Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
You’ve heard of “Post Normal Science”? I investigate “Para Normal Science”. That’s the kind of science that is based on the willing suspension of belief in the physical laws of nature. Continuing my investigation of para normal science, I find a group that takes the long view of sea level rise. They don’t mess about with decadal scenarios. They disdain looking a mere century into the future. The press release is here, the paper’s paywalled, abstract here. The press release is titled:
Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
Figure from the press release issued by the Niels Bohr Institute of the University of Copenhagen. Estimates prepared for the purposes of alarmism only, not warranteed for any other application. © 2011 by BeVeRyScArEd Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Neal’s Boring Institute.
My favorite part of the press release about the paywalled paper was this:
Actual measurements. Not fake, counterfeit, false, ersatz, phony, bogus, pseudo, or imitation measurements. Actual measurements.
Whenever they say something like “based on actual measurements”, I can’t help but be reminded of Hollywood’s “Based on a true story”, and how far the Hollywood version always is from the actual story warts and all …
In any case, no matter how they designed their climate supermodel, scenarios five centuries long? I’m sorry, but that’s a complete wank. No one will be alive to see even the 200 year mark. It will make no difference to our current choices. Indeed, it will likely be forgotten before the year is out. It is probably produced specifically with the aspiration of receiving the honor of being entombed in the fifth IPCC assessment report, a fitting burial place for such work. It may be based on a true story, but the facts have been changed to protect the innocent, so much so that any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.
But most of all, it is an exercise in projecting a simple curve into the future, which is a newbie error I was warned against in high school. You can’t just extend a curve out for 500 years, that’s a pathetic joke even if you do call it a “IPCC scenario”. Oh, wait, that terminology is so yesterday. The new IPCC bureaucratic scientese term is “Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) radiative forcing scenarios” … I kid you not.
But even if you call it a Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) radiative forcing scenario, still, five hundred years? Five centuries? Get real!
Para Normal Science at its finest.
w.
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Aslak Grinsted says:
October 21, 2011 at 8:43 am
“These physical models are certainly much better justified that your hand-waving hypothesis, that the system will not respond to any forcing that is imposed on it …. Well, that just comes across as some hippie “Mother Gaia will protect us”.”
Aslak, you don’t have all the physics you would need to justify running an iterative model 500 years into the future and still posit that its results are in any way meaningful – well, even if you had them, the chaotic properties of weather would render it meaningless; look up the definition of chaos.
After you have called us an agitated mob, I feel free to express my opinion about the kind of paper you produced. It’s charlatanry.
Aslak Grinsted says:
October 21, 2011 at 2:32 am
“Regarding the recent dip in altimetry sea level: It is obviously due to ENSO. Please note, that this ENSO response was predicted before it happened (see Landerer et al. 2008) / find it on google ). So there is a really solid reason to expect the global mean sea level estimates “to reverse their recent downward trend and begin to increase as the La Niña effects wane”.”
You are wrong in this regard as well. There was a La Nina in 2008; but sea level did not drop afterwards (and many more La Ninas before that; where sea level did not drop).
That one guy called Landerer ran a computer program that showed a time series that is now used to say “We predicted something correctly” is not very remarkable; you fail to mention the many, many mispredictions of the AGW scientists which continue to mount. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
@Spector
Thanks for providing a scientifically sound number set. The Air Force does not play around with climate games, they just want the correct answer. As they say, it is basic physics. Such an additional forcing will drive the heat engine to transport a little more heat into the upper atmosphere, as Bejan shows. I am becoming convinced that clouds are the greatest long term forcing and cooling agent given a substantially stable gas mix. There is just so much cloud cover, the influence is huge. Imagine a comparison between a doubling of CO2 and a 50% reduction in cloud cover. Which would have more influence?
