There’s a nickname for Missouri, the “Show Me State”. It is a label attributed to Representative Willard Van Diver. It connotes a certain self-deprecating stubbornness and devotion to simple common sense. A recent post highlighted by Andrew Montford at Bishop Hill illustrates how this is applicable to climate skepticism.
He writes:
The trust me crowd and the show me crowd
The Chemist in Langley has another post on type 1 and type 2 errors, which is just as good as his last one. I found this quote particularly perspicacious:
A colleague at work describes the difference as roughly the “trust me crowd” versus the “show me crowd”. The trust me crowd can show that some anthropogenic climate change has happened in the past and that models suggest that future conditions are going to get worse. They produce their documentation via the peer reviewed press and in doing so address all the touchstones of the scientific method. Having met the high bar of “good science” they anticipate that their word will be taken as good.
The show me crowd looks at the “good science” and points out that many historical predictions of doom and gloom (that previously met the test of good science) have been shown to be overheated or just plain wrong. They also point out that the best models have not done a very good job with respect to the “pause”. Given this they ask for a demonstration that the next prediction is going to be better than the last one. This does not mean that they deny the reality of anthropogenic global warming. Rather they are not comfortable with cataclysmic predictions and calls for immediate action prior to a demonstration that those predictions can be supported with something approaching real data.
Here is the first article from “A Chemist in Langley”:
…the vast majority of the warmist community have a worldview that stresses Type I [false positive] error avoidance while most skeptics work in a community that stresses Type II [false negative] error avoidance. Skeptics look at the global climate models and note that the models have a real difficulty in making accurate predictions. To explain, global climate models are complex computer programs filled with calculations based on science’s best understanding of climate processes (geochemistry, global circulation patterns etc) with best guesses used to address holes in the knowledge base.
My three favorite ‘skeptical’ observations.
1. No warming for 18 years.
2. Planet resists forcing changes (negative feedback, by an increase in cloud cover in the tropics) rather than amplifies forcing changes (positive feedback, required by the IPCC models to create ‘dangerous’ warming ,more than 2C warming is apparently dangerous, with negative feedback models indicate less than 1c warming for a doubling of CO2) forcing changes.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
3. Almost no observed warming of the tropical troposphere (at 8km). Tropical troposphere warming is the signature of AGW warming and is a major component/reason for the GCM predicted AGW warming (8km warming in the tropics warms the tropical region by infrared back radiation. There is almost no tropical tropospheric 8km warming and there is almost no tropical region surface or topical ocean warming.) The majority of the warming observed is at high latitudes which is not predicted by GCMs and matches past cyclic warming that correlates with solar magnetic cycle changes.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/about-that-missing-hot-spot/
http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/Published%20JOC1651.pdf
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
My favorite top 3 warmists’ 2014 discoveries from Roy Spencer’s list.
OT as ‘tip page’ not working, at least not on my iPhone
Recent global warming hiatus dominated by low latitude temperature trends in surface and troposphere data†
Abstract
Over the last 15 years, global mean surface temperatures exhibit only weak trends. Recent studies have attempted to attribute this so called temperature hiatus to several causes, amongst them incomplete sampling of the rapidly warming Arctic region. We here examine zonal mean temperature trends in satellite-based tropospheric data sets (MSU/AMSU and GNSS Radio Occultation) and in global surface temperatures (HadCRUT4). Omission of successively larger polar regions from the global-mean temperature calculations, in both tropospheric and surface data sets, shows that data gaps at high latitudes can not explain the observed differences between the hiatus and the pre-hiatus period. Instead, the dominating causes of the global temperature hiatus are found at low latitudes. The combined use of several independent data sets, representing completely different measurement techniques and sampling characteristics, strengthens the conclusions.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL062596/abstract
Mt post at http://achemistinlangley.blogspot.com/2015/01/further-thoughts-on-type-i-and-type-ii.html ”
Of course, if you can sample the future, your model is unnecessary…
Best guesses are seldom correct unless there is a history, (experience), to calibrate that guess. For the AGW crowd the history in a guess. And a guess built upon a guess quickly deteriorates to random outcomes.
Climate seems to behave as multiple cycles, with different periods, amplitudes and interactions, all super-imposed. If a quasi-cycle (with indeterminate or variable period, like the Solar Cycle) is included, I do not think any model can be an adequate predictor.
I’m unaware of any proof that humans have caused global warming. Correlation is not causation.
