Warwick Hughes writes:
Thanks to The National Business Review in New Zealand we have this rare article on Steve McIntyre while he was visiting downunder.
Full article here, but the web version doesn’t have the same headline: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/too-much-hot-air-about-global-warming-says-researcher-rv-1
h/t to reader Bob Koss
Nice to see Steve getting press coverage which concentrates on what he actually says, not on personal or political squabbles. I note it says that a fuller text will be published in the print edition next week. Can anyone from NZ tell us if it will also be available online?
On Feb 8, 2013 7:31 AM, “Watts Up With That?” wrote: > > Anthony Watts posted: “Warwick Hughes writes: Thanks to The National Business Review in New Zealand we have this rare article on Steve McIntyre while he was visiting downunder. Full article here, but the web version doesn’t have the same headline: http://www.nbr.co.” >
“Engineering quality report…”
“Arm waving…”
Yup, that’s our boy.
Nice to see the comments by the Kiwis blowing away the one alarmist troll. Keep it up friends!
Quite the intriguing exchange following the article. One zealot takes on the world! Oh well, what can one expect these days when dealing with the church of Climate change? Nice to see people that don’t belong to the church getting a little publicity and respect – even if the zealot doesn’t think it appropriate. Should mankind – other than the wealthy elite – survive the oncoming energy crisis at a time when energy will be essential, they will look back at these times and wonder who was putting what in the water supply to create such paranoia and ignorance.
What research has Steve McIntyre done? Which UN report is the article talking about?
The article is not so bad. I guess the headline writer is an idjit.
Refreshing and fairly written.
nice to read the comments there:-)
many really Have woken up.
Hope his daughter is making a speedy recovery!
Poor old Crowd Pleaser, he /she/it is starting to sound a little bit desperate. Almost feel sorry for him/her/it, almost but not quite 🙂
I am always amused by the alarmist opinion that all “deniers” are in the pay of fossil fuel, yet their sainted protagonists, who have to justify yet more money for their projects from the tax-payer, have no similar conflicts. Just who is in denial, here?
No “denialist” I have conversed (interacted? – most are on t’internet) with do NOT deny that the world is warming; they do NOT deny that CO2 is increasing; they do NOT deny that CO2 is a “greenhouse” gas – most will happily concede that it is one of many. What they have reservations about is the categorical link between man-made CO2 and global warming. Should there be incontrovertible scientific evidence of this, then they will accept it; as yet, despite that simple request, all they tend to get is insults and vitriol from the likes of “Crowd pleaser” (a misnomer if ever I heard one!), who deny that there can be any further discussion.
@DirkH: “The article is not so bad. I guess the headline writer is an idjit.”
The word “demon” is in quotation marks, although there is no use of the word in the linked article to describe Steve Mc. The newspaper article above if you can read the small print says that someone once described him as the “Great Satan of Climate Science,” so perhaps “demon” is a paraphrase of that. Or maybe the full article, when it comes out, will actually quote someone as using the word to describe Steve.
sceptical says:February 8, 2013 at 5:09 am
What research has Steve McIntyre done? Which UN report is the article talking about?
If you don’t know, how can you be skeptical?
Check this out, http://climateaudit.org/
There is several years of reading to catch up on.
‘. Should there be incontrovertible scientific evidence of this, then they will accept it”
two problems.
1. There is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence for scientific theories. As Feynman was fond of saying Science deals with the “more likely” and the “less likely”
2. The fact that all evidence can be questioned entails that they can always refuse to accept it and evidence shows that they are more likely to refuse than accept anything that climate science says.
witness the ice loss this past year. When the accepted indices of ice area showed a record what did sceptics do? They pointed to IMS. When IMS broke the record what did they do?
They attacked all satillite data and asked for calibrattions and arm waved about accuracy.
When those didnt work, they then tried to blame the loss on an arctic storm, a claim that has since been overturned. No science argument is ever as clear as 2+2=4. That is why a dedicated motivated skeptic can always refuse to accept what science actually offers: the most likely explanation
I hope the real reason for Steve’s trip to NZ goes as well as the article.
Maybe Steve himself will feel differently, but I think that’s a pretty good headline.
‘Yet to be proved wrong’ next to a picture without horns, a forked tail and an evil Monty Burns leer is about as positive as you could hope for.
And the quotes round ‘demon’ show that it is not the view of the paper itself.
If it were about me, I’d be pretty pleased with it.
Steven Mosher says:
February 8, 2013 at 7:56 am
‘. Should there be incontrovertible scientific evidence of this, then they will accept it”
two problems.
1. There is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence for scientific theories. As Feynman was fond of saying Science deals with the “more likely” and the “less likely”
2. The fact that all evidence can be questioned entails that they can always refuse to accept it and evidence shows that they are more likely to refuse than accept anything that climate science says.
witness the ice loss this past year. When the accepted indices of ice area showed a record what did sceptics do? They pointed to IMS. When IMS broke the record what did they do?
They attacked all satillite data and asked for calibrattions and arm waved about accuracy.
When those didnt work, they then tried to blame the loss on an arctic storm, a claim that has since been overturned. No science argument is ever as clear as 2+2=4. That is why a dedicated motivated skeptic can always refuse to accept what science actually offers: the most likely explanation
————————————————————–
Meh. I agree that maybe the phraseology was unfortunate there, but I think you’re running with it a bit too far.
I know of at least some skeptics like myself in this regard. I’d be satisfied if anyone could point to a theoretical relationship that I could actually follow in the data. For example, if it was as simple as: ‘CO2 has changed by X, and go look – wow – temperature has changed by the predicted Y’ Or ‘There’s a wiggle here in atmospheric CO2, see – there’s the corresponding temp wiggle’. I know it’s not that simple, fine. Could anyone point me to the math and physics I’m missing in order to follow the mysterious relationship, and lay out what the relationship is?