Clouds cover does seem to overwhelm all other considerations. Any of various factors drive cloud formation and type, including CR apparently. If it wasn’t for CO2 distracting attentions and resources to CAGW, this nut would soon be cracked (at least quantified better). We would all be discussing actual climate drivers by now. We could then refer to new excellent models and begin the debate on climate control/mitigation. Fortunately, more and more people are coming to the same conclusion. Unavoidable, I would say. GK
I, at least, agree that more CO2 will indeed heat the ocean, melt ice, and warm the atmosphere. However, the thermostat effect of thunderstorms, and the shade effect of clouds, takes place immediately, reducing the warming from the CO2. Thus, the amount of ocean and atmosphere warming and ice melting will be too small to worry about, as will the amount of “extreme rainfall and flooding”. This is because of the immediacy of the clouds effects, when the heat reaches the tipping point, the cloud forms immediately, the shade happens immediately, the surface is cooled by the shade, and that reduces the amount of upward longwave radiation. Reducing the amount of longwave reduces the “greenhouse effect”, less longwave means less for the “greenhouse effect” to effect. result, immediate heat drop and/or slowed rise (usually the former followed by the latter). Now less heat means less evaporation and less cloud formation (less than there would be without the shading effect), thus we only see a smallish rise in cloud formation, thunderstorms, etc, thus, no “extreme rainfall”. This is all reset every day by this thing called “sunset”, result, it never gets so hot or cold as to result in drastic catastrophic changes, such as is predicted by AGW.
And as for that “extreme rainfall and flooding”, it seems if you can’t have your warming and sea level rising, you immediately switch to extreme rainfall and flooding. Are you just looking for a disaster to happen linked to CO2, to allow you to control it and us? This looks like a standard rhetorical trick, if you are bested on one point, rather than concede that you are wrong, or even could be wrong, you point in another direction and say “well…but what about this?” You need to be able to at least except the idea that sometimes, you may be wrong, and/or the other guy may be right (or you could both be wrong). You need to at least be able to look at someones idea that contradicts your own and be at least willing to entertain the thought that they may be right. That does not mean that you have to automatically agree with it, merely that you do not need to automatically get defensive and use any tactic to refute it, honest or not. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle
And how, then, are we to decide which ideas are to be accepted? Well, we could try this newfangled idea called the scientific method. And many people are here, and call themselves “skeptics”, because they first noticed that the proponents of AGW are most definatly not using the scientific method. Instead, we see logical fallacies and rhetorical tricks, deliberately hidden data and methods (even to the point of breaking the law to conceal it), mistaking the map for the territory (complete reliance on models), and just plain old brow beating and name calling. And then finally, we find “climategate”, where we find outright lying and resorting to hurting anyone who apposes AGW (blocking their papers, getting them fired), and we see these actions continuing, and even intensifying. And then, on the skeptics side, we start to see actual use of the scientific method. So, which side should a really educated mind take? If I hear about, say, the thermostat hypothesis, and then see actual data that shows it to be actually happening in real life, and even more, compare it with my actual personal observation of what happens to temperature on a hot day when a thunderstorm happens, should I at least entertain the thought that it may be true? Or should I simply dismiss all that, and say “my model doesn’t predict this, so it cannot be true” (mistaking the map for the territory)? Or should I say “well, none of my peers hold this position, so it cannot be true”? That is reverting to the pre scientific method, which says that it can only be true if some Famous Old Dead Greek Guy said so (“appeal to authority”). Alternately, you could be agreeing with your peers out of simple cowardice. That is, you agree with them because if you do not, they will shun or blackball you or block all your papers or cut off your funding. In that case, what is really happening is not science, it is mob rule. Ask Galileo about that sort of thing. Ask yourself, who turned out to be the scientist in the end, Galileo or his critics? Do you wish to be a scientist? So what actions will you take?
“Suspension of belief”
Don’t you mean suspension of DIS-belief? Suspension of belief implies that you believe in “para-normal” science in the first place.
Oops, never mind (re: suspension of belief). I misread. My apologies!
@G. Karst
>Unavoidable, I would say.
Agreed. It was a short trip for me to reach this conclusion. I knew a long time ago that CO2 could not be the major driver of climate (which I don’t need to go into now) but it was confirmed 7 years ago when the first significant studies on Black Carbon (BC) started to be published. I happened to know one of the most active contributors to this field and this person was very carfeul about publishing results after first getting an appointment, the implication being that no jobs would be on offer if the magnitude of the implications were understood. So the publication came eventually and it was filled with ‘maybe’s and ‘could be’s’ in order not to raise hackles. Over the past 7 years more and more has been published on the warming effect of BC. It is very large and as forcing is a zero sum game (a point often overlooked) it means the CO2 contribution grows proportionally less each year on the theory chart.
