I have a bit of a computer crisis at my business today, so I’m not going to be able to add much in the way of new content today. Guest authors are welcome to publish.
Feel free to discuss anything within the usual purview of this website.
Anthony
UPDATE:
I got the problem solved about 5 hours after first writing this. It was a mission-critical satellite data processor, and so affected a lot of downstream processes.
It traces to the fact that the Mobo manufacturer didn’t allow for a large enough heatsink on the NorthBridge chip even though there was lot of airflow in the chassis we use: http://www.buildablade.com/bb-itx96.htm
There was an eddy created by the taller DRAM next to it, which reduced the effectiveness of front to rear airflow. Added a small fan at that location, and problem solved.
For the long-term, I’ll need to get low-profile DRAM.
Anthony
I’ll start this off…Papa John’s pizza is terrible.
LOL….agree…..try Mama Mary, not as salty as Boboli, and make your own
I grew up in New Haven, CT with Pepe’s Pizza so the only restaurant pizza that is edible in this area is Bocca Lupo in Port Charlotte. Coal fired, well done with charred edges, decent sauce, not too much mozz. Normally I make my own using Publix dough which is quite good if you know how to handle and doctor it. Make my own sauce with San Marzano tomatoes and use sliced mozz never shredded. Let the dough rise covered on my hot humid Florida lanai until it is large and fluffy. When working the dough always use corn meal not flour, salt the dough as you work it. Most dough is tasteless because it is unsalted. Go easy on the sauce and always add oregano on top of the mozz. Use a screen, cook in a 500 degree oven. Done when the crust is dark brown about 10-12 mins. mmmmmmmmm
And a bit of fennel seed.
I’ve done a “reverse Chicago-style” that’s baked without the cheese. The mozz I melt into a white sauce base and pour on right out of the oven. Perfect cheese distribution and no hard burned spots. Alternatively, I’ll bring both pizza and cheese sauce to the table and let the company spoon on the amount of mozz they each prefer.
it depends on how much “sauce” is considered reasonable. “Then pusht 2 teashpoons of salt… hic”
Good to know. I’m in the Papajohn home town of Des Moines for BMW motorcycle national rally. We skipped pizza and has an excellent steak at the Court Avenue Brewing restaurant.
As for climate,its been hot and humid until last night when some of Willis’ magic thunder storm dropped the temp 10 degrees in 10 minutes.
It can’t as bad as the Pope Francis’ climate science
And just what does Peyton Manning have to say about all this?
Omaha!
Our local one in uk uses halal chicken without telling anyone
We get that in New Zealand as well, I have to admit it tastes better.
Papa John’s is not any better here. If you get around STL check out an Imo’s somewhere. There’s one in every local burg for a reason.
Testing, Testing. 1,2,3.
🙂
Can you hear me?
Pop Piasa
Speak up, I can’t hear you.
My hearing aids are feeding back. I can’t read what you typed. 😉
Temps about 90 recently in Michigan, I have been enjoying it, swimming in lakes and riding my trail pedal bike, i love summer. Need some rain though. I read this WUWT every day, love it.
Are the fireflies lighting up the night about now? We don’t have much humidity in Colorado and we don’t have fireflies at least in these parts. I miss them.
I also live in Colorado and miss the fireflies, and cicadas. However, I think near the creek in Fountain, CO, they have some fireflies, and they have some type of smaller cicadas up in the black Forest.
Fireflies in the western UP of Michigan. And, we’ve had plenty of rain the last month or two.
Fireflies lighting up in Des Moines. Pretty.
As an Englishwoman, living in Australia, how DO you pronounce Des Moines? Is it Anglicised or French?
Sort of like “Duh Moyn”
How’s your “Strine”?
Fireflies were out in abundance mid-June in SW Ohio.
Fireflies ?, the proper name (at least in northern Illinois) is “lightning bug” 🙂
I guess I used both in NE Ohio. We don’t have many in New Hampshire, at least not at home. Our lot doesn’t have good shrubs.
uk,
I guess you aren’t a fan of scifi. 🙂
I grew up calling them “lightning bugs” in northern Kentucky. Had a lot of fun catching them and letting them go.
One bit me once. Years later I found out there is one that mimics the flashes to lure one in so it can eat it. My guess is that I caught one of those.
PS That was before Daylight Savings Time.
Lightning Bug applies in southern IL too, UK. We’ve copious amounts.
I wish we had them in Oregon too. Oh well we almost never have severe T’storms, tornadoes or blizzards so I can’t have everything.
You do have a severe case of Californication. Given the choice, I think I’d go with the tornadoes. Major twisters are a one-and-done deal, but Californicators vote disaster in year after year. 🙁
Plenty of blizzards where I work in Oregon, Timberline Lodge. 610 inches of them, last winter. 🙂
In the early ’80s I was visiting my parents where I grew up, east of Greeley near the S. Platte river. I saw small lights in the dark night moving around near a marsh a couple of hundred yards away. Puzzled, I went to investigate. They were fireflies! I was flabbergasted, fireflies in Colorado? Having spent many nights outdoors in this area, I had never seen them before, or since.
Dry, no kidding. In 1970, fresh back from Vietnam, I had finished my day at Ft. Carson and had arrived at our apartment in Colorado Springs. I bounded up the stairs to our 2nd-floor apartment. I was walking on a thick carpet and running my hands along the metal stair railing. My wife opened the door and went to give me a welcoming kiss. Our lips were about 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart when I saw a flash of light, heard a loud pop and then felt an awful aching pain. Needless to say we were more careful after that.
Tons and tons of fireflies here in stormy muggy central Kansas!
In Australia, the frequency of drop bear sightings remains about the same, irrespective of climate change. They are hard to count because they are so quiet, live high up in the gum trees and hide the white flash of those evil teeth. Geoff.
I thought those were the creatures that sounded like pigs when we were camping in the Flinders Ranges!
My yard is alive with many fire flies at dusk, electric, Rochester, Mich.
Oodles of glow worms glimmering here in southern Adirondacks lately.
Saw one once on my patio shortly after dark, thought I was hallucinating, then did a little reading about them.
Speaking of hallucinating, back in the mid-’70s, I had led a field trip into the Grand Canyon, staying the night at Phantom Ranch. I went to bed relatively early, it having been a taxing hike down through the snow storm near the rim. About 10:30 pm, there was a loud banging on my cabin door. Two students, whom I had reason to believe were not in condition to legally drive at the moment, were excitedly telling me that there was magma coming up in the campground. To be able to get back to bed, I agreed to go see what they were talking about. When we got to the location of the ‘magma,’ it was evident that someone had squished a glowworm and spread it out in the dirt. I gave them my alternative interpretation, and went back to my cabin.
