, although the piltdown man was not regarded as ‘settled’ science by any but English paleontologists with a bias towards a National fossil of importance. It was largely ignored as spurious and doubtful by the rest of paleontology and was correctly indentified as an amalgam of human skull with an ape jaw by dental experts with a couple of years of its ‘discovery’.
Species invarience and Lamarkism had less to do with settled science than trying to construct a biological theory that did not contradict biblical scripture.
The best one would be the aether. The assumption that anything with a wave property would require a medium for its propogation. This carried the inevitable corrollary that velocities would be additive.
The Maxwell equations overturned this settled science by providing an accurate description of electromagnetic phenomina that required an invarient speed of propogation contradicting the ‘settled science’ of a universal frame of reference in a aether.
Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 7:29 am
“You are not covering the entire story…
It is not possible to take the information provided by genetic studies and use it to retrodict the evolution of species through natural selection.”
I would dispute this claim. It may not always be possible, but the work for instance on the genetics of the loss of eyes in fish that become cave-dwellers does show that genetics can be used to retrodict the evolution of such species.
@-
Vince Causey says:
February 6, 2011 at 8:25 am
“What you say is true, but irrelevant. All you have done is cherry picked a few examples for your ‘settled science’ against which only a few refinements were later made.”
Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 9:04 am
I should have added a very important practical point. Our most fundamental science is physics. Yet physicists are keenly aware that their science is not settled and not satisfying. In fact, they have suffered from a huge itch and they created the CERN project to scratch that itch.”
Actually the examples were very carefully chosen – cherry-picked if you like.
I was fully aware of the skepticism that is still around about CFCs. I am well versed in the development of evolutionary theory and picked the heliocentric solar system because of the partial nature of its certainty in the larger context of our changing understanding of cosmology with Newton – Einstein – Gamow.
The examples were picked because there are some interesting aspects to the way the science changed around each of the issues, CFCs, evolution and heliocentricity.
The Khunian concept does not work (it was always just a passing paradigm!), such sciences are nearly always cumulative and evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Newton is not displaced by Einstein, but becomes a still accurate subset of the ‘larger’ explanation.
Genetics provided abundant new information, and an explanation of the hereditary process that expanded Darwinian ideas, but did not displace the underlying concept.
In the much simpler case of CFCs the development of the scientific understanding was much more dependent on technical advances in measurement. And the doubt and skepticism with which the hypothesis was initially greeted was driven in large part by commercial interests in blocking or delaying effective policy and regulation that was indicated by the science.
‘Settled science’ is often replaced by a better explanation that is richer in the range of observations that it can encompass. But such expansions in understanding rarely refute the established basics that already exist, they add, cumulatively to the body of knowledge rather than overthrow it.
When posters here dismiss ALL of climate science as a singular, independent entity within the larger world of science which is inherently mistaken or fraudulent they seem to me to be characterizing climate science as something like Lysenkoism. pseudo-science driven purely by the need to formulate theories in conformity with an ideological position rather than in response to observations.
Lysenkoism had a rather brief history because of its failure to provide successful results. It was never intergrated into the rest of science and did not have a long history of gradual development with numerous skeptical objections overcome by robust data over more than a century. In that way I fail to see the similarity.
Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 7:29 am
“You are not covering the entire story…
It is not possible to take the information provided by genetic studies and use it to retrodict the evolution of species through natural selection.”
I would dispute this claim. It may not always be possible, but the work on the genetics of the loss of eyes in fish that become cave-dwellers does show that genetics can be used to retrodict the evolution of such species.
@-
Vince Causey says:
February 6, 2011 at 8:25 am
“What you say is true, but irrelevant. All you have done is cherry picked a few examples for your ‘settled science’ against which only a few refinements were later made.”
Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 9:04 am
I should have added a very important practical point. Our most fundamental science is physics. Yet physicists are keenly aware that their science is not settled and not satisfying. In fact, they have suffered from a huge itch and they created the CERN project to scratch that itch.
Actually the examples were very carefully chosen – cherry-picked if you like. I was fully aware of the skepticism that is still around about CFCs. I am well versed in the development of evolutionary theory and picked the heliocentric solar system because of the partial nature of its certainty in the larger context of our changing understanding of cosmology with Newton – Einstein – Gamow.
The examples were picked because there are some interesting aspects to the way the science changed around each of the issues, CFCs, evolution and heliocentricity.
The Khunian concept does not work (it was always just a passing paradigm!), such sciences are nearly always cumulative and evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Newton is not displaced by Einstein, but becomes a still accurate subset of the ‘larger’ explanation.
Genetics provided abundant new information, and an explanation of the hereditary process that expanded Darwinian ideas, but did not displace the underlying concept.
In the much simpler case of CFCs the development of the scientific understanding was much more dependent on technical advances in measurement. And the doiubt and skepticism with which the hypothesis was initially greated was driven in large part by commercial interests in blocking or delaying effective policy and regulation that was indicated by the science.
‘Settled science’ is often replaced by a better explanation that is richer in the range of observations that it can encompass. But such expansions in understanding rarely refute the established basics that already exist, they add, cumulatively to the body of knowledge rather than overthrow it.
When posters here dismiss ALL of climate science as a singular, independent entity within the larger world of science which is inherently mistaken or fraudulent they seem to me to be characterizing climate science as something like Lysenkoism. pseudo-science driven purely by the need to formulate theories in conformity with an ideological position rather than in response to observations.
Lysenkoism had a rather brief history because of its failure to provide succesful results. It was never intergrated into the rest of science and did not have a long history of gradual development with numerous skeptical objections overcome by robust data over more than a century. In that way I fail to see the similarity.
Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 7:29 am
“You are not covering the entire story…
It is not possible to take the information provided by genetic studies and use it to retrodict the evolution of species through natural selection.”
I would dispute this claim. It may not always be possible, but the work on the genetics of the loss of eyes in fish that become cave-dwellers does show that genetics can be used to retrodict the evolution of such species.
@-
Vince Causey says:
February 6, 2011 at 8:25 am
“What you say is true, but irrelevant. All you have done is cherry picked a few examples for your ‘settled science’ against which only a few refinements were later made.”
Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 9:04 am
I should have added a very important practical point. Our most fundamental science is physics. Yet physicists are keenly aware that their science is not settled and not satisfying. In fact, they have suffered from a huge itch and they created the CERN project to scratch that itch.
Actually the examples were very carefully chosen – cherry-picked if you like. I was fully aware of the skepticism that is still around about CFCs. I am well versed in the development of evolutionary theory and picked the heliocentric solar system because of the partial nature of its certainty in the larger context of our changing understanding of cosmology with Newton – Einstein – Gamow.
The examples were picked because there are some interesting aspects to the way the science changed around each of the issues, CFCs, evolution and heliocentricity.
The Khunian concept does not work (it was always just a passing paradigm!), such sciences are nearly always cumulative and evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Newton is not displaced by Einstein, but becomes a still accurate subset of the ‘larger’ explanation.
Genetics provided abundant new information, and an explanation of the hereditary process that expanded Darwinian ideas, but did not displace the underlying concept.
In the much simpler case of CFCs the development of the scientific understanding was much more dependent on technical advances in measurement. And the doubt and skepticism with which the hypothesis was initially greeted was driven in large part by commercial interests in blocking or delaying effective policy and regulation that was indicated by the science.
‘Settled science’ is often replaced by a better explanation that is richer in the range of observations that it can encompass. But such expansions in understanding rarely refute the established basics that already exist, they add, cumulatively to the body of knowledge rather than overthrow it.
When posters here dismiss ALL of climate science as a singular, independent entity within the larger world of science which is inherently mistaken or fraudulent they seem to me to be characterizing climate science as something like Lysenkoism. pseudo-science driven purely by the need to formulate theories in conformity with an ideological position rather than in response to observations.
Lysenkoism had a rather brief history because of its failure to provide succesful results. It was never integrated into the rest of science and did not have a long history of gradual development with numerous skeptical objections overcome by robust data over more than a century. In that way I fail to see the similarity.
Mr Lynn
I have on a number of occasions posted broadly similar observations as those set out by ge0050 at February 5, 2011 at 1:35 pm under the title of THE ARGUMENT FOR BENEFICIAL GLOBAL WARMING. For example you might like to see my post of 5th February, 2011 at 1:51 pm on the “NOAA ENSO expert: “odds for a two-year (La Niña) event remain well above 50%” thread.
Perhaps the most graphic illustration of the benefits of living in a warm environment can be seen by comparing Stonehenge (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge ) with The Great Pyramid at Giza (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_pyramid ). Both were built at approximately the same time, approximately 2,500BC, ie., about 4,500 years ago.
I would not like to devalue the enormity of the task behind the building of Stonehenge which was an absolutely fantastic achievement, but it pales in insignificance behind that involved in the building of the Great Pyramid. Not merely upon the basis of the scale of each monument but also in the precision and building skills involved in the case of the Great Pyramid. In the latter, the base was chiselled out of the Giza Plateau to a horizontal accuracy of 21 mm over a length of 230 metres. We would be hard pressed to achieve such accuracy today. It must be remembered that this was achieved without the aid of self levelling liquids which we would use today. Stone blocks were chiselled and faced so that they could be set together with no more than a 0.5 mm gap between blocks. Compare this level of skill and craftsmanship with Stonehenge.
The reason why such a difference of skill had developed was that in Britain, it was a struggle to stay alive in the relatively cold climate such that time was spend on staying alive rather than developing what were unnecessary and not relevant skills. On the other hand in Egypt, life was easy. The climate was generally benign and this allowed man to develop at a quicker rate than his counterparts living in colder European climes.
Of course, I am not saying it is all down to warmer conditions. Available natural resources play their part but generally one can see a correlation between the date of development and warm environments. Historical evidence (of which there is plenty) would suggest that warmer conditions would be of significance to mankind.
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 10:28 am
Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 7:29 am
“You are not covering the entire story…
It is not possible to take the information provided by genetic studies and use it to retrodict the evolution of species through natural selection.”
“I would dispute this claim. It may not always be possible, but the work for instance on the genetics of the loss of eyes in fish that become cave-dwellers does show that genetics can be used to retrodict the evolution of such species.”
I agree with the second part of your contradictory claim. Since you agree “It may not always be possible” then you agree with me. I accept that in some cases it is possible.
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 9:30 am
Thank you for your considered reply. But, respectfully, you do not supply any evidence.
Hundreds of reactions in the atmosphere involve ozone, and it is undoubtedly true that monatomic chlorine is a contributing element. But chlorine is produced from both natural (eg. volcanoes, biological monochloromethane, etc) as well as anthropogenic (solid boosters of space launchers, etc) sources. Also, UV radiation is not constant, it varies with solar activity (eg sunspots). I note that a lot of the CFC scare story involved computer modelling.
How do you know that the stratospheric concentration may not simply be accounted for by natural variability?
Izen writes:
“Genetics provided abundant new information, and an explanation of the hereditary process that expanded Darwinian ideas, but did not displace the underlying concept.”
Saying that it expanded Darwinian ideas strikes me as an anachronism. You are reading modern genetics into Darwin.
Also, specifically, modern genetics has not provided an explanation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. What it has provided is an explanation of the mechanism of heredity; that is, an explanation of how traits are passed on. In addition, it explained one input to variation, namely, genetic anomalies whose effects on the creature prove adaptive. Modern genetics is not inconsistent with the claim that Darwin’s account of natural selection is a good description of a driver of evolution; however, modern genetics has nothing at all to say about how the environment acts to cause evolution.
Take what I consider to be the most interesting example, the appearance of human organs that underly human speech. Modern genetics has not told us when, where, or in whom these organs first appeared or how they developed. We do not know whether the first modern human had theses organs as we do not know whether Neanderthals had them. The point is that knowing which genes are associated with human speech does not in itself tell us something about the evolution of human speech organs.
Izen writes:
“When posters here dismiss ALL of climate science as a singular, independent entity within the larger world of science which is inherently mistaken or fraudulent they seem to me to be characterizing climate science as something like Lysenkoism. pseudo-science driven purely by the need to formulate theories in conformity with an ideological position rather than in response to observations.”