It has now been admitted that biomass combustion (a sustainable renewable resource, if reasonably managed) is a large contributor to the BC content of the atmosphere. It is found at very high altitudes and has an enormous heating effect per kg. My estimate is about 2000 times a similar mass of CO2, given that the CO2 forcing has been so overstated. You won’t find a published value that high because it would put the screws to CO2. No one wants to end their career that quickly.
So having been given insights early on and the role of BC in total forcing now being uncovered, I continue to learn the workings of the atmosphere confident that we are getting closer to a real understanding with the incorporation of the GCR-cloud effect. Long may we continue to make progress.
@Crispin
I wrote extensively on the role of black carbon several years ago. Actually James Hansen hisself earlier in his career had at times assigned as much as 50% of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect to soot. Given that northern hemisphere warming is much greater than southern and soot is largely produced in the NH and distance it travels from the source before falling out to the surface is limited to several thousand kilometers and also given that more “global warming” occurs in the winter than the summer and more in higher latitudes than lower it makes the black soot hypotheses quite reasonable on the face of it. It settles out on snow and ice, and it floats and concentrates on the surface getting darker and darker when the snow/ice melts only partially.
Offsetting this however is its effect while it is still airborne and studies of airborne soot over the ocean suggests the shadow it casts causes a cooling effect rather than warming effect and, moreover, when it settles out onto a liquid ocean surface it has no further effect because it is incapable of lowering the albedo of water. Given that even in the northern hemisphere ocean surface is much greater than land surface the shadow cooling may very well be the dominant one in the global picture. This also has great appeal in being consistent with the facts on the ground because, beginning in the 1960’s great efforts were undertaken to limit the production of black soot and these were largely successful. The convenient fact around the black carbon cooling hypothesis is that global temperature started increasing at the same time that anthropogenic soot started decreasing. Given that around the same time as the anti-soot measures were enacted anti-sulfate measures were also undertaken and it’s quite firmly believed that anthropogenic sulfate emissions from fossil fuel combustion have a marked cooling effect from the same sunlight-blocking (shading the surface) principle.
Rather than CO2 from fossil fuel causing some of the warming it is very likely IMO that the real anthropogenic story is more like partial filtering of fossil fuel combustion products, specifically filtering out the soot and sulfates, has tipped the balance from the emissions being surface temperature neutral to surface temperature increasing. In other words there would be no anthropogenic warming if we burned our fossil fuels as God intended and let all the emissions return to nature instead of filtering out some of those combustion products.
In this same vein methane is also largely overlooked. It is now given as being responsible for up to 33% of total AGW and its production is increasing at twice the rate of CO2. There are many anthropogenic culprits for rising methane. Two the largest are rice production and ruminant livestock production. Others include blowoff from oil wells which are too distant from any economical means of collecting and transporting the natural gas (which is essentially pure methane), leakage from natural gas transportation pipelines, abandoned coal mines, fermentation in land fills, composting, incomplete incineration of waste products, and a host of other industrial processes and unwanted anaerobic fermentations.
Willis Eschenbach says:
October 21, 2011 at 10:33 am
“The climate is a heat engine.”
[sigh] No, it isn’t.
There are heat engines within the climate system. Passive radiative heating and cooling that results in no matter being put into motion (i.e. work being accomplished) is a significant part of the climate system. If no work is accomplished there is no heat engine.
Aslak Grinsted says:
October 21, 2011 at 8:43 am
“I don’t feel singled out as a victim, because it is like this on pretty much all WUWT threads: I just wanted to highlight for bystanders that adressing WUWT really is like adressing an agitated mob.”
I suppose that’s fair from your POV. From my POV as an agitated mob member addressing the community of climate boffins is like addressing the Vatican. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
@ur momisugly Aslak Grinsted
You are a brave soul and I am deeply grateful for the hard scientific work that you do.
@Aslak
So, you’ve explained to me that the recent slowdown in sea level rise is explained by ENSO. That’s fair but it essentially means that predicting long term sea level rise or fall is dependent on being able to predict long term ENSO behavior. So start predicting long term ENSO for me.
Really, Aslak. This is like a economist saying recessions are explained by a drop in the employment rate and then expecting that this answer would not simply raise the question of why the employment rate dropped.
So Aslak, why the recent severe La Nina?
Let me help you along. The La Nina happens in large part because of an increase in trade winds. The agitated ocean surface absorbs less solar energy through increased albedo and also causes it to lose heat faster through increased conduction and evaporation.