Every living organism affects the environment. The problem is determining how and how much.
…and then determining if the effects are good or bad (usually both).
Does that make me a “Lukewarmer” ?
How come butterfly wings and cow farts are natural, but if I go for a surf I’m destroying the waves?
Probabilities, error Types, + or – SDs of model outcomes, that’s not even material yet.
Consider the hypothesis being tested (and its obvious bias).
They failed to address the null hypothesis:
AGW = or ≠ 0 (however you want to phase that)
And instead assumed an alternate/rival hypothesis:
GW=A, skip that we’ll just jump to AGW = C
It is not a scientific process to begin with a conclusion in order to compute an extent, shoot the blunderbuss supercomputer runs onto graph paper, and then draw a linear straight ascending line through the scatter.
Truth is they don’t have a hypothesis (and don’t care); they have a conclusion and now onto the money . . .
Re: AGW (much less C) and data
including this mpainter
The Greenhouse Effect and the Infrared Radiative Structure of the Earth’s Atmosphere
Link below with Open Access. My bold.
http://www.seipub.org/des/paperInfo.aspx?ID=21810
hmmm
Type I and Type II errors – now formally Type A and Type B errors
Climate science has ignored the international standards on uncertainty. See:
GUM: Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement, BIPM
See: Evaluation of measurement data – Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement JCGM 100:2008 (GUM 1995 with minor corrections)
Yeah, I know, and it shows I’m aging. No error there.
As i understand it, there is no consensus on which computer model of CAGW is best, so an average of all “accepted” models is used for IPCC “predictions”.
From a chemist in Langley: “Global climate models are complex computer programs filled with calculations based on science’s best understanding of climate processes (geochemistry, global circulation patterns etc) with best guesses used to address holes in the knowledge base”.
When I was trained in science and engineering, best guesses were known as fudge factors – seems there is still a lot of fudge in climate science.
Computer models are worthless. It started with Hansen in 1988. We have lived through most of his “business as usual” model and it’s way off reality. He used an IBM mainframe but now they have supercomputers running million-line code. It hasn’t helped a bit, their predictions are no better than Hansen’s were. They have now had twenty six years to put their house in order but they have not done it. If a businessman is told that all the statistics for his business for the last 26 years have beenn wrong he would not hesitate to close it dow. Just close down the models and do some honest climate science for a change.
Arno
Yea, but, but, but…
…Hansen was paid by NASA, not a private businessman.
It is not just about models. Much of my skepticism is based on our best understanding of Earth’s climate history. All historical evidence indicates that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 has very little impact on temperature. Secondly, lab measurements indicate that the impact of a doubling of CO2 would be about 1 degree, all else being equal. Thirdly, that the tripling effect of water vapor is based on nothing more than speculation. And finally, no one has been able to find any evidence in such a large positive feedback. In fact, there is growing evidence for negative feedbacks, reducing the already small impact CO2 has on temperature.
The models are secondary to the above and are not much of a factor in my skepticism.
You are absolutely right. There is no tripling effect as the Miskolczi greenhouse theory, MGT, proves. Instead we get a CO2 sensitivity zero (0). What actually happens is that water vapor and carbon dioxide create a joint absorption window whose optical thickness in the IR is 1.87. If you now add carbon dioxide it will start to absorb in the IR. But this will increase tyhe optical thickness. And as soon as this happens water wapor will begin to decrease, rain out, and the original optical thickness gets restored. The carbon dioxide that was added will of course keep absorbing but the reduction of water vapor will keep total absorption constant and no warming is possible. And that is the end of the alleged greenhouse warming yhat Hansen told us about. It is tis phenomenon that is responsible for the current lack of warming that has lasted 18 years by now, despite constant increase of carbon dioxide that according to Hansen should cause warming. And since there is no greenhouse warming there is no CAGW either. IT is nothing more than a pseudo-scientific fantasy, cooked up to justify their greenhouse hypothesis which is now shown to be false.
mpainter
January 7, 2015 at 10:01 am
JohnWho:
Cloud data shows a decrease in global cloudiness since the mid eighties. Thus decreased cloud albedo—> increased insolation—warmer surface and SST. The increased insolation is several times any calculated GHE through CO2 increase and explains it all.
Bottom line: hard, incontrovertible data shows that the warming trend circa 1977-97 was due to reduced global cloud coverage. There is not one speck of data which supports AGW.