Posters on WUWT have never dismissed all of climate science. Everyone accepts the 19th Century work on the CO2 molecule which explains that CO2 can accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere, retard Earth’s cooling through radiation, and cause some warming.
However, regarding the effects of CO2, what I have just described seems to be all the climate science there is. And that is not enough to enable explanation or prediction of dangerous levels of warming from CO2. What we need are some physical hypotheses about forcings. As explained by Roy Spencer in “The Great Global Warming Blunder” there are no physical hypotheses about clouds which enable us to explain and predict that clouds will be a positive forcing. Without such physical hypotheses, the pro-AGW scientists should report to the public that they have no predictions about dangerous effects of CO2.
What could be simpler than that? What is it about “no physical hypotheses” that pro-AGW scientists do not understand?
We are entering the final stages of the AGW dogma. With a lot of help from climategate and “global cooling”.
The warmists will increasingly start denying their past “warming” beliefs.
It is also the funniest stage.
Edim says:
February 6, 2011 at 11:49 am
“It is also the funniest stage.”
OMG, let us hope so. This age of manic hysteria, paranoid expressions of doom, and good old PC has been absolutely bereft of shared humor. Please, let us laugh and smile again.
@-Roger Longstaff says:
February 6, 2011 at 11:02 am
“How do you know that the stratospheric concentration may not simply be accounted for by natural variability?”
‘Natrual variability’ is a description not an explanation.
What cause does this natural variability you invoke have ?
I hold the BELIEF that there is no supernatural process causing the observed variation in ozone so I do think that the variation is ‘natural’. It involves chemistry and physics we already know in detail. Part of that natural process is caused by a compound that is manufactured by human industry. Its presence best explains the observed spring decreases in S polar ozone levels.
If you have an alternative cause for this natural variation that has not already been refuted then suggest it.
However the source of the Chlorine is established from the isotopic ratios (it may even be possible to detect which manufacturer produced it) and the measured absence of comparable amounts of naturally occurring haloalkenes above an altitude well below the stratospheric height where ozone generation occurs.
There is some modulation of ozone levels with solar activity which correlates to the solar cycle and the measured UV flux. Nothing in those observations would provide a mechanism for the rapid fall in ozone when UV returns to the S polar region that was not observed before CFCs entered the stratosphere in significant amounts.
In the face of a well established theory with ABUNDANT evidence for its accuracy as an explanation of what we observe you could hand-wave about ‘natural variation’ and invoke unknown unknowns or undetected chemical mechanisms…
But without a falsifiable hypothesis its not going to get any research time.
@-Theo Goodwin says: Re;- genetics and Darwinian selection
February 6, 2011 at 11:16 am
“Saying that it expanded Darwinian ideas strikes me as an anachronism. You are reading modern genetics into Darwin.”
Actually I was claiming that Darwin was read into genetics…
But I’ll settle for co-evolved when they encountered each other. -grin-
“Also, specifically, modern genetics has not provided an explanation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. …. modern genetics has nothing at all to say about how the environment acts to cause evolution.”
True, the Darwinian concept of differential reproductive success remains primary.
But genetics does provide the context or envelope within which variation can exist that provides the differential reproductive success. It defines the possible ‘fitness landscape’ accessible to a species.
And has provided some help in mapping the past evolutionary pathways via cladistics.
“Take what I consider to be the most interesting example, the appearance of human organs that underly human speech. …The point is that knowing which genes are associated with human speech does not in itself tell us something about the evolution of human speech organs.”
The involvement of the FOXP2 genes and there association with vocal communication in other species indicates that the genetics allowed the modification of the cortex for complex vocal control of sequential actions.
And it is all too easy to construct ‘just so’ stories for how better social communication could affect reproductive success. Some of those stories may even have elements of truth…
But I take your point that the genetic changes do not provide direct information about the selective pressures, only the contingent evolutionary response that was possible for a given population.
Cannot resist giving this link to a paper on the subject that has one of the most knowingly ironic titles I’ve seen in a while! –
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20959859
“Twitter evolution: converging mechanisms in birdsong and human speech.”
@-Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 11:44 am
“Posters on WUWT have never dismissed all of climate science.”
Far point, would you accept some (a minority) dismiss most of climate science?
” Everyone accepts the 19th Century work on the CO2 molecule which explains that CO2 can accumulate in Earth’s atmosphere, retard Earth’s cooling through radiation, and cause some warming. ”
I doubt its everyone, I’d settle for most. -grin-
“However, regarding the effects of CO2, what I have just described seems to be all the climate science there is. And that is not enough to enable explanation or prediction of dangerous levels of warming from CO2. ”
There are two aspects to this;
1) Climate sensitivity. Feedbacks and thermal inertia before energy balance is reached.
All complex, disputable and a matter of intense research which affect the magnitude of the possible warming. – and probably another thread before this suffers severe topic drift…..
2) The fragility of modern global civilization to the scale of environmental changes that the possible sensitivities may impose.
That is an even bigger and more complex issue, I suspect that technological advance does not make societies more robust, but at the moment I’m about halfway through;
“Joseph A. Tainter – The Collapse of Complex Societies”
which so far I find good and may change my views… or sharpen them so I’m even less keen to tackle that subject at the moment.
“But without a falsifiable hypothesis its not going to get any research time.”
There is a falsifiable hypothesis. The doomsayers said that CFCs were destroying ozone and if we banned CFCs the ‘ozone hole’ would go away.
We banned CFCs and there’s still an ozone hole. Is there any evidence that the hypothesis was correct?
Note that I don’t have an axe to grind here and don’t know the answer to the question. But saying ‘we measured CFCs in Antarctica therefore they must cause the ozone hole’ sounds like the same kind of ‘science’ behind ‘global warming’; it’s inference rather than cause and effect.
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 2:08 pm
@-Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 11:44 am
“However, regarding the effects of CO2, what I have just described seems to be all the climate science there is. And that is not enough to enable explanation or prediction of dangerous levels of warming from CO2. ”
“There are two aspects to this;
1) Climate sensitivity. Feedbacks and thermal inertia before energy balance is reached.