Again, that’s a great explanation but it still doesn’t give us any predictive powers about ENSO because now we have to predict trade wind behavior which predicts ENSO which predicts sea level rise/fall.
So start predicting long term trade winds for me, Aslak.
Dave Springer says:
October 23, 2011 at 12:59 am
Willis Eschenbach says:
October 21, 2011 at 10:33 am
“The climate is a heat engine.”
[sigh] No, it isn’t.
There are heat engines within the climate system. Passive radiative heating and cooling that results in no matter being put into motion (i.e. work being accomplished) is a significant part of the climate system. If no work is accomplished there is no heat engine.
++++++++++
The passive and cooling parts you describe are components of the heat absorbing and cooling elements of a heat engine. Bejan’s said it is a heat engine that sits on the very brink of a higher energy transport phase – in other words is sits at a maximun efficiency for the energy in it. If you add energy it immediately stabilises at a higher level of heat transport. That is why the average temperature is so stable across a huge range of conditions. It is easier to think of it as a thermo-acoustic engine because the components of a TA engine are separated logically. It is easier to think of the heat transport as a classical Stirling engine because of the way the heat moves through the atmosphere, which is it s ‘working fluid’.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
October 23, 2011 at 9:08 am
Don’t be ridiculous. Everything you see outside isn’t a heat engine or a part of a heat engine. Asinine concepts like this are what give CAGW skeptics a bad name.
Dave Springer says:
October 23, 2011 at 12:59 am
Sigh … yes, the entirety of the climate it is a heat engine. The climate moves massive amounts of air and water from the tropics to the poles. Your claim that “no matter [is] being put into motion” is obviously false. What do you think drives windmills, if no matter is being put into motion by the climate?
Or to quote Adrian Bejan, one of the most cited scientists on the planet:
w.
otter17 says:
October 23, 2011 at 1:34 am
Thanks for thoughts, otter, they are good ones. One suggestion.
Before awarding him the Croix de Guerre, how about we wait and see if he is indeed brave. The ball is in his court, there are a number of questions that other folks and I have asked him, and he is nowhere to be seen.
So let’s see if he returns to answer the questions or not. Then we can decide if he is brave.
Finally, if he is “brave” to briefly stand up and defend his views in front of the hostile mob, that would make me the Sergeant York of the blogs. Look how much abuse I take on a daily basis for doing the same thing you want to laud him for.
It doesn’t take bravery to face the howling mob on the Web, that’s a joke. Answer who you want to answer, and ignore the rest. How tough is that?
Having said that, he at least did show up to defend his work, albeit subsequently disappearing. He may reappear, I hope so.
But to think that him defending his scientific claims in public is some noble act misapprehends the situation. People whose words carry weight in the current discussion are those who are willing to stand up and publicly explain and defend their views. They are those whose work and code and data are transparently displayed in the full glare of the public arena, for anyone to point out the errors … as has happened to me at times, people found very large errors in my work, and that’s science.
Like you, otter, I give Aslak Grinsted big props for showing up at all to defend his work. He is one of the few scientists willing to do that, and it is a good thing worth encouraging. It’s just not a noble or brave thing. So what if people say mean, hurtful things to you? What, you a snowflake gonna melt with a little verbal heat from random internet chatterati? IGNORE THE POLLOI, and make a reasoned defense of the 500 year predictive abilities of a tuned model.
Or not … in either case, the only bravery needed is the bravery required to expose your ideas to the public and see them shot down. Overcoming the fear of being publicly shown to be wrong, that takes some bravery. Aslak started down that path. I hope he continues to walk it.
Thanks,
w.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
October 23, 2011 at 9:08 am (Edit)
Thank you, Crispin. The Bejan paper I cited gives the math underlying the analysis. Bejan is far from the only person to describe, analyze, or model the climate as a heat engine. The heat engine has two working fluids, air and water. Bejan models it as a simple heat engine, in what is obviously a “first cut” analysis.
However, that’s not all that’s going on. The planet also contains a natural refrigerant which works in exactly the same manner as the banned Freons did in your fridge. Just as in your fridge, the working fluid (Freon for the fridge, water for the climate) is repeatedly evaporated in the area to be cooled, and condensed where the reject heat doesn’t rewarm the cooled area. See the trees? That’s how they stay cool, just like us. They sweat, except it’s called “transpiration”. That heat is carried away, and the water is condensed and the heat released elsewhere.