But doesn’t that imply that the Green House Gas Effect does not exist? Since it does, adding CO2 to the atmosphere should increase the warming from that effect.
However, let me be clear on my position: I do not believe that the additional CO2 that we add to the atmosphere is having a measureable (with todays’ instrumentation) warming effect. If it were, once could point to that additional measured (observed) warming as proof of AGW (but not necessarily CAGW).
AFAIK, that evidence has not been presented.
JohnWho
I cannot see that implication, that the GHE does not exist. But that has been mischaracterized. For example, water vapor, the main GHG, moderates temp., it does not increase it. Compare max temp. Sahara with max temp. humid tropics.
Also, it is not true that CO2 can have an effect on SST. Water is _opaque_ to IR.
SST is determined solely by insolation, minus any heat loss via evaporation, etc.
My point would be that if one agrees that CO2, as part of the GHE gases, has a warming effect, then it logically stands to reason that increasing that CO2 (up to a “saturation” point) would increase that warming.
Again, whether that warming effect is measurable has not been demonstrated.
@ur momisugly JohnWho
You wrote in part:
That does not follow. Some physists have hypothesised that CO2 helps to thermalize the oxygen and nitrogen in the lower atmosphere and hence aid with convection which cools the lower atmosphere. They claim that on net CO2 is a cooling agent and not a warming one. You may disagree with that theory all day, but it just shows that calling CO2 a “GHE” does not mean that it increases warming.
Another point is that the “Greenhouse Effect” is a horrible name. It is an attempt to win the debate via definition. I prefer the term “Atmospheric Effect” for the fact that having a thick atmosphere on this planet warms the surface over what it would be without an atmosphere. We have yet to see definate proof that CO2 does much of anything. It may cool. It may warm. It may do both depending on location in the atmosphere. It may do nothing. The science is not settled on that.
Agree: “Greenhouse Effect” is a horrible name.
However, even based on the idea that CO2 may have a cooling effect, adding to the CO2 level should increase that effect. This hasn’t been measured/observed either. If one believes CO2 has a warming effect then adding to that level should increase that effect. This, too, has not been measured/observed.
Whether cooling or warming – either would cause, dare I say it, “climate change” – if the amount of the anthropogenic portion of that cooling/warming can’t be measured/observed, why worry?
@ur momisugly JohnWho
If we don’t know if CO2 warms or cools on net, it may be it does not do either. It may balance out, or it may be that CO2 does not really warm or cool. The science is not settled on the question by a long shot.
However, it is true that since we can not measure the alleged effect, much less the anthropogenic portion of the effect, then why worry about it indeed.
I am looking through a two-glass window. It is -20C outside and +20C inside. If I fill the space between these two glasses with 100% CO2 no heat escapes ?? Quite many doublings from 400 ppm, I assume. Why is no-one selling these kinds of insulation windows?
Sceptic, who are they?
Take this:
“But is the RSS satellite dataset “cherry-picked”? No. There are good reasons to consider it the best of the five principal global-temperature datasets.”
From here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/03/the-great-pause-lengthens-again/
And this:
“An additional complication is that subsequent satellites are launched into alternating sun-synchronous orbit times, nominally 1:30 a.m. and p.m., then 7:30 a.m. and p.m., then back to 1:30 a.m. and p.m., etc. Furthermore, as the instruments scan across the Earth, the altitude in the atmosphere that is sampled changes as the Earth incidence angle of view changes.
All of these effects must be accounted for, and there is no demonstrably “best” method to handle any of them. For example, RSS uses a climate model to correct for the changing time of day the observations are made (the so-called diurnal drift problem), while we use an empirical approach. This correction is particularly difficult because it varies with geographic location, time of year, terrain altitude, etc.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/01/why-do-different-satellite-datasets-produce-different-global-temperature-trends/#comment-178584
So: How wrong is it wrong to use models?
Uh, I don’t understand: are you saying the models must be good because the satellite data may not be perfect?
Sorry, but I’m really skeptical about that.
/grin
Did I say that models must be good because the satellite date may not be perfect?
Where did I say that?
But as you see: there are some who trust climate models are good enough to adjust diurnal drift of satellites.
But of course: That might not be you. If so: Make a comment in the post where Monckton declares his trust in climate models.
Rooter,
Can you clarify your statement that “RSS uses a climate model to correct for the changing time of day the observations are made”?