All complex, disputable and a matter of intense research which affect the magnitude of the possible warming. – and probably another thread before this suffers severe topic drift…..”
You agree with me. There are no physical hypotheses which explain the forcings that would cause a dangerous rise in temperature. The only possible conclusion is that Schmidt and other warmists have a moral responsibility as scientists to inform the world that they cannot at this time predict that there will be a dangerous increase in temperatures. Schmidt and other warmists are doing exactly the opposite. Hence, the conclusion is that they are wearing ideological blinders and no longer engaging their duties as scientists.
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 10:23 am
Species invarience and Lamarkism had less to do with settled science than trying to construct a biological theory that did not contradict biblical scripture.
————
??????? Species invariance goes back to Aristotle, and was indeed later compatible with the Biblical understanding of the world. Lamarckism was obviously developed by Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet (1744-1829) – predating Darwin. Lamarck was an atheist, and his theory was championed by radicals in the medical profession in Scotland in particular, and by other materialists/atheists. Following the acceptance of the theory of evolution, but the during the period marked by the “eclipse of Darwinism”, when Mendelian genetics seemed to offer an alternate solution to the porblem of variation and change, Lamarckism was championed primarily by those who saw more of a role for the environment in evolution, contra Mendelism as then understood. Lamarckism was also embraced by those who outright rejected Darwinism and Mendelian genetics, namely Lysenko in the USSR, who rejected natural selection for ideological, left-wing reasons, not religious reasons. There has been very little religious support for Lamarckism (in terms of traditional Judeo-Christian religion) – unless one thinks of communism as a religion.
Gavin on Ozone, 5.43 Says that Dupont argued because CFC’s heavier than air they couldn’t get up to the ozone layer and so there was no problem, Gavin says that’s pure fantasy but sounded scientific.
Same old, same old. Ardent anti CFC’s saying that there is so much turbulence in the atmosphere that CFC’s get up to Ozone level by floating up, and that gravity doesn’t work until much higher in the atmosphere so CFC’s can’t separate out lower down. But the best is this:
http://mol.redbarn.org/objectivism/Writing/RobertBidinotto/OzoneDepletion.html
Very sincere explorer looked at all the even NASA etc. data and saw for himself that CFC’s with man-made signature up in the lower stratosphere in significant amounts, even convinced Singer of this, and then goes on to debunk the “natural” argument, by arguing that volcanoes can’t be responsible for the chlorine because only a few are explosive enough to get chlorine up that high even if they have chlorine…
[compare the weights]
(and Mauna Loa he says, just steadily emits gases that are washed out in the lower stratosphere)
..I didn’t realise that fridges and underarm deodorant sprays were more powerful than volcanoes.
I live and learn.
In retrospect, and frontospect, t’would seem that the AGW claim that “THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED” is dead! AT LAST!!!! It was killed by none other than the Wizard of Global Warming himself, NASA’s Gavin Schmidt, at the Lisbon Conference (because he didn’t want to be there) and with the aid of none other than world’s greatest Dragon Slayer, New Scientist’s Fred Pearce!!! The Lisbon Conference accomplished more than any scientific congress in the past 30 years has accomplished. Three cheers for The Lisbon Conference, Gavin Schmidt, AND Fred Pearce… Hip Hip.. Hooray! Hip Hip… Hooray! Hip Hip… Hooray!
LazyTeenager says, “So guys, engage brain and develop some skepticism before shooting mouth off.”
Far be it for me to challenge Lazy on being lazy!
@-Myrrh says:
“…..arguing that volcanoes can’t be responsible for the chlorine because only a few are explosive enough to get chlorine up that high even if they have chlorine…
..I didn’t realise that fridges and underarm deodorant sprays were more powerful than volcanoes.”
The CFCs in fridges and spray cans are chemically inert. That means they survive to reach the stratosphere. Natural compounds don’t unless lofted into the stratosphere by an explosive eruption.
“I live and learn.”
I’ll wait and see….
@-vigilantfish says:
“Species invariance goes back to Aristotle, and was indeed later compatible with the Biblical understanding of the world. Lamarckism was obviously developed by Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet (1744-1829) – predating Darwin. Lamarck was an atheist, and his theory was championed by radicals in the medical profession in Scotland in particular, and by other materialists/atheists….”
You make good points.
Species invariance was the ‘settled science’, but it was an orthodoxy primarily for religious reasons (human exceptionalism) than any scientific argument.
I admit that coupling it with with Lamarckism is wrong. Lamarckian ideas do include the possibility of species change, it was a theory trying to cope with the scientific evidence against species invariance.
It was proposed by another poster as a ‘settled science’ that has been refuted by later discoveries. With the implication that AGW could suffer the same fate.
I am not convinced that Lamarckism was ever a settled science that Darwinian ideas replaced, more a competing previous attempt to deal with the cognitive dissonance between a religiously ordained orthodoxy and the growing fossil/anatomical evidence.
In the present I have encountered versions of Lamarckian evolution proposed as counters to Darwinian species origin because for some YECs they provide a source of rapid micro-evolution within ‘Kinds’.
There are some wonderful misconceptions about epigenetic variation out there….
Theo Goodwin says:
“You agree with me. There are no physical hypotheses which explain the forcings that would cause a dangerous rise in temperature. ”
For a person as indolent as I tend to be it is always nice when somebody tell me what I think, saves so much effort….
Unfortunately you are wrong this time, one obvious physical hypothesis which explains a possible feedback is albedo changes from the loss of ice cover. Another is the measurable and measured increase in water vapor from increased evaporation of warmer oceans into warmer air. Climate sensitivity is not a subject bereft of physical hypothesis.
How dangerous such warming may be is only meaningful in the context of human societies. The robustness of our agricultural systems, and effectiveness of our political systems to respond to global events is uncertain, and much less open to scientific testing of hypothesis.