That natural refrigeration cycle reaches its peak in the internal heat engines spawned within the whole climate heat engine—the thunderstorms. They act as natural air conditioning units, evaporating tonnes and tonnes of water to cool the surface, condensing it aloft where the heat goes upwards, and dumping cold water and the entrained cold winds on the surface. If we weren’t so familiar with thunderstorms, they would astound us, giant natural air conditioners running the same refrigeration cycle as in your household fridge … how strange is that?
w.
Ok, so if this paper by Aslak and his colleagues is fundamentally flawed with newbie high school error, then why not publish a rebuttal paper to the journal “Global and Planetary Change”? You guys seem to have enough comments and questions put together to come up with a two-page rebuttal. Peer-reviewed rebuttals are used in the scientific method to further subject a paper/idea to scrutiny from several other scientists (often with new data/ideas). From what I can tell, this paper has already passed through peer review at “Global and Planetary Change”, so a rebuttal is an option.
What has been done here might have unduly hurt Aslak and his colleagues’ reputations in the public sphere. Instead of using the peer-reviewed rebuttal route and participating in the modern scientific process, this article is posted on a blog in public, accusing them of a high school error. Willis, you have to concede that there is at least a small chance that you are mistaken about your analysis of this paper. Thus, wouldn’t it have been more kosher (and nicer) to create a peer reviewed rebuttal to the paper? Sure, create a blog post about what you might put into the rebuttal too if you like, but maybe keep the language more subdued?
The biggest problem I see with a 500 year prediction are these:
The most recent major temperature changes, the modern warm period, the little ice age, the medieval warm period, that dark ages, the roman warm period, etc (there are more) are unexplained, and had temperature swings as great or greater than that predicted by doubling CO2.. Until we know why these happened, enough so that we can predict them well in advance, we cannot predict 500 years into the future. Some say we can predict them, and that we are right this minute starting into a little ice age, that being the case, we may want all the CO2 we can get.
The most dramatic climate changes are obviously the ice ages, until we can predict these, can we even say we know anything about climate? I mean, they were BIG, if we cannot even predict that, how can we say we can predict this little stuff? And some say that we can, indeed, predict the next ice age, and that it is due right about now, that being the case, why are we worried about a small warming when we are scheduled for a large freezing?
So if we cannot predict these major temperature events then we do not know enough about the climate to predict anything 500 years into the future.
If it is true that we can indeed predict these events and have predicted both a little ice age and a full blown ice age happening starting now, then we not only need not worry about CO2, we will want all of it we can get.
otter17 says:
October 23, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Thanks for the question, otter.
First, I continue to strive to have my work published in the journals. It’s more entertaining than hitting my head against the wall. Occasionally I’m successful. But wasting all that energy on a paper this trivial? I’d rather strive to publish my original work, that’s worth the candle.
Second, impact factor. Consider the relative impact factor of WUWT and what was it, “Global and Planetary Change”. As I write this, WUWT is getting 5,000 site visits per hour. Five thousand people an hour come here to read, inter alia, my work. I just took a look. In the last year, my work on WUWT has gotten 772,344 page views. Not visits to WUWT, but people reading my work … so, where will I have more impact on the scientific discussion? Here, or there? Make no mistake, all climate scientists worthy of the name read WUWT. You’d be crazy not to, just to keep up with what’s going on. Plus it’s always great sport to see what Anthony’s up to, and what I’m up to, and Dr. Roy, and Ryan Maue, and the rest of the guest authors. That means that the same people who might, just might read my words in six months in some obscure climate journal, are pretty sure to read my words in the next day or so on WUWT. So my reach into the scientific community is far, far wider here than it would be there.
Third, timing. I write here because I can counter dubious or alarmist claims as they are raised by the AGW supporters. It would be 3-6 months before a comment to the journals could get published, and by then you’d have forgotten which paper it even referred to …
Fourth, retractions and challenges in the journals are always published in the metaphorical small print, with never the fanfare given to the original paper.
Fifth, editors are protective of their reviewers (“they wouldn’t have missed something obvious”), and they get embarrassed if they publish something obviously wrong … and so they may not rush to publicize that fact.