What I’m getting at (probably poorly) is that I don’t need ‘incontrovertible’ evidence, I just need a theory that describes what happens in the real world reliably and accurately. I’d still argue about policy decisions and the politics of it, but that’s a separate issue.
“Demon” isn’t always a negative:
de·mon
[dee-muhn] Show IPA
noun
1.
an evil spirit; devil or fiend.
2.
an evil passion or influence.
3.
a person considered extremely wicked, evil, or cruel.
4.
a person with great energy, drive, etc.: He’s a demon for work.
5.
a person, especially a child, who is very mischievous: His younger son is a real little demon.
# 4 could well be Steve
– – – – – – – –
I recommend being more specific.
The onus is on all climate science researchers and assessors to implement professional and open quality assurance standards and controls like those widely used in modern business / industry. The onus is to use such exacting QA standards and controls starting with all primary original untouched data, in method development and revisions, in computer code control and going through to public archiving of review comments.
Just to name a just a few of the numerous places where sub-professional climate science QA has been observed by the critical blogosphere are: UVA, UEA CRU, Met, NASA GISS and NOAA NCDC.
If an independent top line professional audit team from general industry and business were to perform the kind of QA audit that is required in critical businesses and industries on those organizations then I am sure there would be shocked dismay.
John
@steven mosher
I fear you are falling into the same trap as do many catastrophists and alarmists. You are implicitly assuming that ‘scepticism’ is the reverse image of alarmism. That it can logicaly defined as ‘~alarm’. You say above ‘sceptics did this’ and ‘sceptics did that’.
Well maybe some people who are sceptics did those things. And many sceptics didn’t do anything like that at all. Scepticism comes in a lot of different varieties…not just the chiral opposite of alarmism. So whereas nearly all alarmists and catastrophists are concerned about substantially the same things, sceptics cover a wide variety of views.
In general I am pretty sceptical about most things climatic, but I am totally indifferent to the fate of Arctic Ice. I have never been convinced that it is something worth worrying about nor can I get myself worked up into a frenzy one way or another. And its floating so does nothing for sealevels whether it melts or not.
So please be more carfeul with your generalisations about ‘sceptics’.
sceptical says:
February 8, 2013 at 5:09 am
What research has Steve McIntyre done? Which UN report is the article talking about?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Head over to Steve McIntyre’s website and see for yourself linky
Background (Layman’s version):
Caspar and the Jesus paper
The Yamal implosion
The Yamal deception
A very useful tool is Ric Werme’s Guide to Watts Up With That
Here are a list of posts on Steve McIntyre from WUWT
(Steve is the guy who found the statistical/computer code game playing in Micheal Mann’s Hockey Stick that was so prominently displayed by the IPCC.)
@Steven Mosher 7:56
Thats a broad brush you are swinging, does the same logic apply to all lukewarmers?
So what caused the Arctic ice to recede in the 1920s and 1880s?
Shame about the viking circa 1300.
Carbon dioxide done it … right?
Is it possible your obsession with people who “deny” evidence is projection?
No great malice here, I used to be able to follow and enjoy your postings, of late you seem distracted, illogical and prone to engage by hit and run.
I really really need to get on this big oil money bandwagon…it seems to be an accepted truth that any “denier” is well funded by them, so where do I sign up?
I think Sceptical is merely pointing out that the article is very poorly written. The reader who knows little of the subject is left with the two questions he asked, implying that the reporter has done a shoddy job or the editor has hacked out crucial info.
Steven Mosher says:
February 8, 2013 at 7:56 am
‘. Should there be incontrovertible scientific evidence of this, then they will accept it” “two problems.”
Steve, it would help if you addressed the full statement. “What they have reservations about is the categorical link between man-made CO2 and global warming. Should there be incontrovertible scientific evidence of this, then they will accept it;”
Your two “problems” would go away if there actually was a demonstrated link, as opposed to arm waving while ignoring natural climate varibility.
Steven Mosher: When the accepted indices of ice area showed a record what did sceptics do?
I can’t speak for all sceptics but some of us checked the storm reports and air temperatures in the region (one was exceptional the other not so much, guess which way round?). Be careful of confirmation bias (everybody) – and explain how CO2 in 24 hour daylight can effect temperture?
Moshe, so where is the evidence that the temp increases since 1880 are not natural. I still haven’t seen any evidence that what’s going on with the climate isn’t natural; ie the null hypothesis hasn’t been disproved.
While I agree completely with both of your points, I have to point out that none of the evidence you mention still makes any kind of a compelling connection with warming temps and man-made CO2. Ice loss and satellite data are merely observations. The hypothesis that rising CO2 causes rising temps could still be the wrong direction of causality. The only things we know absolutely for sure (speaking as a geologist) is that the Earth has been MUCH warmer and MUCH colder than it is today, and from natural causes. CO2 has been ten times as high as today with no runaway warming, and has been much (though not by an order of magnitude) lower.
What we still have is a series of just-so stories regarding rising CO2 and warming. Which causes more of which? We can discount runaway positive feedback, because they’ve never happened before in all of Earth’s billions of years. If the Earth can get up to 2000 ppm CO2 and back down to 235 ppm all by itself, we know there must be mechanisms in place. Of course, if the CO2 got up to those levels because the Earth warmed, and then the dropped again when the Earth cooled and reabsorbed the gas, then no “something caused the CO2 levels to drop” hand-waving is required. The granularity doesn’t exist in the geologic record to say for sure that THIS TIME the CO2 rise is “unprecedented.”