From izen on February 6, 2011 at 9:30 am:
New rate of stratospheric photolysis questions ozone hole
January 8, 2011
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow
Good reading, from right here at WUWT. From that piece comes:
izen posted:
A September 1990 article, as if science hasn’t moved on since then in its understanding of ozone, the ozone hole and what could cause it, etc.
From the D’Aleo piece:
From izen on February 6, 2011 at 4:35 am:
You have royally missed two important items about science.
One, even established science needs to be challenged. Old experiments are repeated with measuring methods of greater precision and accuracy, or new experiments conducted that should verify old theories. Small discrepancies found yield new or revised theories, old theories that “everyone knows are true” fail to be verified by new experiments or old experiments conducted with improved quality control. New discoveries in paleontology are still revising and refining our understanding of evolution, it is not yet settled and still a work in progress. In science, what is known to be true must be shown to still be true, every now and then.
Two, you are missing the distinction between established science, and Establishment Science™. Here on WUWT we rail against the second, and know which of the two (C)AGW really is.
izen – Natural compounds don’t unless lofted into the stratosphere by an explosive eruption.
So man-made Carbon Dioxide sinks?
Is the maths right here?: http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/Ingles2/AmazingOzone.html
&
Re reliability of data:
“In case readers don’t get the point, the NOAA also explains (emphasis in original):
GLOBALVIEW-CO2 is derived from measurements but contains no actual data. To facilitate use with carbon cycle modeling studies, the measurements have been processed (smoothed, interpolated, and extrapolated) resulting in extended records that are evenly incremented in time.”
http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1396/categoryId/54/Greenhouse-Gas-Observatories-Downwind-From-Erupting-Volcanoes.aspx
That’s the way to do it, as Keeling perfected. Decide what you want to show, go to a great source of CO2 so there’s sufficient to play with, and claim there’s no local contamination of the samples.
No wonder Gavin refused to discuss the science in that debate…
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 3:42 pm
“The CFCs in fridges and spray cans are chemically inert.”
If that is so then how can they interact with Ozone once they get there?
Richard Verney, thanks so much for that comparison of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid.
ge0050, re my previous reply to your post about 28C and resilience to hypothermia, before retelling your point far and wide, I decided to try a few experiments (on myself) and I believe the 28C must refer to a naked human body in water, not in air. I know the site you quote says air, but I cannot find a scholarly backup for it. So not so impressive as we thought? Nevertheless, I don’t think the air figure is all that much lower, certainly it is higher than common temperatures throughout the temperate zones, so you still have a point in there.
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Theo Goodwin says:
“Unfortunately you are wrong this time, one obvious physical hypothesis which explains a possible feedback is albedo changes from the loss of ice cover. Another is the measurable and measured increase in water vapor from increased evaporation of warmer oceans into warmer air.”
State one of these hypotheses in your own words. Do not state a hunch. What you have above does not qualify as a hunch but only as a suggestion of a hunch. State in your own words the evidence which shows that there is a record of confirmation for the hypotheses. If what you have produced here is your idea of hypotheses then you need to return to high school for retraining. Stop wasting your time and our time on this forum.
Gnrnr says:
February 6, 2011 at 6:15 pm
izen says:
February 6, 2011 at 3:42 pm
“The CFCs in fridges and spray cans are chemically inert.”
If that is so then how can they interact with Ozone once they get there?
=================
UV
izen says:
“UV”
So they are not chemcially inert. Which is it?
@-Theo Goodwin says:
February 6, 2011 at 6:35 pm
” If what you have produced here is your idea of hypotheses then you need to return to high school for retraining. Stop wasting your time and our time on this forum.”
I don’t find I am wasting my time, the challenges to my POV help me evolve a better understanding, and erodes my ‘Morton’s demon’. But I apologies if you feel I am wasting your time and the other you speak for.
I try to respond to any reply I receive, but that does not mean I expect or require attention to any post I make. you are liberty to ignore my contribution of course.
I’m sorry if you find my admittedly shorthand versions of physical hypothesis that affect climate sensitivity are inadequate. I hoped they would be enough to indicate that there are at least something like physical hypothesis for factors involved in climate sensitivity in the ‘standard version’.
I haven’t claimed there is evidence providing confirmation.
I probably will comment further on feedbacks and sensitivity at some point, but in the detail you seem to demand it may take some time. I still owe a poster called Henry a response to his CO2 radiative cooling links and claims….
Perhaps you should have mentioned that Gavin Schmidt was one of the debaters. No wonder he avoids debating AGW. ;>)
Gnrnr says: Re;- CFCs chemical unreactivity.
February 6, 2011 at 7:05 pm
“So they are not chemcially inert. Which is it?”
They are chemically inert, so do not react with other molecules.
But the molecular stability is destroyed by strong electromagnetic radiation – UV.
Once the UV breaks them down the constituent Chlorine is free to react.
This is basic chemistry and was also covered in the link I gave earlier.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
February 6, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Mant thanks for picking up the CFC debate with izen. I need to get back to the day job (as a physicist) and you have saved me hours of research. I did not want to leave izen’s comments unchallenged. Also, you clearly know a lot more than I do about the subject!
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
“A September 1990 article, as if science hasn’t moved on since then in its understanding of ozone, the ozone hole and what could cause it, etc.
From the D’Aleo piece:
The ozone hole has not closed off after we banned CFCs. See this story in Nature:…”
Yes, I remeber this thread, it was one of the first I participated in here. Of course the research that seemed to indicate that the Cl2O2 photo-breakdown was slower than previously measured used a new methodology with uncertain errors due to contamination. It dates from 2007.
Since then science has moved on, the measurements have been repeated using several other methods, most notebly means of measuring the actual rate in the stratosphere.
Here is a post I made in the D’Aleo thread. –
izen says:
January 9, 2011 at 2:31 pm
For those that might think that the research quoted in the original thread essay has not been refuted –
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100722092227.htm
“For the first time, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) scientists have successfully measured in the ozone layer the chlorine compound ClOOCl, which plays an important role in stratospheric ozone depletion. The doubts in the established models of polar ozone chemistry expressed by American researchers based on laboratory measurements are disproved by these new atmospheric observations. The established role played by chlorine compounds in atmospheric ozone chemistry is in fact confirmed by KIT’s atmospheric measurements.”