Sixth, those journal folks love credentials. I have a library card. Well used to be sure, but that’s it. Instead, I have experience coupled with years of study on my own. Doesn’t open many doors.
Seventh, I’m really bad at writing those dense, long-winded, boring scientific paragraphs. It feels like putting my thoughts in a vice and smashing all the ideas together and squeezing out all the juice and flavor … so I avoid it when I can.
Finally, I am in an enviable position. Unlike the many researchers who literally must “publish or perish”, I am an amateur scientist with a day job and a wife who works.This frees me to focus on having an effect on the ongoing scientific discussion, rather than focusing on journal publication. In other words, my only issue is where can I make the most difference? I’m not shackled to the journals as other researchers are.
Anyhow, that’s the answers to your question. For this paper of Aslak’s? Far too trivial to justify the work of assaulting the journal citadel … but worth rebutting here.
I’m still hoping he’ll return.
Thanks,
w.
otter17 says:
October 23, 2011 at 2:31 pm
From my perspective, using a 500 year trend extension is unbridled alarmism. Given that, I hope that I have hurt their reputations.
But you see, that’s not what really hurts their reputations. It’s that they don’t defend their own work. Aslak started to, and then vanished … his choice, not mine. He had, and was invited and encouraged to take, the opportunity to defend his reputation. To date he’s chosen not to take it.
Usually, otter, you’d be more than right about that. There’s a good chance any of us are wrong, peer reviewed or not. But that’s why I post here. So that people, including but not limited to the authors whose work I am discussing or criticizing, can step up and show me where I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, their ideas and claims are enhanced. That’s science.
But am I wrong about a half-millennium projection of a trend from a simple tuned model? Do you realize what you are saying? Do you truly think the future is that transparent and predictable? Really?
Subdued? These are people using their crackpot theories to advocate for denying inexpensive energy to the poor based on their fantasies and fears of what may happen in the time of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren (at thirty years per generation). History will judge them harshly for that hubris. I haven’t the slightest desire to see them succeed. If I can destroy their reputations, that’s a bonus, because they are engaged in trying to sentence the poor of the world to an energy-deprived squalor. Maybe you care about the rep of someone doing that. I, on the other hand, want to stop them from doing it, damage to their reputation is fine by me.
So your feel-good advice, while it does great credit to your heart, is sadly neglecting your brain. These are people out actively trying to damage the economy, our own in part but particularly the economies of energy-starved developing countries. In some cases they have succeeded, the EPA is implementing the CO2 rules that will cost billions and do nothing … and the authors of this insanity say that they are doing it for the poor.
Doing it for the poor? Their intention is damage the economy, and that can only hurt the poor, particularly in the developing world.
Never forget that, and questions about their reputations will be much clearer.
w.
PS—What are the odds that someone will quote me out of context from this post, as though I wanted to destroy the reputation of innocent scholars? I am a man of science, I think real scientists are great, I have no desire to do anything to their reputations.
On the other hand, activists making 500 year projections in support of depriving the poorest of the poor of inexpensive energy? Them, I’ll destroy their reputations and forestall their actions in any ethical way I can.
All of this reminds me of playing Space Invaders as a kid. All of these studies are like the never ending stream of aliens. You keep shooting them down and another row pops up. Studies that actually point to AGW have become scarce like the flying saucer that would randomly pop up.
In this respect I classify the studies into two groups. Group one (most of what we see) are the aliens. The studies that are built on the foundation that AGW is real and this is what is going to happen if we don’t change our ways and stop evil carbon. Group two ( the flying saucers) have become impossible to find. Is this because they think that no more work is needed in buttressing up their position or is it that they cannot come up with something that will hold water in the now focused stare of the Skeptic?
All of the group one studies drive me nuts, how can we even begin to estimate the damage when there is no solid proof AGW is really happening. Funding for this segment of climate research should be deleted it is a total waste.
I would love to see more of the group two studies. In a twisted sense the Climate Science field is wide open and if all the researchers would focus on the why instead of the what if we all could learn something. For this area of research I would gladly pay more or better yet just take it from the group one guys….
Aslak Grinsted says:
October 20, 2011 at 3:21 am
1) Increased CO2 -> Increased radiative forcing
2) stronger radiative forcing -> increased heat / warming
3) Heat/warming -> shrinks land-based ice, and expands the world oceans.