So much rain in the SW Lower Peninsula over April and May, many of the swamps have flooded onto the roads. No cars allowed there (road footing too soft) but you can bike thru some of them; turtles, fish, and frogs running for their lives.
anybody have a comment on my story here?
http://breadonthewater.co.za/2018/05/04/which-way-will-the-wind-be-blowing-genesis-41-vs-27/
Very interesting. I would urge caution on fitting quadratics to small data sets, however.
each point in my graph is the average derivative of the least square equation of a certain period, i.e. 4 periods,
each of 54 weather stations with daily data going back 42 years.
I could do 42 regressions, say 2015-1973, 2015-1974, etc on each station, giving me 42 points over 42 periods, but if the [average] 4 points gave me already Rsquare=1, the 42 points would give me exactly the same?
Enjoy what you do Anthony. Keep up the good work.
Enjoy your Tech-cation
Dr. Judith Curry wrote on her blog July 8, 2018
” Formal uncertainty quantification of computer models is less relevant to science than an assessment of whether the model helps us learn about how the system works.”
I responded with the text below.
I believe that the above statement is patently false. The model is a collection of code that represents what the coder and his team have decided is relevant for describing a system. If the underlying science is not there as per climate change science as you have admitted yourself when you looked for it and couldnt find it, how do you expect that the simulation of the computer code will find the science? Only when the code is run during a simulation do we get any results. For those results to have any realistic meaning, requires that the underlying science to have been accurately coded and have been accurately represented in the code. This is especially true when we know that all the models have been biased to show more warming with each additional CO2. Expecting a human to learn something from a climate model computer simulation requires the belief that the model knows how the climate system works. An individual simulation result may accidently portray some realistic result but that is only because of the law of large numbers whereby a team of monkeys given enough time could recreate Shakespeare. We know that it is impossible for the computer simulations to accurately portray the actual earth system for many reasons with spatial resolution being only 1 of the many reasons. EX: smallest spatial resolution is 1.5 km.
In view of the above, any conclusion that a human could draw from a computer climate simulation is just as likely to be false as to be true. So it is no better than throwing darts at a dartboard.
Exactly. It only produces the outcome the way you programmed how to calculate it. When you don’t know all relevant inputs nor all consequences and dependencies, the outcome will be just that. Incomplete and meaningless.
Comparing results against reality/experiment is the only way to see if you’re anywhere near understanding. So far, climate models have proven to be unreliable. The science is in its infancy, certainly not settled.
You and Curry are talking right past each other.
Curry says: “an assessment of whether the model helps us learn about how the system works.”
She is pointing up the use of a model as a learning tool. For instance, we observe some phenomena. Next we try to model it. *IF* the model accurately represents said phenomena, then we can attach some numbers and equations to the phenomena. When we start from nothing, this is progress.
You said: “For those results to have any realistic meaning, requires that the underlying science to have been accurately coded and have been accurately represented in the code.”
Your requirement first, is that the system is fully understood in the first place.
This is great for engineers building bridges and using bridge models, but is hardly the case here with Shakespearean climate monkeys with computers.
No comments about climate models would be complete without noting the modelers penchant for running the model and claiming the output is “data”. They then insist that the “data” *is* reality, not just reflects reality. With that justification in hand, they will use the “data” as input to another model to generate their next great revelation.
Far, far, far from Curries idea of the correct use of a model.
“For instance, we observe some phenomena. Next we try to model it. *IF* the model accurately represents said phenomena, then we can attach some numbers and equations to the phenomena. When we start from nothing, this is progress.”
That is fine as far as it goes. STOP, If you then put some more code into the model to turn it into a GCM like the climate modelers have, you enter the world of fantasy. You admit that they started believing that the data output was as good as real data which makes things 10 times worse.
If Dr. Curry had meant that you can learn something from simple models if they match real world data,as you have suggested, then I would agree. But she didnt say that. GCM’s are long past the point where you can learn anything from them, because the underlying science is not there. If the debate is whether you can learn anything from GCM’s or not, then I say that debate is over and Dr. Curry should not have brought that possibility up. If you say that debate is not over, then my original response to her is still valid. Only in your simple beginning simulations can you learn anything from computer models. They are so advanced now that any conclusion from them is suspect ( witness their extremely poor record of predicting anything) . The reason is; that the farther advance you make in the code that has a big hole in it in the 1st place, the closer and closer you get to Alice in Wonderland. This is because the big hole always prevents you from modelling accurately. The errors propagate in each step and the the farther you go into the future the larger the accuracy and precision errors are. The same analogy with the growth of the code itself. A kludge built upon a kludge patched with a kludge is STILL a kludge.
WHAT??!!!
You did not like my “Shakespearean climate monkeys with computers”?
I thought it was a wonderful turn of a phrase and perfectly captures the essence of the situation.
There’s a lot to be found in Lewis Carroll that applies to the current state of climate science.
“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Jim
Exactly! If the model does not track reality (like Hansen’s forecast 30 years ago), then one has learned that the model has little or no skill in forecasting. A simple linear extrapolation, with no assumptions about CO2 emission rates or exogenous inputs, performed better than the complex model, demonstrating that the model was not realistic. Knowing what doesn’t work is important.
The climate models do not forecast but are simply if and then scenario outputs. The climate change pushers do not predict which scenario is going to come to pass but always assume and address the worse case.
Claiming that models do not forecast is sidestepping the whole point of models. With an infinite number of scenarios, there are an infinite number of outputs. If a particular scenario fails to materialize, then they can’t be held to a false prediction. It was the scenario that failed, not the prediction.
PhD Ms. Curry wrote a hard to read draft paper
I assume for fellow PhDs,
proving the old adage that PhD really means
Piled high and Deep.
She attempted to analyze the uncertainty in climate models
… that don’t work — they predict double to triple the warming
that has happened, and predict Antarctica warming
that has not happened.
The “models” are nothing more than
failed prototypes.
To perform an uncertainty analysis,
is to give them respect they don’t deserve!
Here’s my “certainty analysis”
— I’m CERTAIN the climate models are WRONG !
If all PhD skeptics communicated so poorly,
like Ms. Curry in her draft article,
then our cause, fighting CO2 junk science,
would be hopeless.
Your post, Mr. Tomalty, is correct,
and easy to understand,
except for one issue, IMHO:
There IS something to be learned
from the computer models***:
– The theory that CO2 controls the average temperature
with an ECS of about +3 degrees C., is WRONG.
Amazing that the people who use the models
never learned that … or don’t want to !
.
.
*** Excluding the Russian model
that makes decent predictions,
although it must be in collusion with Trump
because it does not
predict lots of global warming !
My climate change blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Warming of the troposphere by CO2 forcing is not directly coded in the models, it comes from the radiative transfer equations, fluid dynamics (N-S equations) and the long-wave IR absorption spectra of the GHGs, including water.