These are the things that bother me in the alarmist philosophy. They are so SURE that CO2 is the culprit, and man-made CO2 at that. Personally, my skeptic position (after uncritically accepting anthropogenic warming in the late ’80s and early ’90s) dates to Phil Jones’s refusal to share his data “because you’ll just try to find something wrong with it.” Such a completely unscientific statement raised my hackles immediately and made me wonder if he didn’t want anyone to see it because there WAS something “wrong with it.” Nothing in the alarmist camp has smoothed those hackles since — real science just doesn’t work that way.
Like Tim Allen’s character said to the Big Bad in “Galaxy Quest”: “You don’t have to be a great actor to spot a bad one.” The same thing goes for scientists.
@James Schrumpf says: February 8, 2013 at 9:39 am
Did someone say “null hypothesis”?
Steve Mosher:
The corner you’re painting yourself into is getting pretty small. You must be desperate.
Got any more slimey incorrect generalizations you want to sling at the fan? It’s great when the manure flies back into the faces of the CAGW alarmist team.
Then you can explain to us all about how the weather at the North Pole is indicative of global climate? Be specific! Don’t forget to mention the winds affect floating ice and how the Antarctic doesn’t show a lack of ice.
Maybe, if you are serious about your CAGW convictions you can request that Steve McIntyre debate you in a public forum? Perhaps as part of WUWT TV?
Some famous quotes that are applicable to climate cagwers:
Curious how Climate Science has been making far fetched predictions for decades, but hasn’t been correct yet? Yeah CO2 contributes warming, now prove it; absolutely by empirical methods. Computer models are not proof!
Doubt is good! Sure we doubt each other, that’s why solid direct measured proof is required.
Words from a visionary genius and hero of science. It’s a real pity that climate scientists keep ignoring this proof concept. They must be afraid of Feynman’s and Einstein’s shadow.
Put simply and directly relating to your post of raw manure above. Prove by valid testing that the ice is melting because of CAGW influence!
In spite of your attempts to blow smoke at Feynman’s requirements of proof in real science and then tossing irrational assumptions around as if they were science.
Well, you typed it; now establish the proofs! Ayup, the ice melted; must be because of excess polar bears.
My silly assumption is as valid as yours or better said; your assumption is as invalid as mine. Show us PROOF!! Definitive repeatable results! Results that should be a step towards truly understanding climate; impacts of the sun, solar wind, cosmic rays, major and minor currents, dust storms, cities, and a thousand other variables. Making a specious claim and then showing us examples in nature that have not only occurred before, but occurred many times is not science!
Steve @ 7:47; Gail @ 8:42
You have rebuked “sceptical says: February 8, 2013 at 5:09 am” and rightly so. Yet, I sense (maybe wrongly) that ‘sceptical’ doesn’t cotton to the “audit” thing that Steve McIntyre made (and makes) a living doing for the mining industry – and has applied to the shoddy doings of the “climate scientists.” It will take a lot of popcorn and beer to carry one through all of CA since its starting. So, I think one early paper, the Ohio State Presentation, can help ‘skeptical’ out. CA links to it here:
http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/22/ohio-state-presentation/
The second link (1 MB) works (the larger one does not — on 2/8/13).
The text and photos about “Testing the Starbucks Hypothesis at Mt Almagre” on page 17 (Fig. 12) should be especially relevant as regards “research.”
Jenn Oates “I really really need to get on this big oil money bandwagon…it seems to be an accepted truth that any “denier” is well funded by them, so where do I sign up?”
Look Jen, the fact is we don’t want to share it with anyone else so its a secret. Anthony, Jo Nova, Steve etc are here with me and all the skeptics on a small idyllic Pacific Island sipping Pina Coladas all day and taking in the rays. We all take it in turns to write some garbage or other (which still seems to hit the mark!) on the web sites and lo and behold the oil money just descends from the sky in sack loads.
Anyway the others are calling and I must dash, we’re all participating in a Lewandowsky psychology experiment in a moment and we have to be on top form.
Pip pip.
“‘witness the ice loss this past year. When the accepted indices of ice area showed a record what did sceptics do? They pointed to IMS. When IMS broke the record what did they do?
They attacked all satillite data and asked for calibrattions and arm waved about accuracy.
When those didnt work, they then tried to blame the loss on an arctic storm, a claim that has since been overturned. No science argument is ever as clear as 2+2=4. That is why a dedicated motivated skeptic can always refuse to accept what science actually offers: the most likely explanation'”
First the artic loss is not of that critical. Nor is a new record low in the very short term the data set covers of great meaning. It is only a side show a small part of the picture.The sceptics mostly bring it up to show another weakness in the CAGW cult. Artic ice is certainly meaningless without considering world wide ice cover. Second The challenging of point after point is what science is about. A true skeptic strengthens science by challenging half truths and weak arguements.
And yes there are always those who will refuse to accept data and manipulate information to fit their pre conceptions. While this applies on both sides of this dicussion it is far more evident on the side of the warming crowd. That is why they are loosing the arguement. When your first response is to attack the provider of contrary evidence and your second is to bring up meaningless red herring arguement you have already lost.
Science is not about accepting current dogma. That is what religion and politics does. It is the CAGW apologists refusal to deal with the real data that clearly shows them to be religious and political not scientific.
I actuall agree with your statment that science should offer the most likely explanation. BUT, natural varation remains the most likely explanaiton. The lack of evidence that climate events are outside of natrual vatation is the glaring weakess of the CAGW suggestion. The born yesterday analysis of current data has severly discredited the CAGW apologists like yourself.