Dr. Grinsted, since the above GCM CO2 = CAGW “physics” has not yet produced even one relevant successful empirical prediction, and many empirical results have occurred which have affirmatively falsified “the [GCM] physics” by involving empirical occurrences opposite to the predictions made from “the physics”, don’t you think it’s time to give up your by now entirely Mantra-like invocation?
Surely you can do better than that?
Willis Eschenbach says:
October 23, 2011 at 10:39 pm
“First, I continue to strive to have my work published in the journals. It’s more entertaining than hitting my head against the wall. Occasionally I’m successful. ”
__________________
Oh, well that is quite good. How many many climate science papers have you published so far in journals?
“But wasting all that energy on a paper this trivial? I’d rather strive to publish my original work, that’s worth the candle.”
__________________
But if this error is so trivial, how did it pass through peer review? I thought that type of stuff was what peer review was supposed to fix. If this paper is propaganda in your mind, it is your scientific duty to send a rebuttal to “Global and Planetary Change” to nip it in the bud and get it retracted. What if a summary of this paper influences politicians or the media?
“Second, impact factor. Consider the relative impact factor of WUWT and what was it, “Global and Planetary Change”. ”
_________________
But science isn’t about impact factor. It is about being correct. It is about being peer reviewed and rigorously tested against the results/data of other the top-notch credentialed experts. What if there are some errors that you make in your articles at WUWT and they are not caught by lay people since they aren’t experts in the particular field you are publishing. Wouldn’t it be better to test your article against all the experts on the subject of historical sea level? They would be much more likely to catch errors that you may have missed. Then, you re-write your article to make it stronger and more effective.
“Third, timing. I write here because I can counter dubious or alarmist claims as they are raised by the AGW supporters.”
_________________
Ok, if there are so many dubious claims, couldn’t you address them as they come and put several rebuttals and papers “in the pipeline” so to speak, such that a few months later you would have a steady stream of rebuttals coming into the journals?
“Fourth, retractions and challenges in the journals are always published in the metaphorical small print, with never the fanfare given to the original paper.”
_________________
No, rebuttals are given equal weight so long as the evidence is there and the rebuttal paper’s writing quality is sound.
“Fifth, editors are protective of their reviewers (“they wouldn’t have missed something obvious”), and they get embarrassed if they publish something obviously wrong … and so they may not rush to publicize that fact.”
_________________
Well, stand up and press the issue with the editors, then. Get some support from fellow scientists.
“Sixth, those journal folks love credentials. I have a library card. Well used to be sure, but that’s it. Instead, I have experience coupled with years of study on my own. Doesn’t open many doors.”
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Well, then go out and get a degree. What is your current education and background? If you are smart enough to see the evidence for what it is, then start taking classes to get a Master’s or PhD. Medicine is practiced by guys with an advanced degree, and so is almost every science field. Science doesn’t reward someone that doesn’t take the painstaking effort to study the breadth of subject matter under the tutelage of an expert professor. Maybe Roger Pielke Sr. could be your advisor?
“Seventh, I’m really bad at writing those dense, long-winded, boring scientific paragraphs. It feels like putting my thoughts in a vice and smashing all the ideas together and squeezing out all the juice and flavor … so I avoid it when I can.”
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Well, then pick up a book or ask someone for help in scientific writing skills. Scientific writing is very precise and can put a distinct meaning to your ideas. Science doesn’t reward someone that doesn’t take the time to improve their skills.
“Finally, I am in an enviable position. Unlike the many researchers who literally must “publish or perish”, I am an amateur scientist with a day job and a wife who works.This frees me to focus on having an effect on the ongoing scientific discussion, rather than focusing on journal publication.”
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That is precisely the criticism of your work that some have. If you want credibility with scientists outside of WUWT, you have to rigorously subject your articles to scrutiny from experts on a specific subject. WUWT will not provide that level of peer review since mostly laymen visit. This blog is not equivalent to a peer reviewed journal. Why else would Anthony be working tirelessly to get his data into the journals? Science isn’t supposed to be some easy hobby that you can do on the weekends. If you don’t like what the peer reviewed journal science is saying, tough. Of course you can decide to not believe it and shun publishing corrections, but that would likely be characterized as anti-science by every credentialed scientist out there. If you have a contribution to make to the science in good faith, do it in the journals.