And then they apply various increasing non-condensing GHG concentrations (CO2 mostly) as an independent input parameter (based on the anthropogenic emissions scenarios).
Where the climate crimes are knowingly committed by the modellers are the tuning of various water/precipitation/water vapor phase changes to achieve a 2X-3X water vapor +amplification feedback. This gets them from the 1.2 K ECS by CO2 alone to 2.4 K to 3.6 K they want to see. The parameters they tune are so poorly constrained by observation that degeneracy in the parameters sets allows the modellers to achieve an expected ECS. The water vapor feedbacks (as albedo increasing cloud cover) are likely closer to zero or negative.
The major problem the GCMs have as a result of what the moddllers implement is the unique prediction of a mid-upper tropopheric hotspot (5-9 kilometers up) in the tropical latitudes. This is a unique prediction to the GCMs implementation of CO2 forcing. No other forcings, such as changing sulfate/volcanic aerosols, ozone changes, or solar irradiance variations produces the hotspot in the models. Thus the tropospheric hotspot prediction forms a unique fingerprint of the CO2 forcing theory.
And after 30 years of trying and much hand-waving from the alarmist rent-seeking modellers, the tropospheric hotspot is not observed. In fact it is the opposite. Observation best supports a changing aerosols/ozone scenario to explain the secular warming trend of the late 20th century.
The theory of strong CO2 climate forcing has failed.
“This gets them from the 1.2 K ECS by CO2 alone”
Many skeptical scientists have come up with a figure much less. Dr. Judith Curry has herself admitted that she looked for the underlying radiative transfer equations in the models and couldnt find them. The Navier Stokes equations are there but that deals with atmospheric turbulence and flows. Non grey bodies like the atmosphere require one to 1st put the temperature in and then iteratively find the flux. See Dr. Michael Modest in his bible of Radiative Heat Transfer. So if the radiative code is not there or even if it was and you have to first put a temperature in to find the flux you are working backwards. When industry models gases in an enclosure they know the heat from a thermocouple in the upper low temperature zones even though in a blast furnace it isnt possible to directly measure the temperature in the lower hotter part because of the high heat involved. They then calculate the temperature in the lower part based on that information. They then can calculate the heat flux by the iterative procedure mentioned above. Climate modelers are trying to do the opposite. If Dr. Curry herself, couldn’t find the underlying radiative heat flux code, then I will take her word for it and conclude that this is JUNK SCIENCE. .
If the water vapor feedback is negative then values approaching 0 K ECS are possible.
It may not be in the modelled processes calculated inside a grid cell. The radiative transfer calculation likely is between the grid cells, that is energy flow from one to adjoining cells. At night, radiative surface cooling is much more predominate than daytime when a SW heated surface powers convection which moves energy upward in the atmosphere by fluid dynamics.
“The theory of strong CO2 climate forcing has failed.”
Almost correct. The theory of strong water vapour feedback from CO2 forcing has failed.
GHG’s definitely warm the atmosphere, but the atmosphere compensates by reducing the concentration of water vapour at high altitude. There are 60 years of NASA data showing the optical thickness of the atmosphere hasn’t budged in all that time, meaning that there has been no net GHG warming influence on the whole atmosphere.
The theory that failed says the atmosphere does not self-regulate it’s temperature. It obviously does. What cycles it has that drive the greatest part of changes are obviously internal and solar in origin. The GHG models hold that there will be positive feedbacks that are not effectively compensated by any part of the system. Well, that is just not true.
The belief in the face of contrary evidence is akin to the belief in globalism (neo-liberal economics): no matter how obvious the failures of unregulated markets and selling off state assets, the true believers, being technocrats, not leaders, cling to their ideology even as no promised benefits accrue, and the injustice deepens.
The failure of the models, with their incorrect conceptualization of primary feedbacks and the no-GHG conditions, continue to repeat the mantras about CO2 and ecological catastrophe because to admit otherwise now will definitely cost them their jobs and/or funding. The majority of ‘climate scientists’ are not leaders, are insecure, shun uncertainty, have taken strong ideological positions (in the absence of good evidence in the vain hope that someone will find ‘the proofs’) and remained loyal to the club. They do not have the skill set to do otherwise. A disgraced academic goes quickly from captain to cap-in-hand.
The central failure is the idea of strong positive feedbacks. We have strong physical evidence that these simply do not exist. Absence of correlation is proof of a lack of causation.
Richard
“To perform an uncertainty analysis,
is to give them respect they don’t deserve!”
That is a bit unfair: the uncertainty is an inherent property of the calculation set (the “model”). It is quite legitimate to determine what it is for the simple reason that if it is large, the results can be dismissed out of hand.
A set of concatenated uncertainties that results in a number that is 50% or 200% of the expected value is useless.
Knowing this, it doesn’t matter what the model predicts. Suppose it happened to align with measured temperatures? Then what? Should the model be believed? If the uncertainty is really large, the coincidental alignment of reality and the model means nothing and does not constitute its validation.
A decent design of an experiment starts off with an intended precision and uncertainty in the result, and works backwards to the initial measurements needed to create that quality of result. The Desert Research Institute in Reno is qualified to design such experiments.
These ‘toy atmospheres’ are laughable, even given their complexity, because what they are modeling is irreducibly complex, and the uncertainty of the result is huge. The exercise of getting a grasp on the magnitude is perhaps useful in saying this or that might be OK, or it is hopeless even if it works.
Crispin
The causes of climate change are unknown
with the exception of planetary geometry.
Anyone can make a list of possible causes.
But the specific climate change physics is still a mystery.
Therefore a climate “model” is impossible.
Any attempt to create a “model” would be a wild guess,
unlikely to make accurate predictions.
That’s what we have.
The major uncertainty
is the climate change physics.
An uncertainty analysis on a so-called “model”,
that makes wrong predictions, is a waste of time,
— doing that analysis could give the “model”
more credibility that it deserves.
The so called GCMs are NOT models of any
climate process on this planet — if they were,
the predictions would be a lot better.
“Formal uncertainty quantification of computer models is less relevant to science than an assessment of whether the model helps us learn about how the system works.”
I would say that Dr Curry is bang on. That is assuming that she is talking about the system being observed – not the model system
I will reiterate. If she is saying that there is no debate and that in fact we cant learn anything about the real earth system from climate models than I agree. However if she meant that then why not say it directly? That was only the 1st sentence in a long draft of talking about how much uncertainty there is in computer models. In the next sentence she says ” However in context of the science -policy interface, uncertainty matters.”
I would say that uncertainty matters in every context.