Do you mean that RSS is corrected using a gridded, time-stepped GCM model, or that it is corrected using a location/time specific model of the structure of the atmosphere? The term climate model as used on this site generally refers to the former which are widely acknowledged to have fundamental problems. The latter is a completely different type of model which can be tested directly against empirical observations of the atmosphere.
Cheers
Joseph Shaw:
“Can you clarify your statement that “RSS uses a climate model to correct for the changing time of day the observations are made”?”
That is not my statement. It is Roy Spencer’s. Ask him. Or RSS of course.
Rooter,
Thank you for the clarification.
Cheers
There are five principal global-temperature datasets and dispute as to how and when to use them. From a layman’s point of view it looks like there is no agreement as to how correct the correct data is and how wrong the wrong data is.
So maybe the question is, how right is it right to be skeptical of humanity driving climate behavior?
The “reality of anthropogenic global warming” is that if it does exist, we haven’t found it yet, and the same with so-called “anthropogenic climate change” (whatever the heck that is). It appears to be a figment of Climatists’ overwrought imaginations.
Bart January 7, 2015 at 9:35 am
As captured in the folksy aphorism, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Whereas the Warmistas go with Red Green’s famous “If it ain’t broke, you’re not tryin’ hard enough.”
The system is both unwieldy and incompletely characterized. Not even mechanical enhancements will be sufficient to elevate the human ego to godhood. It’s telling that the modern cult is using the same strategy and tactics as the original consensus, flat-Earthers, and visibly with the same motives.
That said, they can tune their models and predict warming next week with 50% confidence. Each day. Every day. Next week, they will be able to forecast warming with 72.666% confidence.
The only rational assumption about the underlying order is that it is characterized by a fitness function that seeks and preserves semi-stable states. The other attributes are anthropomorphized overlays on physical processes by humans. Not even the theists were so ambitious, where a partition of faith and science became the standard, only corrupted by the recurring megalomania of ambitious men and women.
Big argument about global sea rises. I asked where? I was insulted by a another person when he said I didn’t know what I was talking about, and called me dumb, If the sea had risen a metre in the Maldives it must be so. I picked up my glass of water and tipped it out on the table, and made the comment, “funny it doesn’t stay in a heap”, and then “who’s the dumb one here” that put a stop to the argument.
“The Oceanic hills of the Maldives”
Soon to be showing on a Science fiction channel near you.
@ur momisugly Nivlek: Re Truman having low popularity when he left office…just speculating here (you have probably studied it more than I) I’m thinking that since mass media was really gaining in importance in the decades leading up to WWII, and considering that the mass media sector has a slew of folks who value appearance more than actual truth, and they have their own agenda, perhaps Truman didn’t have enough “star quality” to suit them. The fact that he did a lot of good after WWII relatively unimportant to them. And if you can get the media to smear someone, lots of the population will follow that lead without much thought.
@ur momisugly George: It sounds like Maryland Heights got hit a couple of times like Moore, Oklahoma, got hit three times. Two of the Moore tornadoes took almost the same path. That really gets me thinking…. Does it get you thinking?
Could one of the statistics wizards please kindly advise how many standard deviations the CMIP5 Lower Troposphere model ensemble mean temperature is currently off from the current UAH/RSS temperature mean?
From looking at the graph, it must already exceed two standard deviations:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
Thank you.
Your question :…Could one of the statistics wizards please kindly advise how many standard deviations the CMIP5 Lower Troposphere model ensemble mean temperature is currently off from the current UAH/RSS temperature mean?…”
I’m sure some mathematical guru will soon fill in the technical gaps, but the layman response is “a whole hell of lot; so much as to be ridiculous”.
Ohhh, I love that graph!
Well no reason to be so critical. they were more less right.
Once.
Around 1980.
Yep once around 1980, can’t fault that.
Alx,
Didn’t the models start around then? If so, then they would surely begin as the same as real world temps.
But they began to diverge almost immediately. Models = WRONG.
This psychobabble is crap. …type 1…type 2…who cares. Real world data does not support political BS climate models…no matter what you call it. No supporting data – your model is crap.
We may allow our pre-adolescent children to play soccer/baseball/etc without keeping score; that does not mean 30+ year-old PhD students/graduates get to publish crap science without consequences. The consequence is lose of credibility.
Petulant children frequently throw a tantrum to get their way, but PhD students/graduates – not so much.