I for one will not panic every time the tide goes in or comes out. I have enough wisdom to know that trends reverse over time. Negitive feedbacks (known and not yet known) overide short term tidal like trends. For example, the panic of polititions masquadering as scientists over the natural increase in tempatures which occured in the 1974 to 1998 should be long dead by now. Tempatures have done nothing remarkable since 1998. Yet just a few years ago your side was claiming that the warming was accelatering. That insulting claim has been muted and the evidence continues to mount that there is no need to panic. Yet you still doggedly hold to your ever weaker narrative.
Yes both sides need to look at the data and not cherry pick short trends and natural varations. Your side seems so sure of the edfice that you have built that you fail to notice that it is on a foundation of speculation and not science. When the data does not support the specuation you simply deny and manipulate the data.
Yes you claim physics as the foundation. But, it is not the physics but the speclations of how those physics apply in the climate that CAGW is all about.
As for me I am still open to good arguments that the CAGW specilations have some validity. However, the activists like Dr Hansen and Dr Schmit have so discredited themselfes and their specuclations that it would have to be an exceptional arguement, well supported by real data.
“satillite data and asked for calibrattions ”
Little bit a of credibility gap there, Mosher.
Ok, me too. little bit a of credibility gap there, Paul.
Steve Mosher, you seem to hang your argument on the word, incontrovertible. Would you respond the same way if they used, e.g. unambiguous?
“witness the ice loss this past year. When the accepted indices of ice area showed a record what did sceptics do? They pointed to IMS. When IMS broke the record what did they do?” Steve, what do you point to? I hope not GAT.
john robertson says:
February 8, 2013 at 8:47 am
@Steven Mosher 7:56
Thats a broad brush you are swinging, does the same logic apply to all lukewarmers?
So what caused the Arctic ice to recede in the 1920s and 1880s?
Shame about the viking circa 1300.
Carbon dioxide done it … right?
Is it possible your obsession with people who “deny” evidence is projection?
No great malice here, I used to be able to follow and enjoy your postings, of late you seem distracted, illogical and prone to engage by hit and run.
———————————–
John Robertson, i totatally agree with that.
Beyond this, sceptics have increasingly good reason to point out the importance of black carbon on ice melt, wind patterns, AMO/PDO, previous ice melts etc. and most importantly, recently discovered negative feedbacks.
A climate sensitivity of about half of the previous central estimate,
would mean a 100% shift towards the decade old estimate of Pat Michaels, who was number 7 on Monbiot’s 2009 top 10 denier list (Guardian),
a 75% shift towards the estimate of sceptics such as Professor Lindzen and Dr. Spencer
and still a 50% shift towards those sceptics who “deny” that the greenhouse effect has any temperature !
The latter group (which is hardly represented even in sceptical blogs) would have been just as much away from “truth” as mainstream climate scientists and they would have been closer to the “truth” than a significant part of mainsctrem climate science and a very significant part of media, those who claimed it was “worse than previously thought”.
“
I see there is a developing discussion about the relationship between: 1) those who think there is sufficient scientific research to support the existence of alarming AGW from CO2; 2) those who think there is sufficient scientific research to support the existence of small to moderate AGW from CO2; 3) those who think there are many specific significant faults with the detailed technicalities of the primary research supporting 1 & 2 ; and 4) those who think that there is solely the significance of a total natural variation of the total earth-atmospheric system on any and all time scales; 5) those who find there is no CO2 component to GW within the earth’s planetary atmospheric effect (no CO2 warming effect in PAE).
I suggest the following labeling conventions can help stimulate a more clear discussion:
I think 1 through 4 have agreement on there being a physically existing CO2 component to the PAE, but whether that component is effectively significant or not to the behavior of the total Earth atmospheric system is fundamentally disputed between them.
Perhaps a critical point in the above classification is that 4 is not defined in terms of anthropogenic variation because there is nothing significant unaccounted for in nature.
Where is the weight of actual observations occurring? My assessment is => the observational weight supports 4 the most and then slightly less for 3 and then followed by several order of magnitude less observational weight for 2. Weight for 2 may have some significance. 1 and 5 are tied for insignificant observational weight.
NOTE: I tried to avoid the misleading terminology ‘GHE’ on purpose.
John
Now who was it that claimed the Arctic would be ice free in the Summer of 2010? Hmmm
To quote a great character; “Missed it by that much”
Steven Mosher says:
February 8, 2013 at 7:56 am
witness the ice loss this past year. When the accepted indices of ice area showed a record what did sceptics do?
======================================================
Well I looked at Antartica and saw a record HIGH ice extent. First I was told by the warmists that Antartica was meant to melt first, but it didn’t, so then I was told that the ice growth in Antartica was ‘predicted’. Wish I could do a 180 about face when inconveniant facts proved my theories wrong and get away with it.
I also look at the Global sea ice now and it is just below the mean and Arctic sea ice has recovered, bar being below average in the Barents Sea. So the so called ‘death spiral’ where the Arctic can not recover from such low sea-ice minimums does not seem to be true…
So as a non-scientist who is a sceptic I will start believing your lot when you create a consistent statement on what the world is going to do with the increase in CO2, stick with these statements and don’t change them on the fly when those nasty facts don’t match what you said would happen.
Until then, my sceptic hat stays on.
Steve McIntyre is a man of integrity. In my book, anyone trying to demonize him for his statistical contributions to the CAGW debate, or for his doggedness in trying to get the data necessary to replicate dodgy scientific assertions, is a feckless and ignorant …. uh, rectal sphincter (I hope that’s polite enough to get past the mods ;-).
I hope both Steve and his daughter are well.
““The observations indicate to me that the models are probably running hot, that the impact is about half of what they are showing.”
Wrong Steve. I’m quite surprised he’d make such an unsupported statement. The observations show that the IPCC’s models are wrong and that atmospheric CO2 concentrations do not control climate.