By linking the 2 parts together in her first sentence, Dr. Curry has entertained the possibility of learning something from a faulty model. In the rest of industry one can continually do real world tests of whether the model is correct. We cannot do that for the earth’s atmosphere. Therefore we are left with a model that cant be validated. If the underlying radiative science code is not there or if it is calculating the temperature in a backwards procedure (See above post) then we are into JUNK SCIENCE). So in conclusion I reiterate. WE CANNOT LEARN FROM A COMPUTER MODEL THAT HAS A MILLION LINES OF CODE IN IT THAT DOESNT HAVE THE BASIC SCIENCE CORRECT.
I guess that what I am saying is that if the models are not predicting correctly then we have to investigate why e.g. are there feedbacks within the climate system that are not integrated into the model? – which is I believe to be the case
There are no real models Mr. Carter!
The underlying climate science is unknown.
That would be the foundation for any real model.
There is no foundation upon which to build a real model.
What are called “models” are just personal opinions
— wild guesses of what causes climate change —
and proof the wild guesses arer wrong
are the grossly inaccurate predictions
There is a generic picture – I hesitate to say model – of all this that may be helpful.
To generate a model – a hypothesis – s a process of induction, The aim is to generate (by means that are still being argued about) a model of the observed data. This is ‘we have the effect: let’s posit the Cause’ type activity.
The problem with all induction is that we can never say that we have it right, that we have the truth.
We can dream up an infinite number of possible causes up to and including God (or the Russians) did it. They might be true.
Post Popper, the accepted understanding is that scientific induction has no truth content, but what we can do is, if the model is able to predict the outcome of events, is to test it to see if it does.
And what passes the test, becomes accepted science.
Running computer models is a way to test the inductive model by deduction.
That is IF the model is good, THEN the model once run will produce outputs that predict the future course of climate and so on.
That doesn’t mean the model is ‘true’ – just that it works.
Hence Poppers criteria of refutation is an expression of the inherent lack of there being any possible formal way to test the truth of a hypothesis – only to test its potential falsity by its lack of ability to match the reality if e.g. experimental results.
Science uses inductive logic to propose..’the phenomena could be caused by this natural law’ …and deductive logic to test “IF this hypothesis is true THEN this is what will happen”.
If you deny the point of models at all, you deny the utility of science itself.
Climate science does not invalidate science. By running the models and getting results that simply fail to match reality the validity of climate science is refuted.
you haven’t really understood Judith’s position. She is fundamentally saying that the models don’t really reflect the process going on in climate, and thats why they don’t work , and quantifying how badly they don’t works is not really helpful.
Your positions seems to be that models are stupid things anyway.
Thats simply makes you as anti-science as any greentard.
“She is fundamentally saying that the models don’t really reflect the process going on in climate, and thats why they don’t work”
Dr. Judith Curry never said that
And I didnt say that all models are wrong. I talked about models in industry that were validated. Computer models have never been validated and have always had wrong predictions. Judith Curry in her statement was entertaining the idea that we can learn something from the models. I assumed she was talking only about climate models because that is what is relevant in this discussion. My point is that we can learn nothing from climate models.
I should have said computer climate models.
She said as far as I could tell that we should be able to learn something from the models, but we cant.
The only difference between f=ma and a climate model is that you can solve the equations of motion without a computer, for simple cases.
In climate, there is no simple case. Forget the computers. They are only tools to do Big Sums with. Very big deduction machines. They cant infer the truth any more than any human can.
If the model works it works. If it doesn’t work it certainly doesn’t represent the Truth, and if model runs give widely varying results for close starting conditions, that is a sure sign that the reality itself is not predictable whatever model you use.
And averaging out the results of chaotic model runs does not tell you which way things are going top pan out
Leo and Alan
I think what Judith Curry said
is subject to much confusion
and misunderstanding.
That was my first complaint
— she seems like a PhD
writing for other PhDs.
I only went as far as a Masters degree,
— so there was no hope of me reading
her draft article and understanding
exactly what she meant !
What ever happened to the Red team Blue team evaluation of AGW?
There was important work to be done.
1) The War On Coal. Note that this was more than just coal. Remember the oil drilling moratorium, which was ruled illegal? And the banning of natural gas fraking an all lands under government control. This was a war on the US., not just coal.
2) The WOTUS rule. The Waters Of The US, where EPA attempted to grab legal jurisdiction over all lakes, rivers, streams and mud puddles in the US.
The Red team – Blue team exercise might have been nice, but ultimately was unimportant. The key issue here is the Endangerment Finding, that CO2 is dangerous and needs regulation.
But the Endangerment Finding is a *legal* construct, not a scientific one. Also, the Endangerment Finding is a legal *Fortress*, meant to be as impregnable as the bureaucrats and lawyers could make it. The Finding took years over the course of two terms of the Obama administration to construct. It will take years to rip it down. The avenue for attack will be via regulations, rulings, and the courts. As these things go, the scientific basis will have little, if anything to do with it.
Your tax dollars at work.
Blue team refuses to cooperate/participate.
Maybe WH chief-of-staff Kelly, who vetoed the idea, did so because he didn’t want soon-to-be-fired Pruitt associated with it. So maybe it’ll be resurrected by his successor. Maybe he’ll hire Koonin.
I would appreciate suggestions for quick comeback questions/responses to brainwashed non-technical folks that claim we are doomed by CO2 and that oil, gas and coal is bad while “electricity” and renewables will prevent climate change, AGW, SLR etc.
One I have read here before is “What do you think the proper level of CO2 should be in the atmosphere?” I used that on a petition peddler the other day and he backpeddled quickly and walked away after I hit him with “Do you know why greenhouses are often operated at 1200 ppm CO2?” Other suggestions would be appreciated. Maybe I’ll make a top ten list.
Cheers.
I sometimes get the feeling that global warmists want to rid the atmosphere of all CO2. The current level of 400PPM seems to be a very desirable one. None of these
warmists seems to have a Plan B if emissions become stabilized such that CO2 levels start falling. What would be their response to this new “dangerously low levels of life sustaining CO2” crisis ?
They want the public to think CO2 is a man-made pollutant. When in fact the natural fluxes of sinks and sources of CO2 means that only about 0.6% of the CO2 flux in the bulk atmosphere at any given point is of anthropogenic origin (burning fossil fuels, making concrete etc).
The major problem of course is that CO2 is an essential component for all life on the planet. And values of atmospheric CO2 below 250 ppm begin to have serious productivity consequences for the biosphere. And values from 300 upward to 4000 ppm have increasingly positive benefits to life on Earth.
The simple way to know they are lying in their calling CO2 a pollution is to remember the jingle,
“The answer to pollution is dilution.”
If CO2 in the atmosphere were diluted by 67% of its current value (that is, to 1/3 of the current 410) to 136 ppm, the Earth’s biosphere would quickly collapse, taking all higher life forms with it to rapid extinction.
Any real air pollution, such as sulfates/sulfites, surface ozone, particulates, mercury, etc can be reduced in atmospheric concentration by orders of magnitude, with concomitant health benefits to the biosphere.