Myrrh says:
February 6, 2011 at 4:58 pm
“So man-made Carbon Dioxide sinks?”
It is kinda disconcerting to find these basic misconceptions about the atmosphere croping up yet again. This is not rocket science, or even climate science, its basic physics known for at least a century.
The ratio of the kinetic energy of molecules in the atmosphere and the gravitational force means that the gravitational fractionation of different molecular weights is minimal over the 10Km height of the troposphere and insignificant up into the stratopshere. Gases are well mixed irrispective of their molecular weight.
The reason that natural halogen coumpounds do not make it to the stratosphere is NOT a function of their molecular weight. It is a function of their extreme reactivity with water.
Water vapor does not make it into the stratosphere in significant amounts as measurements from the last century and since have confirmed. This despite being almost the lightest molecule in the atmosphere.
The reason is the condensation and freezing of water vapor ‘rains out’ water vapor and it takes the halogens with it.
The water vapor takes a little of the CO2 as a dissolved component too, but most CO2 gets well mixed because unlike Halogen compounds its affinity for water vapor is much lower.
The reason why only Chlorine from big explosive volcanoes makes it to the stratosphere while CFCs and CO2 released at ground level migrate there is because there is no chemical process that links the CFCs and CO2 to water vapor which normally removes halogens before they reach the stratosphere. This removal process is only bypassed by explosive volcanoes that inject Chlorine high enough to avoid the water vapor in the lower troposphere.
All of this information is readily available for anybody who makes the effort to look it up, rather than seeks quibbles to carp about the settled science.
The only people who insist that debate stop are those who are afraid of what continued debate will reveal. If the science were actually “settled”, they wouldn’t fear debate. As others have said, follow the money to find what motivates them.
I was once involved in a discussion about “global warming” (or whatever the term du jour is) with someone who claimed to have a degree in environmental sciences (I don’t know if he actually did, although I have no reason to doubt it). So I asked him the following: “1,000 years ago, it was warm enough to grow figs and olives in Northern Germany. The evidence for this is indisputable; both the local churches and municipalities have numerous records of the harvest of both crops, and they had no reason to falsify them. Yet we STILL are not warm enough to grow figs and olives in Northern Germany today; so explain why I should be concerned about the planet getting warmer?”
His mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish out of water, and then he shut up.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Watt. But for you “warmists” here, if you want me to be concerned about the planet getting warmer, you’re going to have to provide evidence to me that the planet is at least as warm as written records and/or other evidence show it has been in the geologically recent past (2,000 years or so). So call me back when they’re growing figs and olives in Northern Germany, or when warm weather beetles are back in Scotland (there’s lots of evidence that beetles that live in climates warmer than Scotland has now used to live in Scotland, again about 1,000 years ago; all you have to do is dig to find their dead “bodies”), or when all the Viking settlements in Greenland are uncovered by the Glaciers, or .. well, you get the picture.
And don’t talk to me about your computer models until you’re accounting for solar output (both the increase in energy output due to more helium fusion occurring, and sunspots), and the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit (which varies over time and affects our climate).
I missed that comment of yours (the volume of contributions to this blog now far exceeds the time I have to read them, fascinating though so much of it is!), so for others, here’s a part:
That you and ge0050 have come up with such similar observations is a sanguine example of “Great minds think alike.”
Like Ron House (February 6, 2011 at 6:17 pm), I also appreciate your juxtaposition of the Great Pyramid with Stonehenge. Though one must be a bit chary of climatic determinism, it is clear that the first monument-building civilizations arose in warm, fertile climates.
I do recall, however, an argument that the great advances of Western industrialization and Enlightenment philosophy occurred in the colder regions of Europe (and North America) because of the sharp minds that were stuck indoors cogitating and inventing, not relaxing on tropical verandas. Their endeavors, of course, were all made possible by our old fossil friends, coal and gas.
/Mr Lynn
In reply to the 2/6/11 6:35 PM post of Theo Goodwin:
Melting ice would have had positive albedo feedbacks 10,000 years ago when the glaciers were melting, but the icecaps covering Greenland and the Arctic Ocean must have reached a stable equilibrium , else that positive feedback would have continued until there were no icecaps anywhere on earth. It turns out that increases in cloud cover now act as a NEGATIVE feedback.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticReflector/arctic_reflector4.php
“Being able to establish a definite seasonal cycle in polar clouds during this period would have been an important contribution to climate change research all on its own. But the results only got more interesting. Although sea ice and snow cover had noticeably declined in the Arctic from 2000 to 2004, there had been no detectable change in the albedo measured at the top of the atmosphere: the proportion of light the Arctic reflected hadn’t changed. In other words, the ice albedo feedback that most climate models predict will ultimately amplify global warming apparently hadn’t yet kicked in.
Kato quickly understood why: not only is the Arctic’s average cloud fraction on summer days large enough—on average 0.8, or 80 percent—to mask sea ice changes, but an increase in cloudiness between 2000 and 2004 further hid any impact that sea ice and snow losses might have had on the Arctic’s ability to reflect incoming light. According to the MODIS observations, cloud fraction had increased at a rate of 0.65 percent per year between 2000 and 2004. If the trend continues, it will amount to a relative increase of about 6.5 percent per decade. At least during this short time period, says Kato, increased cloudiness in the Arctic appears to have offset the expected decline in albedo from melting sea ice and snow.”
That negative feedback kept Greenland from melting over the last 10,000 years.
I wonder what negative feedback kept the Glaciers from expanding all the way to the
equator over the course of the Pleistocene- a shortage of water vapor to feed the icepacks? Changes in global circulation where the equatorial region kept more its heat rather than transferring it to the poles?
richard verney says: February 6, 2011 at 10:52 am I agree with your point wrt both monuments created in more climatically optimum times, as well with the difference in sophistication. However, unless the Stonehenge stones were glacially deposited, they came from 160 miles away, quite a feat in itself. The times when the human culture creates more than is needed for survival, such as monuments, decorative objects, etc., it is only because they are well-fed and not fighting for survival. Flourishing happens in warm climes, not cold. I would also propose that it is the tempering by cold intrusions, and learning to cope, that has led to the innovations of agriculture, domestication of animals, clothing, war (we’re starving, there’s nothing to hunt or forage for, so let’s steal from our neighbors), etc.