Steven Mosher says:
February 8, 2013 at 7:56 am
Yes, you are right. Perhaps I should have said, “sound, scientific evidence, open to the scrutiny of sceptics (a principle that has always been the basis of science before the advent of the UEA).” What we have had so far is more in the realms of fantasy than science.
Mind you, your argument would hold greater credence if you were to turn your spell-checker on.
Oddly enough, I do not think that I am the only sceptic in accepting that I could be wrong; I only need the evidence to be presented in a dispassionate manner; most “believers” can be quite unpleasant with sceptics.
p.s. Mark Bofill (February 8, 2013 at 8:17 am), there are peculiar reasons as to why I will never use the exclamation “wow” in my posts…
I agree with James Schrumpf (February 8, 2013 at 9:39 am); I too, was uncritical of the whole AGW scam until I saw “An Inconvenient Truth”. Not that the film put me off; no, I was totally suckered in to it; what balked me was when I pursued the idea – the more I researched, the more I became convinced we were being conned. The riposte to a FOI request: “Because you’ll just try to find something wrong with it,” was what tipped me into “denier” status.
That’s quite good for the NBR, which is normally a shamelessly left-wing rag.
A sideline but an interesting one to me at least: several commenters contrast religion = certainty community (repentance is evidently unheard of there) with science = doubt community (short for Good Guys). I a believing scientist will happily supply you with numerous live specimens of heavy sceptics on religion who happily combine this with pigheaded bigotry on any political issue of the day. Including the CAGW issue – it is PROVED, The End Is Near … They stop believing in God (or Devil), they start believing in any substitute deity (e.g. Nature) and diabolus (Big Oil – has anyone seen the millions they and the Vatican promised me?)
Steven Mosher says:
February 8, 2013 at 7:56 am
‘. Should there be incontrovertible scientific evidence of this, then they will accept it”
two problems.
1. There is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence for scientific theories. As Feynman was fond of saying Science deals with the “more likely” and the “less likely”
2. The fact that all evidence can be questioned entails that they can always refuse to accept it and evidence shows that they are more likely to refuse than accept anything that climate science says. “…
I guess philosophically all evidence can be questioned, but some things do become known. Do we not all agree that the gravitational constant on earth is ~9.8m/s^2 ? There were thousands of years that people did not know this. Now every high school kid can do the experiement and calculate that value for themselves.
Now until the AGW forcings become as calculable as that, I remain sceptical.
I think “daemon”, as in helpful spirit, is more suited to our friend Steve. I do like how they admit in BOLD LETTERS that he has “yet to be proved wrong”. How many years now and still no refutation? Hmmmm. Me thinks he is correct but I’m sure if someone could prove him wrong Steve would admit it. Just that silly scientific method stuff he seems to be hung up on. That and a lot of good character, humility and honesty.
Lordy be – I’m a Kiwi and proud to read so many skeptics over there supporting SM and also demolishing the one troll (with self proclaimed 5 science degrees) who calls himself Crowd Pleaser – perhaps not! 🙂
I think people are overblowing the “incontrovertible” thing. I have seen data that supported AGW, but when I look at it more closely, I see that it was “adjusted to conform to the model”. Data is what is measured. What they are charting is a result of data being manipulated by a model.
To me incontrovertible proof is something like this: I use Einstein’s General Relativity equations to calculate the curvature of space-time around the sun, Then I go out during an eclipse and I measure the apparent positions of stars compared to their known positions when their light doesn’t pass through the sun’s gravity well and note that they are displaced by precisely the number that Einstein’s equations predicted. Then I go out at the next eclipse and the next, then I send an observatory out into solar orbit that can block the solar disk and measure these apparent positions continuously and note in all cases that I get the predicted result. Einstein’s theory is not proven by this, but the support for the theory is pretty “incontrovertible”. If it wasn’t, we spent a lot of unnecessary money in the Air Force for processing power to correct GPS readings for the Earth’s space-time curvature. Of course if any of my experiments turn up data that disagrees with General Relativity and any lab in the world could replicate the experiment and get the same result, I’d be lining up for my Nobel in a few years.
The problem for AGW is there is no experimental proof to be had. We try to analyze a mish-mash of unrelated readings all secondarily associated with energy content and try to claim that the sky is falling. The real problem is we say it is a logarithmic relation between CO2 and temperature, but the amplitude constant out front has never been “incontrovertibly” shown. Then we ask people to spend a [self-snip] of a lot of more money then we spent on the fairly “incontrovertible” General Relativity correction when we haven’t even shown the value of that one constant to within 50% of its value – less than 1 to 4.5 is a $^#%@ large range!
Oh and on that amplitude constant – they haven’t even shown me “incontrovertible” proof that it is a constant and not some function of a lot of other factors that will swamp out the CO2 signal. The log thing came from a very simple early model.
NOTE: This post is spam:
Mike Jennings says:
February 8, 2013 at 4:53 am
Steve is da man.
I’m with Steven Mosher. The comments threads here often go completely emotional against any suggestion of warming, with zero reference to the facts. Change a few words in each comment and you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from the AGW pages.
oldfossil says: February 8, 2013 at 4:06 pm
I’m with Steven Mosher. The comments threads here often go completely emotional against any suggestion of warming, with zero reference to the facts. Change a few words in each comment and you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from the AGW pages.”
What would you say is the strongest and most definitive fact in support of AGW?