Thus it can be concluded that CO2 is not a pollutant.
Joel:
We humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere,
but if done through clean burning fossil fuels,
the added CO2 benefits our planet’s plants …
but if done in a way that adds a lot of real pollution.
as in China, that does not benefit our planet.
“They want the public to think CO2 is a man-made pollutant. When in fact the natural fluxes of sinks and sources of CO2 means that only about 0.6% of the CO2 flux in the bulk atmosphere at any given point is of anthropogenic origin (burning fossil fuels, making concrete etc).”
And this is the mis-information that keeps getting repeated: only about 0.6% of the CO2 flux.
You fail to go on and say: this change of flux has resulted in a 50% increase in the atmosheric concentration – from 280ppm to now well over 400 – all due to human emissions.
Repeated for idealogical reasons apparently. Why else? Do you dispute humans have caused a 50% increase in concentration?
zazove
Then there’s arithmetic.
As far as I understand, mankind has been adding approx. 2 ppm CO2 to the atmosphere per year since the start of the industrial revolution, around 1870.
So, 1870 – 2018 is 148 years x 2 ppm = 296 ppm.
Add to that the 280 ppm around 1870 and that makes 576 ppm.
As far as I can see, there’s 176 ppm unaccounted for being that atmospheric CO2 is around 400 ppm now. And if science can’t empirically account for that, it can’t possibly account for the 296 ppm increase since 1870.
Even more confusing is that if mankind is responsible for 50% of the increase in atmospheric CO2, it equates that we have contributed around half of the increase between 280 ppm and 400 ppm (120 ppm) which means around 60 ppm.
That being the case, there is 236 ppm unaccounted for, not just 176 ppm.
Hot Scott
I wasn’t sure if your comment
was meant as humor … but
the +2 ppm per years or
+ 3 ppm per year CO2 increase
only refers to modern times
(after 1940 or 1950)
+2 ppm per years is a doubling in 133 years
+3 ppm per year is a doubling in 200 years
So maybe it might be + 1 degree C. warmer, at worst,
in 133 years. I can’t wait.
Richard
tongue in cheek rather than a straight belly laugh.
Sceptics are constantly berated by “the increase in atmospheric CO2 since the IR”, so it seems a good place to start.
So what I have learned today is that pre 1940 CO2 increases don’t count, only increases post WW2 are calculated.
But isn’t:
+2 ppm per years is a doubling in 133 years
+3 ppm per year is a doubling in 200 years
the wrong way round?
I frequently ask the Faithful what period of time represented the optimum climate we ought to strive for? The Medieval Warm Period prior to industrialization and use of fossil fuels? You know, when Greenland was green and suitable for farming and grazing? Or the cooler climate of the “Little Ice Age” which followed… the one associated with famine and hunger… the period we are still emerging from? Or do we want to go back to the Roman Warm Period, or even further back to the Minoan Warm Period, when the human population numbered in the tens of millions or a few hundred millions worldwide, and we had no impact on the environment? Or maybe we ought to go back to the climate of 12,000 years ago, when global warming was melting glacial ice worldwide, and the Great Lakes were being formed? Then I follow up asking them what is optimum climate? How do we know if we are approaching optimum, or moving away from optimum? Who decides?
Jmichna:
“I frequently ask the Faithful what period of time represented the optimum climate we ought to strive for?”
The optimum climate was on June 6, 1750
at 3:35pm — any change from that moment,
is bad news.
What kills more people, hot or cold weather?
How many square miles are represented by the average of all reporting stations? How many square miles on earth?
Why do you believe in CO2 AGW? Why don’t you know?
When did the last ice event end? When did it start?
Old MacDonald
(1)
What kills more people, hot or cold weather?
COLD WEATHER, BY FAR.
(2)
How many square miles are represented by the average
of all reporting stations?
How many square miles on earth?
FROM AN ARTICLE POSTED TODAY
ON MY CLIMATE BLOG:
“The Earth has a total surface area
of approximately 500 million km2.
High resolution global analysis
would require the use of
at least five million sensors,
which is 1,600x times more
than the less than 3,000
land and sea stations
currently being used to estimate
the average surface temperature”
(3)
Why do you believe in CO2 AGW? Why don’t you know?
YOU CAN NOT KNOW THE FUTURE CLIMATE,
SO YOU HAVE TO “BELIEVE”.
(4)
When did the last ice event end? When did it start?
I’M NOT SURE WHAT AN “ICE EVENT” IS, BUT …
I BELIEVE THE LAST ICE EVENT
IS STILL IN PROGRESS,
WITH ICE MELTING FOR ABOUT
18,000 to 20,000 YEARS SO FAR.
My climate change blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Far more people are killed by chronic underheating than cold and heat waves combined.
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0.pdf
The study at your link said, and I quote:
“Most of the temperature-related mortality burden
was attributable to the contribution of cold.”
The inconvenient questions that the IPCC nor Michael Mann can’t answer.
1) Why did sea level rise faster in early 2Oth century than now and even now is not accelerating?
2) Why do only rural land temperature data sets show no warming?
3) Why did climate scientists in the climategate emails worry about no warming trends? They are supposed to be unbiased either way.
4) Why do some local temperature land based datasets show no warming Ex: Augusta Georgia for last 83 years? There must be 1000’s of other places like this.
5) Why do 10 of the 13 weather stations in Antarctica show no warming in last 60 years? The 3 that do are near undersea volcanic ridges.
6) Why does the lower troposphere satellite data of UAH show very little warming and in fact showed cooling from 1978 to 1997?
7) Why is there only a 21% increase in net atmosphere CO2 ppm since 1980 but yet mankind increased fossil fuel emissions CO2 by 75%?
8) Why did National Academy of Sciences in 1975 show warming in the 30’s and 40’s and NASA in 1998 and 2008 not show nearly as much warming for those time periods?
9) Why has no one been able to disprove Lord Monckton’s finding of the basic flaw in the climate sensitivity equations after doubling CO2?
10) Why has there never been even 1 accurate prediction by a climate model. Even if one climate model is less wrong than another one it is still wrong.
11) Why do most climate scientists not understand the difference between accuracy and precision?
12) Why have many scientists resigned from the IPCC in protest?
13) Why do many politicians, media and climate scientists continue to lie about CO2 causing extreme weather events? Every data set in the world shows there are no more extreme weather events than there ever were
14) Why do clmate scientists call skeptics deniers as if we were denying the holocaust?
!5) Why did Michael Mann refuse to hand over his data when he sued Tim Ball for defamation and why did Mann subsequently drop the suit?
16) Why have every climate scientist that has ever debated the science of global warming lost every debate that has ever occurred?
17) Why does every climate scientist now absolutely refuse to debate anymore?