Chip Javert
January 7, 2015 at 5:18 pm
Type 1 and Type 2 errors refer to possible errors in results of scientific studies that have to be dealt with (false positive and false negatives, respectively). Imagine clinical trials with a medicine that give some contradictory results. False positives are the most dangerous as you may kill people if you administer it. False negatives may encourage you to discontinue trials and we would miss out on an efficacious medicine.
I think you are confusing Type A and Type B personalities. This, too might be worthwhile to investigate. Type A are more likely to succumb to clinical depression, like the kind that is becoming more frequent among mainstream CAGW scientists. Type B probably is more common among skeptics – more laid back. It’s less stressful to say “Show me” than to have to deal with uncooperative natures decimation of your ideas that you have to “Show”.
Misses the important point that the skeptics have two separate grounds:
The first, that the transition from historically observed 1C ECS in the 20thC to alarmist 4C for the 21stC is either unproven or disproven.
The second is that even anyone believing alarmist science must show that the economic / political response is valid and effective.
Taxing the EU to replace with the same emitting activities in China, or building unreliable windmills to be backed up by coal, or burning Vermont forests in Drax instead of coal, should be rejected by even the most pessimistic of alarmists.
Thank you, from Vermont.
Oh dear, Since my wife has never been to the US I had promised that our next big holiday would be a Fall trip incorporating New England and its amazing Autumn spectacle. Last year the press claimed that it was Georgia forests that were being harvested for Drax. If they have already deforested Georgia and are moving onto Vermont then at this rate of predation there will be nothing to see by the time we have saved enough for the trip.
mikewaite,
come on anyway. It’s a big country. There will still be lots of autumn foliage to see.
Is the alarmist depiction of global warming in error because of a simple, logical fault?
Let us concede that infra red radiation from the surface travels upwards; assume that it interacts with GHGs and causes local heating, probably close to the ground. Let us agree that the GHGs impede some of this radiation from going to space. Let us NOT agree that this causes global warming.
Why not?
Because the upwelling IR that is stopped by GHGs would have gone on further and warmed layers of the atmosphere higher up. To the extent that lack of a warming is equivalent to a cooling, all that has happened is to warm the ‘layer’ where the GHGs are encountered, and fail to warm (leave cooler) layers higher up.
We thus have a redistribution of heat by GHGs, not an increase.
Let us try an analogy, with the blanket over the sleeping person. The blanket stops some body heat from rising. The air volume above the blanket is made less warm than it would have been. Overall, the room is absolutely insensitive to the blanket effect. The blanket merely redistributes, it does not generate.
Back to the atmosphere, our simplistic model has GHGs causing a warmer zone low down and a cooler zone above. In time, these two zones will mix and the temperatures averaged over a column will be the same as before.
We, the people, feel some effects from this redistribution of temperatures, because many of us live in the slightly warmer zone. Our interspersed thermometers in their Stevenson screens or whatever will show an increase because they are situated to do just that. Sadly we have few measurements higher up where this simple model says it is cooler than it would be without GHGs.
Real life is more dynamic. The process is ongoing so long as there are GHGs and we will feel and measure some of their effects. There are short term portions of the process, as short as the near-instant cooling that you feel on a hot tropical day when a cloud covers the sun.
What we DO NOT have, is a fear that the globe is getting warmer from GHGs. They are not creating more heat from their solar ‘constant’ input, they are merely redistributing it.
Despite a couple of decades of pertinent reading, I have never seen this effect postulated.
Is it too simple to be real?
I’ve put it up, will you all please try to knock it down?
Geoff Sherrington;
Because the upwelling IR that is stopped by GHGs would have gone on further and warmed layers of the atmosphere higher up.
No. Once you get a bit higher in the atmosphere, temperature falls and water vapour precipitates out as a consequence. Once you get past the point where water vapour is significant, the upward IR would not warm layers of the atmosphere higher up in the absence of GHG’s, it would instead just zip out into space.
Thanks David,
So if you add more CO2, absent feedbacks, does more or less radiation escape to space?
I’m thinking of the main GHG absorption being done in the first tens of metres, with GHG absorption of IR continuing until hundreds of metres when essentially all has been absorbed. How high above the surface is your hypothetical point where you are ‘past the point where water vapour is significant?
But, there are GHGs in the higher regions where you say GHGs are absent. It’s a well mixed gas, showing up at Mauna Loa, some 3,400 metres above sea level.
So if you add more CO2, absent feedbacks, does more or less radiation escape to space?