Mosh, always a pleasure to see you posting and watch you slide from lukewarmer to panic stricken believer. The seminal paper on all this was the Charney Report of 1979, the one that first introduced the still used “hundreds of independent lines of investigation” (one you’ve used yourself I believe) and introduced a sensitivity of 1.5 to 4.5, which, after $100Bn of research money having been flung at climate science remains at 2 to 4.5, the increase to 2 being made in AR4, presumably to get the expected sensitivity to a scarier 3.3. But I digress, you mention Feynmann in your cursing of sceptics, and indeed Feynmann has become one of my heroes, I particularly liked his lecture when he described the formulation and testing of a theory as going through three stages;
1. Guess
2. Compute
3 Observe.
Very simple and insightful, now perhaps you could tell us what the “compute” part is for the hypothesis of CAGW and we can go and “obseerve” because I’m buggered if I know what it is. And that’s what makes me a sceptic.
Wasn’t the sea-ice broken by the great cyclone in the early summer? I thought it was.
And why is the Arctic, which everyone knows has lost its sea ice in the past on regular occasions, the new poster child for global warming?
I like the ending, paraphrased: ‘It’s either not very bad or we’re adapting well to it.’
==============
Rod Vaughan reckons
Vilified by global warming zealots, Canadian
———
Vilify: To make vicious and defamatory statements about; to say vile things about
Who and how many?
Generally Steve is regarded with contempt but I ain’t seen much vilifying going on. Maybe some theories why Steve behaves badly.
As I have no doubt amnesia has set in I will remind you all that Steve “the gentleman Canadian” was behind associating people he has contempt for with paedophilia and pornstars. Just in case you want to feel sorry for poor little Steve.
REPLY: OK that’s it, you are banned, permanently. Get the hell off my blog. I won’t tolerate this sort of hateful crap from you anymore, Mr. Rothwell. – Anthony Watts
LT, what are you talking about?
Please explain your assertion that “generally, Steve is regarded with contempt.” By whom? Generally, most people have never heard of him, so you should be able to specify the subgroup that, according to you, regards him with contempt.
Grateful if you could also explicate your statement that Steve M. “was behind associating people he has contempt for with paedophilia and pornstars”. It is true that an ABC program in Australia allowed someone to claim that disagreeing with CAGW is like promoting kiddy-fiddling, but this is a new one on me.
Hi Steven Mosher,
the funny thing about discussing artic sea ice is that scepticism towards GHG as the main culprit may have been well warranted. Even at wikipedia you may now find surprising research:
“Black carbon emissions from northern Eurasia, North America, and Asia have the greatest absolute impact on Arctic warming.[81] However, black carbon emissions actually occurring within the Arctic have a disproportionately larger impact per particle on Arctic warming than emissions originating elsewhere.[82] As Arctic ice melts and shipping activity increases, emissions originating within the Arctic are expected to rise.”
So it may be black carbon in the first place, but another overlooked role is played by the increasing number of climate scientists polluting the arctic through the smoke stacks of their vessels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_carbon
oldfossil says:
February 8, 2013 at 4:06 pm
I’m with Steven Mosher. The comments threads here often go completely emotional against any suggestion of warming, with zero reference to the facts. Change a few words in each comment and you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from the AGW pages.
I do not recall hearing any emotional comments here over warming. Do you have some examples? I am open to proof of your claim here myself. But just saying something does not make it true. (Its funny on 4 blogs I have said that on every one just today in fact.)
As for lazy, good riddance. I don’t say that often, but something that hateful has no business being on any blog let alone the internet. Someone should take away his internet privedges for a week, spank him a few times for good measure and then allow him back if he promises to be a good boy. I know quite a few warmists who would probably behave a lot nicer if they just got spanked a little more often when they told lies.
IPCC calls tranparency-opaque. Sort of new meaning, they will have it in the dictionary of computer modelling shortly.
Darn. Lazy got hiself banned. There
goes the comedic relief!
Snaparooni writes “What would you say is the strongest and most definitive fact in support of AGW?”
For me the only relevant fact is that CO2 absorbs IR energy radiated from the surface and transfers it to the lower atmosphere. More CO2 has greater probability of just *catching* that IR energy at non-optimal wavelengths at the edges of its capability to do so and therefore transfers more energy into the atmosphere.
Its also a fact that we as the “A” in AGW are responsible for putting CO2 into the atmosphere. That part is incontrovertible, I do it myself. Whether the CO2 levels are what they are because of that is less certain IMO.
Those two facts together *should* imply some sort of warming and people like Mosher hold this to be true. People who support AGW go on to believe the worst with most aspects of the atmosphere enhancing warming. They dont have the same intuition as I do I suppose.
I’m of the opinion that our measurements so far tend to support Mosher’s point of view but I personally believe we haven’t seen all the atmosphere’s capability to deal with the increased temperature gradient and so sensitivity could easily be closer to 1C and I personally dont rule out a negative sensitivity over a significant time scale.
LazyTeenager = Donald R Rothwell, Professor of International Law and Deputy Head of School at the ANU College of Law, a consultant or been a member of expert groups for UNEP, UNDP, IUCN, the Australian Government ?
http://cci.anu.edu.au/researchers/view/donnald_rothwell/
Interesting….
REPLY: NO, not the same person as LT – Anthony
TimTheToolMan says:
February 8, 2013 at 11:13 pm
Is this a “fact”?
It is not so much the “A” part of AGW that is the bone of contention, it is also the GW part of the story. It gets worse when people insist in putting “C” at the beginning, too.
I do not understand how a gradient that has flat-lined can be described as “increased”.
Perhaps your intuition regarding “facts” needs to be reconsidered.
Perhaps you would agree with the response to one comment I made on another thread: “Global warming is happening; I can accept that. The planet has warmed and cooled in the past, without any help or hindrance from humans; why is this particular period any different?”
The response: “Because this time humans are doing it. Duh.”