18) Why do careers get ruined when scientists dare to doubt global warming in public?
19) Why do most of the scientists that retire come out against global warming?
20) Why is it next to impossible to obtain a PhD in Atmospheric science if one has doubts about global warming?
21) Why is it very very difficult to get funding for any study that casts doubt on global warming?
22) Why has the earth greened by 18% in the last 30 years?
23) Why do clmate scientists want to starve plants by limiting their access to CO2? Optimum levels are 1200 ppm not 410ppm.
24) Why do most climate scientists refuse to release their data to skeptics?
25) Why should the rest of the world ruin their economies when China and India have refused to stop increasing their emmissions of CO2 till 2030?
26) Why have the alarmist scientists like Michael Mann called Dr. Judith Curry an anti scientist?
27) Why does the IPCC not admit that under their own calculations a business as usual policy would have the CO2 levels hit 590ppm in 2100 which is exactly twice the CO2 level since 1850.?
28) Why do the climate modellers not admit that the error factor for clouds makes their models worthless?
29) Why did NASA show no increase in atmospheric water vapour for 20 years before James Hansen shut the project down in 2009?
30) Why did Ben Santer change the text to result in an opposite conclusion in the IPCC report of 1996 and did this without consulting the scientists that had made the original report?
31) Why does the IPCC say with 90% confidence that anthropogenic CO2 is causing warming when they have no evidence to back this up except computer model predictions which are coded to produce results that CO2 causes warming?
32) How can we believe climate forecasts when 4 day weather forecasts are very iffy?.
33) Why do all climate models show the tropical troposhere hotspot when no hotspot has actually been found in nature?
34) Why is there non existent long term variability in the climate models because otherwise the simulation would become chaotic so the model has to be tuned to flatten the variability?
35) Why is the normal greenhouse effect not observed for SST?
36) Why is SST net warming increase close to 0?
37) Why is the ocean ph level steady over the lifetime of the measurements?
38) what results has anyone ever seen from global warming if it exists? I have been waiting for it for 40 years and havent seen it yet?
39) If there were times in the past when CO2 was 20 times higher than today why wasnt there runaway global warming then?
40) Why was there a pause in the satellite data warming in the early 2000’s?
41) Why did CO2 rise after WW2 and temperatures fall?
42) For the last 10000 years over half of those years showed more warming than today. Why?
43) Why does the IPCC refuse to put an exact % on the AGW and the natural GW?
44) Why do the alarmists still say that there is a 97% consensus when everyone knows that figure was madeup?
45) The latest polls show that 33% do not believe in global warming and that figure is increasing poll by poll ? why?
46) If CO2 is supposed to cause more evaporation how can there ever be more droughts with CO2 forcing?
47) Why are there 4 times the number of polar bears as in 1960?
48) Why did the oceans never become acidic even with CO2 levels 15-20 times higher than today?
49) Why does Antarctica sea ice extent show no decrease in 25 years?
50) Why do alarmists still insist that skeptics are getting funding from fossil fuel companies ( when alarmists get billions from the government and leftest think tanks) and skeptics get next to nothing from either fossil fuel companies nor governments for climate research?
51) If the Bloomberg carbon clock based on the Mauna Loa data, in the fall and winter increases at a rate of only 2ppm per year; then why do we have to worry about carbon increases?
52) Why arent the alarmists concerned with actual human lives. In England every winter there are old people who succumb to the cold because they cant afford the increased heating bills caused by green subsidies.
53) Why did Phil Jones a climategate conspirator, admit in 2010 that there was no statistically meaningful difference in 4 different period temperature data that used both atmospheric temperature and sea surface temperature?
54) Why does the IPCC still say that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is a 100 years when over 80 studies have concluded it is more like 5 years?
55) Why do all global climate alarmists say that corals are dying due to bleaching when Dr. Peter Ridd (who has published over 100 papers) has proven that coral bleaching is a defensive mechanism by corals in relation to temperature change in the water.
56) Why does the IPCC still release temperature and sea level data from NOAA and NASA when Tony Heller has proved that those agencies have faked data and made improper adjustments to the actual raw numbers ?
57) How does the IPCC explain that Professor Miskolczi showed that despite a 30% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere in the period 1948 to 2008, the total infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere was found to be unchanged from its theoretical value of 1.87
58) Why has the Global Historical Climate Network temperature data set for ~ 1000 temperature stations in the United States shown no warming over the entire 124 year period when you just take the daily maximum and average it out for the 365 days of the year?
59) Why has the global average downward infrared radiation to the surface shown no increase ever since the CERES satellite started collecting data in the year 2000?
60) How would Antarctica ever melt if almost all of the land mass never even comes close to 0 C even in summer? Same for Greenland.
61) Why did one alarmist put 7 bullet holes in Dr. John Christy’s office window?
62) Why does a NOAA graph that charts CO2 levels in the atmosphere and thus by year increase (since CO2 increases every year) show absolutely no relation to outgoing longwave radiation?
63) Why does the central England temperature dataset from the mid 1600s to today show only a .25 C increase in 350 years?
64) Since no one has been able to show exactly what the emissivity of CO2 is ; then wouldnt that mean that the downward IR measurements by NASA are wrong since they assume emissivity of a blackbody of a value of 1?
65) No one has debunked the finding of the IRIS effect by Dr. Lindzen.
Logically, there can be only one best climate model, which appears to be the Russian model. Averaging all the poor model results with the best/better ones only dilutes the results and provides useless results.
All the models should be ranked for skill, and then examined to see what, if anything, differentiates the skilled models from the unskilled models. We could learn something from that.
Clyde
With so many wrong models (about 97%)
you have to speculate that the one “good”
is not really goods — just lucky guessing!
Alan,
Your statement #2 and #4 are contradictions. I think that some of your other statements are playing a little loose with the facts and would be hard to defend if someone pressed you on them.
Clyde, it would be cool if someone with infallible knowledge could “tighten” up the facts on this list. It could be used as a sort of “Cliff’s Notes” for folks. I for one keep studying but often find myself struggling for just the right argument when being assaulted by a rabid follower of the CAGW gospel.
The reason I decided to be “generous,” as zazove put it, is that there are kernels of truth in the list. With some research and tight editing, it could be useful as “Cliff’s Notes.”
Here’s Cliff (Claven’s) Notes, Jake:
– Humans don’t know much about climate change
other than very long term effects of planetary geometry
“hard to defend” is being generous Clyde.
Alright, then call me generous. I’ve been called worse things.
Alan T, wow profound list. As for
14) Why do clmate scientists call skeptics deniers as if we were denying the holocaust?
________________________________________________
Could it be people are searching for
– structures
– sense
– security
– a narrative
– some kind of a stronghold
________________________________________________
and the first best stronghold narrative
is a competitor, a enemy: a denier
Wundersamer
14) “Why do climate scientists call skeptics deniers as if we were denying the holocaust?”