I thought this was a post about Gavin Schmidt and Fred Pearce.
Are those who are arguing that the science is settled doing so to support Gavin’s stance? If so why does he deny the opinion that he declined to attend the conference because the science is settled and he only is interested in discussing what policies are needed to mitigate the problem?
To me it seems Gavin is just misunderstood… Here is the climax again: “No ‘conflict resolution’ is possible between the science community who are focussed on increasing understanding, and people who are picking through the scientific evidence for cherries they can pick to support a pre-defined policy position.”
He isn’t referring to us at all but rather to himself and his team. Who else “picks through scientific …to support a pre-defined policy position”? This is and has always been a hallmark of the so called environmental movement.
We are the science community that is focused on understanding. He and his team are doing all they can to avoid it for fear it would kill the cash flow.
I don’t know for sure but this interpretation makes more sense. Even a mediocre 9th grader isn’t ignorant enough of scientific method to think Gavin is doing science, so I assume he knows he is fudging the data.
Actually, though it is a not-so-carefully guarded secret within the community of Real Climate Pscientists, Gavin Schmidt is really just Michael Mann with a false nose.
Think about it: have you ever seen them together?
From izen on February 7, 2011 at 5:30 am:
Thus we see, once again, Establishment Science™ at work. What is not being questioned is the “…established role played by chlorine compounds in atmospheric ozone chemistry…” The Nature piece linked at the D’Aleo article carefully concludes:
Thus that Science Daily piece stating said role is confirmed, is essentially meaningless, since that wasn’t being challenged. The exact chemical reactions, given the questions about the rate of photolysis (light-activated splitting) of dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2), aka chlorine monoxide dimer, is what is in doubt. The basis of the Montreal Protocol remains, those dirty CFC’s are doing it, mankind is still at fault. The position of Establishment Science™ remains as it was.
Now, you have presented some balloon measurements, with the statement from the piece:
That presumably is referencing the rate of photolysis reported from work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mentioned in the Nature article:
Well, here’s another Science Daily piece (bold added):
Checking the page of publications arising from MLS data here, this citation is found:
No link to the paper there. The abstract and full text are available here.
Tens of thousands of measurements worldwide by satellite, trumps a few balloon measurements above Northern Scandinavia.
Establishment Science™ still prevails. It is still mankind’s fault. The Montreal Protocol was not enacted in error. No one in these articles is questioning that CFC’s, those chlorine compounds, are depleting ozone. They wouldn’t dare, it’d be career suicide.
All this furor, this infighting, is over questioning about the exact chemical reactions occurring. Because to question would be to admit doubt. There can be no doubt in Establishment Science™. There is Overwhelming Consensus, No (serious) Debate, The Truth Is Known. Establishment Science™ is Settled Science.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
“There can be no doubt in Establishment Science™. There is Overwhelming Consensus, No (serious) Debate, The Truth Is Known. Establishment Science™ is Settled Science.”
Quite right.
The Earth orbits the Sun; We share common ancestry with the rest of biological life and CFCs destroy ozone in the stratosphere.
Get over it.
Wondering Aloud says:
February 7, 2011 at 8:56 am
“To me it seems Gavin is just misunderstood… Here is the climax again: “No ‘conflict resolution’ is possible between the science community who are focussed on increasing understanding, and people who are picking through the scientific evidence for cherries they can pick to support a pre-defined policy position.”
He isn’t referring to us at all but rather to himself and his team. ”
One of the funniest things about this whole issue is that BOTH sides are honestly and sincerely convinced that they are the people focused on increasing understanding by a rational and unbiased examination of the evidence; and BOTH sides consider that the other are people who are dishonestly and fraudulently picking through the evidence for cherries to support a pre-defined policy position.
As usual the people on both sides ascribe to themselves the moral superiority of neutrality and integrity, and project onto the other all the most heinous and disreputable traits they consider humans capable of. Neither side seems aware that the human capacity for self-delusion exceeds the capacity for honesty or deceit.
But to (mis)quote Feynman –
You can’t fool Nature.
izen says:
February 7, 2011 at 10:29 pm: “Get over it.”
I think that it is a pity that a valid debate about CFCs and ozone has become intolerant. There are clearly outstanding issues about chemical reaction rates and the quantities of CFCs in the stratosphere required to attenuate UV radiation. All of the research demonstrates that the science is not “settled”.
Roger Longstaff says:
February 8, 2011 at 8:50 am
” There are clearly outstanding issues about chemical reaction rates and the quantities of CFCs in the stratosphere required to attenuate UV radiation.”
Its the ‘actress’ and the bishop scenario….
There is no argument about whats happening;
Just the price.
izen says:
February 8, 2011 at 11:06 am: “Its the ‘actress’ and the bishop scenario….
There is no argument about whats happening; Just the price”
OK – I give up, you win.
Debating with you is the intellectual equivalent of “bashing the bishop”. As for the actress, I will try to take your advice and “get over it”.
All the best mate.
From izen on February 7, 2011 at 10:29 pm:
That’s it? All my research, writing, proofreading, and all I get is : Yeah, well, what I said at the start is still true! You can go stuff it! Yup, great job there intelligently refuting my points and responding in a reasoned manner.
In any case,
One:
Two: First off you’re being rather Earth-centered. If there is biological life elsewhere in the universe, it’s very likely we do not share common ancestry with it, although I suppose aliens could have been seeding life on different worlds.