It is a logic that cannot be argued with, because it follows no logic at all.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 8, 2013 at 11:13 pm
Not neccessarily.
In a process control loop, you can easily have, say
– Constant or varying inputs with
-Propotional gain factors, with feedback to the input
-Derivate gain factors, with feedback to the input.
-Integral part with feedback to the input.
You can also have many loops, which could be coupled. And the feedback gains might not be linear…..
The propotional part, with a gain, or the integral part, could easily overcome results of the change of the input, otherwise the system wouldn’t be stable. The derivate part will decide whether the system dampens out easily, or is oscillating.
History shows that the system is highly stable, and that the feedback parts are therefore negative over time. Otherwise it would have run away a long time ago, me thinks.
So one can imagine a system where you pump up some input, say the amount of CO2 increase from 0.028 % to 0.05% , and via some mechanism, like convection, evapouration change the cloudlayer, and, voila, the temperature is the same…..
Nothing has shown that this isn’t the case yet, except the models. So, according to Feynman, as Mosher seems to like to quote lately, the models must be wrong.
It’s unfortunate that LazyTeenager was banned just as his cloak of anonymity was lifted. It would have been fun seeing his professional life picked apart for awhile. I think you have unfortunately done him a favour.
MichaelS says:
February 9, 2013 at 8:09 am
It’s unfortunate that LazyTeenager was banned just as his cloak of anonymity was lifted. It would have been fun seeing his professional life picked apart for awhile…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He is interesting: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/rothwell-dr#biography
A tad bit of vested interest there.
TimTheToolMan says: @ February 8, 2013 at 11:13 pm
………….For me the only relevant fact is that CO2 absorbs IR energy radiated from the surface and transfers it to the lower atmosphere. More CO2 has greater probability of just *catching* that IR energy at non-optimal wavelengths at the edges of its capability to do so and therefore transfers more energy into the atmosphere………….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are missing the fact that there is a day and a night and incoming solar energy as well as outgoing long wave very WEAK IR. graph
A look at the actual wavelengths for energy interaction with CO2: Graph shows both CO2 and H2O interact with wavelengths in the solar as well as the earth-shine bands. SEE Chart from http://irina.eas.gatech.edu/EAS8803_Fall2009/Lec6.pdf for actual wavelengths
Therefore the actual effect is to modify the temperature by making day time temps cooler and night time temps hotter. We see this if we compare desert vs tropical rain forest.
comment 1
comment 2
comment 3
“LazyTeenager = Donald R Rothwell, Professor of International Law and Deputy Head of School at the ANU College of Law”
Amazing! And here I had thought from Lazy’s lame, drive-by style and information deficient posts that he was actually a pimple faced but idealistic teenager angry at his elders for allegedly destroying his future.
REPLY: No, that’s not the same Rothwell as the Lazy – Anthony
Radical Rodent writes “Is this a “fact”?”
Yes, this part can be measured in the lab and is independent of any “atmospheric effects”.
He goes on to write “I do not understand how a gradient that has flat-lined can be described as “increased”.”
I agree in the sense that the atmosphere can flatten that increased temperature gradient. But increased temperature gradient is what the physics predicts and that part is reasonably straightforward “with all else being equal” which it isn’t.
And then writes “The planet has warmed and cooled in the past, without any help or hindrance from humans; why is this particular period any different?””
I agree which is why I dont believe that CO2 is necessarily responsible for the warming, may be responsible for a small part of it and I dont rule out the possibility that it essentially isn’t responsible for any of it.
Nevertheless, the physics behind the prediction of warming is sound “with all else being equal”.
Gail writes “You are missing the fact that there is a day and a night and incoming solar energy as well as outgoing long wave very WEAK IR.”
I’m not missing anything Gail. You’re adding more and then knocking it down. That is a classic strawman argument.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 9, 2013 at 1:25 pm
I would agree that part of your original statement is correct, but not the whole:
Is it a fact that the energy is transferred to the lower atmosphere? At what height does the “lower atmosphere” stop? Why not the upper levels?
Well… erm… yes… However, it was predicted to rise in conjunction with CO2 levels, yet hasn’t. Why is the so-far-failed prediction suddenly expected to be correct, “all else being equal,” which they aren’t (not that I fully know what “all else” might be)?
That’s about as far as I can understand your answer, I’m afraid.
Radical Rodent writes “Is it a fact that the energy is transferred to the lower atmosphere?”
The physics predicts so, yes. The atmosphere is cooler than the surface on average (of the ocean mostly) and the GHGs absorb radiation emitted from the surface and transfer it to the atmosphere through collision. Standard stuff.
Radical Rodent writes “Why is the so-far-failed prediction suddenly expected to be correct, “all else being equal,””
Firstly lets make sure we’re on the same page here. The temperature gradient in the atmosphere isn’t the atmosphere as we measure it, warming over time as such. The temperature gradient is more warming at the bottom of the atmosphere and less at the top. Cooling at the top in fact. Thats what the physics predicts with all things being equal.
The reason we’ve not warmed over the last 10-15 years is not understood by the scientists. IMO its because the atmosphere (weather) is responding to the forcing by sending more energy up into the upper atmosphere where it is radiated away. However it could simply be a cycle of the oceans or any number of things that cause that energy loss. Nobody knows.
TimTheToolMan (February 10, 2013 at 12:15 am):
Aha, with you, now… well, sort of. You seem to be talking about the lapse rate, be it environmental or adiabatic. There are all sorts of reasons for its existence, not least the various gas laws (temperature increasing with pressure, and so on). That, coupled with convection and advection stirring up the atmosphere, water vapour saturation, and, perhaps, a few other things I haven’t thought of to mention, but you may know about, all manage to make the observation, analysis and subsequent extrapolation of data very difficult. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people making simple models that almost give the same results as observed, then taking them further than the few days of forecasting, and stating that a disaster is looming. When it doesn’t arrive, predictions and models can then be tweaked so that observations can fit the “predictions”, even if they didn’t. (I’m thinking of the floods that “fitted the models”, when the predictions were for drought, and vice versa, ad infinitum.)