Answer: Because they are liberal stupid-heads
following the Saul Alinsky rule that debating
people who disagree with you gives them credibility,
so you ALWAYS act like they are unworthy of debate,
by ridiculing and character attacking them.
The list could be simplified by focusing on the characteristics of a pseudoscience. For example:
1. Dismissing critics by name-calling.
2. Failure or great reluctance to disclose underlying data.
3. Misappropriation of causes (i.e., continually asserting that things that are happening because of their theory.) This, I think, is the big one.
4. Over-reliance on theory and/or modelling over direct experimentation.
5. Refusing to admit the theory is wrong when contradicted by solid data.
6. etc.,etc.
65 issues questions !
How long do we have to respond to them ?
Solsten, you asked “What do you think the proper level of CO2 should be in the atmosphere?” A similar, and related question is, “What is the optimum average global temperature for Earth, and why?”
And the follow up, “Who decides what the optimum global average temperature should be and how do I get that job?”
Ric,
Apply for a grant — and be prepared to be rejected.
The obvious answer to what “the optimal global average temperature should be” is different than what it is now. It’s all Mann’s fault.
(I think those jobs have already been filled to ad nauseam.)
1) Explain to them who the IPCC is and what they represent to AGW proponents.
2) Ask them if the consensus opinion of climate scientists is important to them. If they say, “yes,” then ask them about this consensus opinion of the IPCC (emphasis mine):
From chapter 14.2.2.2 “Balancing the need for finer scales and the need for ensembles”, the following paragraph describes what’s currently possible with regard to modeling the climate in a predictive manner given the current state of technology and our scientific knowledge regarding the climate:
In sum, a strategy must recognise what is possible. In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.
http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
If the consensus opinion of the IPCC is that 1) the “long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible;” and 2) even if it were, at present, we don’t have the “greatly increased computer resources” necessary to run a model capable of such predictions, nor the diagnostic methods to ensure that the model can be trusted, then 3) for what logical reason should anyone be overly concerned, if at all?
The theory of AGW is built on an as yet non-existent computer software model, running on an as yet non-existent computer system. It’s ALL they have.
In climate research and modelling, we should recognise that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.
So far so good..
The most we can expect to achieve is the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions.
Er no.
This is handwavey nonsense.
I spent several hours once looking into the problem of placing bounds on chaotic non linear systems. We simply have no tools at all that can do this.
Ensembles of solutions based on inadequate models will do nothing at all. Its superficially impressive, but is in fact meaningless.
If you look at the ensembles used by NOAA for e.g.hurricane prediction you will see that they diverge. The do not converge to some kind of limit of bounded solution. In fact I have seen cases where due to extreme sensitivity to things like wind sheer two models will arrive at completely contradictory positions. What actually happens is not a’mean’ of the two tracks. Its either one, or the other.
A sniper trying to shoot the president in a strong wind may miss, or he may kill him at say a 50/50 probabilty BUT the outcome is NOT likely to be a 90% certainty that the president will end up more or less half dead.
Thats how stupid this claim is…#
This reduces climate change to the discernment of significant differences in the statistics of such ensembles. The generation of such model ensembles will require the dedication of greatly increased computer resources and the application of new methods of model diagnosis. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive, but such statistical information is essential.
BS baffles brains.
This is classic sleight of hand. Plus the inevitable ‘more money will get better answers’
The point is, it wont.
Once you accept the IPCCs OWN definition: ” a coupled non-linear chaotic system” you have implicitly admitted that no model we are able to construct will allow any prediction at all of any meaningful sort to be made. The average of 110,000 coin tosses tells us that the coin will probably land on its edge.
That’s how stupid this claim is.
there is no way to know that the models are more or less right and just randomly incorrect in which case an average may improve accuracy.
The average of 10,000 POS is just one more POS.
The IPCC betray their incompetence at this point and by supporting their claim so do you.
We know that there is an attractor in climate that results in quasi stable ice ages. If the equations are chaotic then we cant tell when the next ice age will arrive, just that it is likely that it will. We know too that shorter periods of interglacials have some stability too, but again these are just as unpredictable.
We can set up equations of chaos, and see our vectors flip from one attractor to another, and back. We can modify the equations slightly and see a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT trajectory.The stupidity if the IPCC is to think that the average of the two vectors is in fact ‘likely’
That is not how chaos works.
Much of the argument about the skill of climate models revolves around the temperature predictions, which have similar trends, if different slopes. However, it is my understanding that the regional precipitation predictions are often contradictory. How can one have confidence in the utility of models if the best they can do is agree with historical trends, but fail at quantitative predictions. It is, after all, the skill, or lack thereof, of quantitative model predictions that is the basis for alarm over the trends.
If they could even get temperature trends right it would be something…
Leo! I’m so glad you stopped by! I notice you didn’t address my objection to the last time you contradictorily postulated something as true. And it would seem you’ve again made another mess here.
The IPCC betray their incompetence at this point and by supporting their claim so do you.
Don’t you presuppose something as true when as a good proselyte of Popper-esque propositional prepostery, you can know nothing except that which is false? If so, don’t you contradict yourself as you did before?
I didn’t build my objection for the OP on the basis of my own personal “support” of all the claims by the IPCC. Rather, I built an objection for the OP based upon the specifications the OP provided, i.e, “…suggestions for quick comeback questions/responses to brainwashed non-technical folks that claim we are doomed by CO2.”
I would argue my “quick comeback questions/responses,” which are based upon a continuous, single paragraph truth claim penned by the IPCC itself, are much better configured as a step-by-step logical objection to AGW for the OP’s specific set of all, “brainwashed non-technical folks,” than are yours.
E.g., you argue the following:
“I spent several hours once looking into the problem of placing bounds on chaotic non linear systems. We simply have no tools at all that can do this.”
Do you suppose the “brainwashed non-technical folks” about whom the OP is concerned also looked “into the problem of placing bounds on chaotic non linear systems,” and also concluded that we “simply have no tools at all” that can accomplish that task?
If you did, why did you? Because that’s what “brainwashed non-technical folks” do?
Now Leo, you are as I understand it, and correct me if I’m wrong, an engineer by trade, in which case, you should be familiar with how to build products to customer specifications.
I’m still havin’ fun, and you’re still the one making me smile!
🙂
Possibly,. Since your post does not in anyway refute what I said and in fact is simply a straw man, and its plain you haven’t actually understood my position with respect to Truth..,
..that is has meaning only in the sense of deductive logic from a axiomatic proposition.
Since that statement there is something you seem not to understand, there isn’t much point in belabouring the point.