At equilibrium, the amount of radiation that escapes to space before CO2 doubles is exactly the same as the amount that escapes after CO2 doubles. The difference is in the average altitude from which any given photon escapes, which is higher for the case of CO2 doubling.
What happens in the first tens of meters is immaterial, because it happens again and again and again as you traverse up the atmospheric air column, with any given photon being absorbed and re-emitted many, many, many times.
Geoff, a fitting analogy would be that GHGs act as a time- delay circuit, merely slowing the rate of radiation of energy to space. CO2 also facilitates photosynthetic conversion of sunlight to plant tissue, suggesting that CO2 plays a time- delay role beyond any consequence of it’s atmospheric presence.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/20/agu14-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory-shows-surprising-co2-emissions-in-southern-hemisphere/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/29/three-scenarios-for-the-future-of-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory/
Thank you Alan,
The references you gave are well read.
There seems to be an assumption that daytime is the dominant state of the globe. More time is spent on daytime mechanisms.
For example, many papers carry the inference that energy in = energy out when there is no overall heating or cooling. Spectra are measured, to create diagrams of how the escape to space is achieved despite their being a daytime incoming radiation, causing competition complications.
In my simple model, the escape to space is not a concern. I agree it is part of the concept.
And it has all night to happen.
However, night is of one duration at the equator, a half a day, but at the poles it is half a year. Therefore, night conditions when escape to space can happen should vary the outgoing spectrum and transfer dynamics according to latitude. Does anyone have a reference to such latitude studies?
Here’s some show and tell global warming at the end of the hottest year evah:
http://m.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30711789
Here’s some show and tell global cooling at the beginning of the new year
..
http://time.com/3656522/australia-eggs-frying-sidewalk/
It’s clear that Samantha Grossman and David Socrates know nothing of Australian summers, and egg frying pranks. Nothing odd about 44C daytime temperatures, noting odd about heat in summer in Australia.
And more:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30716563
Wow, who ever imagined weather could be ‘dangerously cold’?
David – the Antipodean climate record is so utterly fictional that the film rights have already been obtained by Peter Jackson.
Patrick……tell me, when air temps hit 44C, can you get us a reading on the temp of some black asphalt in direct sun?
Black asphalt? Moving the goal posts, are you?
44C (111F). So what? Minimum temp to cook an egg is somewhere between 135F-155F.
Thank you for once again publishing a comment here with BoguS information. You are a big help to any new readers, who are learning to separate the wheat from the chaff in the ongoing conversation.
Too funny David, too funny. I’ll leave you alarmist types who are ignorant of the climate in summer in Australia (I’ll give you a hint; it’s not called the sunburnt country for nothing). Your Time.com link linked to a Gaurdian article. I need say no more!
http://www.dorotheamackellar.com.au/archive/mycountry.htm
Frying an egg on a black surface isn’t *quite* as scientific as we would like. But that crowd uses what it has. It has frying eggs. But frying eggs on the sidewalk has always been in the news; at least for the past 60 years that I’ve been paying attention.
The entire discussion is based on global warming of only about 0.7ºC, over a century and a half. Sensationalism may work with folks like Socks, but for thinking people, a 0.7º fluctuation is extremely mild. It would be hard to find a flatter temperature record covering 150 years.
But based on that non-event, an entire alarmist industry has sprung up, fed by scientifically illiterate True Believers. Even so, the public is coming around, and viewing alarmists as Chicken Littles.
A few years ago it was hard to find a mass media publication that didn’t contain a lot of concerned comments. But now? The large majority of reader comments consistently ridicule the man-made global warming scare. Now skeptical comments outnumber alarmists’ comments by 10 : 1.
Once the public turns on you, you’re toast. Best for folks like Socks to jump ship before enduring further embarrassment.
Mr Alan Robertson
..
RE: Black asphalt.
.
Watch the video
…
Now…please tell us all what color the frying pan is.
..
Thank you in advance
Look at socks, still digging. ☺
Over the top, uncalled for, and abhorrent.
[Note: if the following few comments make no sense, it is because an objectionable post has been deleted. ~ mod.]
This is inexcusable.
Please mods!
[Reply: Just noticed this. Thanks. Deleted. ~ mod.]
Thanks.
It is -20F and descending here at 3 AM and I am feeding the fire with sticks of my local wood. We’re fine even though I expect another -10F. That is cold by any scale. If we depended upon some politician’s view of wind saving us, I fear there would be tragedies in the morning.
Thanks for supporting civility.