There is, of course, a lot more involved in the Earth’s climates than the simple stirring of the gasses of atmosphere, as Willis Eschenbach explores in “Slow Drift in Thermoregulated Emergent Systems”, a more recent post on this site.
TimTheToolMan says:
February 9, 2013 at 2:22 pm
Gail writes “You are missing the fact that there is a day and a night and incoming solar energy as well as outgoing long wave very WEAK IR.”
I’m not missing anything Gail. You’re adding more and then knocking it down. That is a classic strawman argument.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No I am adding the rest of the picture, the other side of the equation.
I see this type of deception that the Warmists are practicing often.
Here is another example of lying by omission:
A farmer ‘makes’ $500,000 a year so he is wealthy and crucified in the media for receiving subsidies. However no one in the media mentions he has $475,000 in expenses in running his farm or that the USDA considers the rental value of his home as part of that “income” they report on their forms or that the guy and his wife are both working full time jobs in addition to farming.
Nothing I have read from McIntyre indicates that he is an agenda-driven activist – or, perhaps more exactly, an anti-activist. He is a fellow who saw problems with inherent, unproven assumptions in models and flawed analytical techniques in data analysis and had the effrontery to say so publicly and repeatedly.
His position is consistent with that faced by Copernicus. Copernicus knew that challenging Man’s centrality in the universe challenged the legitimacy not just of the current, literal interpretation of the Bible, but of the position of kings and popes to rule by divine right. If Earth were just one of many in God’s universe, then were these men in power above all just some of many men in God’s universe also? But Copernicus, unlike McIntryre, would not just be vilified for his views, but probably ruined and exiled, if not executed. So Copernicus did not release his game-changing work until after his death.
McIntyre has challenged at an almost religious level. The popes and prophets are Gore, Suzuki, the WWF and Greenpeace; the kings are all the government and business leaders who have tied their influence and future wealth to the CAGW bandwagon. And, as for Copernicus, the dispute is not about the facts of the matter. It matters little that the issue might be reinterpreted and cause our views to change about how much role CO2 plays in the temperature of the livable part of the planet, just as it mattered little to the pre-Rennaissance ruler if the Sun revolved around the Earth. What matters now as it did then is how this fundamental perception plays into the legitimacy of the powerholders to act as they wish. If CO2 is not a cosmic-scale villain, there is no need for wide-sweeping, draconian authority fitting an apocalyptic emergency.
We elect or otherwise designate others to act for us on the premise that they will do so in our best, long-term interests. We pay taxes and enter into war on that basis. Should we come to see that those with our reins in their hands are acting, instead, against what would be our wishes should be we better informed, we would withdraw their power – or at least oppose it. That is why they are angered.
Anger is the response to a loss or perceived loss of control; derision or confusion to a presentation of foolishness. When someone is demonized, when someone spits venom, we can justly suspect power, not truth is under attack.
McIntyre as demon? There are far worse things to be.
Mosher, the difference between the sceptics and the alarmists is that when sea ice in the Arctic (let’s all ignore the Antarctic as the ice there isn’t behaving as the alarmists wish, so it doesn’t really exist) fell to a record low the sceptics went looking for the reason/mechanism behind it while the alarmists stood there waving their arms and screaming that the sky was falling.
You are firmly in that latter camp. There is nothing scientific about it, no matter how many times you appeal to Feynman to try and legitimise your cryptic ranting. How you can behave in this most unscientific way despite being so well exposed to Steve M’s methodical methods is beyond me. My guess is that being a supposed ‘lukewarmist’ pays better.
Gail writes “No I am adding the rest of the picture, the other side of the equation.”
So do you agree that the underlying assumption of increased temperature gradient from the physics is sound? I’m not talking about the feedbacks and other processes that go on in addition, purely the fundamental theory of AGW. So in your answer of yes or no dont add ANY other assumptions. This question is about the physics ONLY.
Aww, c’mon, Anthony – LT was the best clueless comic relief at WUWT, and this latest was an absolute classic; nobody but LT would take that bilge seriously.
While I agree w/ other commenters here that Mosher’s comment was way too broad brush and somewhat diversionary (there are degrees of certainty, and good policy must weigh both costs and potential risks/benefits of various strategies – in the face of uncertainty), not in a million years would it have occurred to me to impute an ulterior motive. This kind of thing is just a distraction – it contributes nothing to the discussion.
More generally, and speaking of Steve Mac, he has always had a policy of zero-tolerance for speculation about motive, and I think it’s a good one.
Tim the Tool man, how much of the out going energy in the atmosphere is from conducted and convected process, verses a radiative process? And a follow up; does CO2 in the atmosphere accelerate the loss to space of recieved conducted energy from the surface?
David asks “how much of the out going energy in the atmosphere is from conducted and convected process, verses a radiative process?”
General scientific consensus fwiw describes the components thus
http://scienceofdoom.com/2013/02/02/kiehl-trenberth-and-the-atmospheric-window/
With a followup “does CO2 in the atmosphere accelerate the loss to space of recieved conducted energy from the surface?”
Accelerate? I’m not sure what you mean exactly. Much of the energy radiated from earth is radiated away by the CO2 in the upper atmosphere. In a general sense, CO2 transfers the energy towards the atmosphere low down in the atmosphere and radiates it away from further up. CO2 both warms and cools the atmosphere at different altitudes.