Plus, from another angle, biological life may be relatively common. Amino acids of extraterrestrial origin (not created on Earth) have been found in meteorites etc. You can Google “amino acid asteroid” for info. Here’s an interesting example:
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Amino_Acids_Get_Into_Some_Hot_Water_999.html
Some scientists believe these building blocks of life were “cooked” at deep-sea hydrothermal vents, leading to life originating there. However “the next step” has been found in meteorites, as read in this Discover piece:
As can be seen, the initial pieces of biological life may be “raining down from the heavens” and creating life wherever suitable throughout the universe, and we will have no common ancestry with that other biological life. Also, the possibility definitely exists there could have been more than one “origin of life” on Earth, thus it is also possible that all biological life on Earth does not have common ancestry. Since similar chemicals are found, lifeforms with similar chemistry are not automatically assured of having common ancestry. Moreover, one should be aware of the debate concerning the earliest forms of life on Earth. From the Wikipedia Prokaryote entry:
Read up on protobionts, for which work exists showing they may be formed spontaneously. Heck, go soak up the Wikipedia abiogenesis entry, learn about all the many theories about the initial origin of life, which, amazingly enough, is still a matter of serious scientific contention. See the “Multiple genesis” section, then finish off with this extensive Scientific American piece:
Indeed, about the only way one can say with absolute certainty “…We share common ancestry with the rest of biological life…” is if one absolutely believes all biological life descended from a divine being.
Three: The CFC’s themselves are harmless to the ozone. They do not destroy ozone in the stratosphere or anywhere else. It is the decomposition products that tear apart ozone, as in the chlorine radical, of which there are also natural sources.
Looks to me, for three of three, you goofed.
Get over that.
izen,
You apparently are unaware of something important in your defense of Establishment Science™.
The Nature article mentioned in the D’Aleo piece questions the photolysis rate:
That is with photolysis, with ultraviolet light doing the splitting.
However, groundbreaking research by Qing-Bin Lu has shown a statistical correlation between ozone depletion and cosmic rays. From PhysicsCentral, an American Physical Society (APS) site, comes this 2009 piece examining his 2001 and 2009 papers. There is criticism of the work presented, but also how it dovetails with the slow photolysis rate mentioned in the Nature piece. Later Lu had a new paper published in the February 2010 Physics Reports, abstract and paywall here, providing more and stronger evidence. The press release was covered here at WUWT, presumably because Lu also found, without looking for it, that CFC’s and the recent global warming appear linked.
So, Establishment Science™ can relax, the CFC’s are still at fault, the Montreal Protocol must stay in place. It’s cosmic rays doing the breaking down, not UV, that’s the difference. Perhaps it may even be a blend of both.
Except, Lu’s 2010 paper shows a connection between global warming and CFC’s, not carbon dioxide. Establishment Science™ cannot allow that, CO2 must be at fault, as they have said all along. Therefore, it cannot be cosmic rays, therefore it must be photolysis, therefore that new slower rate must be wrong. Establishment Science™ has spoken, thus it is the truth.
Side note: Although Lu 2010 was in a February 2010 publication, it was available online in, and the press release dates from, December 2009. As mentioned, it links global warming with CFC’s, not CO2. This perhaps is linked to a pseudonymous snarky drive-by comment in January 2010 at the PhysicsCentral piece by someone calling themselves “EliRabett“. There may be an interesting backstory behind that, or not. ☺
@-kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
You counters to the three claims I made would be described by one recent writer (Neil Stephenson – Anathem) as Kefedokhles I think….
“You apparently are unaware of something important in your defense of Establishment Science™…..However, groundbreaking research by Qing-Bin Lu has shown a statistical correlation between ozone depletion and cosmic rays. ”
Interesting, but as pointed out in the article, Rolf Müller and Jens-Uwe Strooß and more amusingly by the Bunny, have shown the correlation does not hold up.
The ‘Establishment Science™’ has UV levels, temperature in the S polar vortex and CFC levels as the major factors in ozone depletion. This past S polar winter, and next will have high GCR flux levels presumably as solar activity is low, so if Quing-Bin Lu is right, the size of the ozone hole last S polar winter and this coming S polar winter will be very big.
On the other hand there is some dispute I gfather over UV levels from the sun through its cycle, and polar stratospheric temperatures may be a factor, while ozone levels are a factor in stratospheric temps, so a nice feedback loop there…
Any idea what the recent ozone hole figures are ? And how that supports or refutes Quing-bin LU or supports the Establishment Science™.
Personally am very skeptical about any significant modification of the science of CFCs/ozone developed over the last 30 years.
From izen on February 9, 2011 at 9:02 am:
Now they’re only “claims”? I thought they were Irrefutable Facts from Settled Science, as marketed.
Once again, you duck. This time you also provide an obscure reference to a near-impenetrable 1000+ page tome that qualifies for an experiment in carbon sequestration as the original hardcover version is too valuable as a doorstop to burn.
Then there’s the irony of referring to a story where the Powers that Be (the Sæcular Power with the Inquisition) methodically restrict scientific inquiry, ostracize those with evidence that challenges the Establishment, actively suppress the truth, and are finally forced to capitulate after the truth becomes impossible to deny. Said truth originating with “outsiders” separate from the Establishment and the scientific community. Beautiful.
Then there’s the actual definition, found by a Google Books search, Result 4 of 4:
My counters to your three claims would be described as a person?
Bunny snark aside, did you look at the 2009 Rolf Müller and Jens-Uwe Strooß paper, available here? As found in the concluding “In summary…” paragraph:
So basically they’re admitting there could be something to Lu’s work, and not completely ruling out cosmic rays. Also, that deals with Lu’s 2001 and 2009 papers, not the 2010 paper. Thus it could be, as I mentioned, both cosmic rays and ultraviolet light, with the CR picking up the slack represented by the lower rate of photolysis by UV.
I found some cosmic radiation data here, select “Plot Monthly Data.” Among all the stations in the monitoring network, it’s pretty easy to pick out those whose data could use some quality control. But in general, as is easily seen, cosmic radiation has been in decline for the past few years. McMurdo is listed, there it’s been declining for the past few years.
NASA has their “Ozone Hole Watch” site here with info. The “hole” is largest in area with the ozone minimum reading lowest in the Southern Hemisphere spring, not winter. As seen with the Annual graphs (note the Annual figures are actually averages of a short period), the area of the hole has been shrinking and the ozone minimum reading increasing for the past few years.