Climate change model results contradict the observed phenomena in the worldview – science – of which they claim to be valid. Science itself and its whole view of the world may not be ‘true’ but that isn’t where we start. We start with science, and discover that climate equations do not agree with the reality that science pictures. Ergo they are neither useful in predictions, nor are they science.
Moving on to the IPCC as quoted by you, they indulge in clear double think. First of all they head of criticism by stating that climate is a ‘coupled non-linear chaotic system’…
..but then they make a false claim that therefore they can …’achieve … the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions.’
Which is rubbish. Since they have no way to tell what the probability distribution of the exact starting conditions are, let alone ig the models are in fact reasonably good at representing the presumed underlying processes.
In short they are applying techniques which are only applicable to linear non chaotic systems, simply because that’s the only tools they have. And the implication is that spending more on bigger and better tools will somehow make them more applicable.
If you cant trim your toenails with a hammer, try using a sledge hammer..
This thread of double think and inapplicability runs right through the whole climate change meme. Windmills and solar panels can be shown to be a total waste of money, and that large scale deployment leads to spiralling costs and grid instability and no reduction in emissions., but science is ignored, because the simple minded are taken in by the faux logic that since the wind or sun is free, wind energy is cheap, and since windmills don’t burn fossil fuels they don’t produce CO2 overall.
The inference is two pronged as far as I can see. Either those in charge of the science and technology of the climate change meme are completely incompetent, or they are not interested in models that work or solutions that reduce CO2 emissions
Climate change is therefore not about climate change, its about gross incompetence or about massive deception for ulterior motives.
Oh, and read Popper and try and understand what he actually says.
Possibly,. Since your post does not in anyway refute what I said and in fact is simply a straw man…
Why Leo I don’t think I’ve ever seen you more confused than you appear to be now. A Straw Man? Against my own mind?
Let’s go over it again. To review, you made the following claim:
The IPCC betray their incompetence at this point and by supporting their claim so do you.
You assumed as true (thereby contradicting yourself) that from the mere act of quoting the IPCC, I supported their claim regarding model ensembles, etc. Of course such a thing doesn’t follow at all. Shall I quote from Popper and you would therefore argue I believe him as well?
Your assumption was denied and therefore, the argument I intended to address was sufficiently “refuted.” If I don’t support the referenced IPCC claim, then I can’t be incompetent on your assumptions. Unless, of course, you can somehow show where in the world I argued that I believe the IPCC regarding model ensembles, etc. And you can’t, because it didn’t happen. Where is the Straw Man in this case?
You messed up again Leo…you’re going to have to be more careful, and I’m here to help you accomplish that goal when and where I can by pointing out the critical flaw(s) in your thinking.
No, no…thanks aren’t necessary! I’m happy to do it because I like you, it’s somewhat challenging, and loads of fun!
Oh, and read Popper and try and understand what he actually says.
There you go again, contradicting yourself! Bad Popper Proselyte! Why do you assume as true that I haven’t read Popper? Moreover, even if I grant your premise, are you telling me you’re so unfamiliar with your own belief system that you haven’t sufficiently described it previously?
Still havin’ fun… 🙂
“Still havin’ fun…”
To what end?
Have I offended?
“Fun” is it’s own end, is it not?
If you must know, with regard to Leo, I enjoy the back and forth he offers as an individual of some intellect who holds a radically different philosophical position about the world than I do.
His confidence in his position (e.g., evaluating me as “incompetent” for holding a belief I don’t hold) leads me to challenge that position. From there I’m able to evaluate and confirm truths I hold in my own.
Because I like him, this sort of banter, combined with the fact that I try not to take myself too seriously (e.g., commenting toward any particular “end,” other than finding truth) results in “fun.”
Proverbs 27:17
Good luck with that.
The fundamental problem is that the CAGW cult controls the evidence that their believers will accept. You can’t appeal to paleoclimate temperature and CO2 evidence derived from proxies, because their witch doctors assure them that the proxies are unreliable. The argument for the proxies being unreliable does not come to much more than that if the proxies were correct it would suggest the “impossible”, that CO2 does not drive temperature and that temperatures have been much higher in the past. In other words, the science is unreliable because it contradicts their faith. But if a single tree shows the right evidence, then it is unassailable proof.
When there is a big snowstorm, they turn to their high priests and are assured that it is caused by ocean warming that increases evaporation and causes more precipitation, but if there is a drought, it is somehow still caused by global warming. After all when there is a drought, the location experiencing it tends to be hot and dry from lack of evaporative cooling. It’s easy to hide the counter-intuitive fact that cooler ocean temperatures cause droughts and just focus on the place where it’s hot.
They are believers, not thinkers. There is nothing driving them to be logically consistent. If you try to persuade them without recognizing that you are trying to change their religion and their politics, you will be bitterly disappointed.
I’d happily take 1500ppm, I’d like to say 2000, but I don’t think humans could afford the amount we’d need to spend on weedkiller keeping the plants under control.
Life is a war to the death on this rock, humans do well because we cooperate to keep nature at bay. I asked a friend, an emotional follower of the green fad if they could think of a living thing that didn’t depend on the deaths of others, she set her jaw and began – starting with cats and dogs and on she went. Utterly clueless of the world around her. A perfect example of a person protected from nature by the society of humans around her.
Forget the wooly mammoth, we’d be clamoring to clone the brontosaurus to keep it all eaten down. 😀
Solsten asks:
“I would appreciate suggestions for quick comeback questions/responses to brainwashed non-technical folks that claim we are doomed by CO2 …”
My suggestion:
Don’t waste your time with CO2 is Evil
cult members — just skip to the conclusion:
“Up your nose with a rubber hose !”
Why waste time trying to teach real climate science
to a person who believes everything he is told by
government bureaucrats? … which would only end up
in a bitter argument, where you were called a “climate denier”
… and you would respond (well, I would) with
“Up your nose with a rubber hose !”
I am usually confronted with people who begin “well I think..” when clearly they’re lying.
I just remembered
that if the subject of climate change
ever comes up with my wife’s friends,
most of whom are leftists,
she says something like:
‘Our property in Michigan was under a mile of ice
20,000 years ago — we’ve had warming
for 20,000 years — it’s nothing new!’
The leftist women don’t know how to respond and
usually change the subject.
When I can get a warmist to actually agree to a rational discussion (rarely) I start by asking if they can list the top 5 atmospheric gases in order from highest to lowest concentration. Bonus points if they can provide the approximate percentages. Most times the conversation doesn’t go any further. Most think CO2 is third and almost no one seems to know water vapor averages 10 times more than CO2.
For reference:
Nitrogen: 78%
Oxygen: 20.9%
Argon: 0.9%
Water vapor: 0.4%
Carbon Dioxide: 0.04%
(Does not add to 100% due to rounding)
I asked some folks the most dominant greenhouse gas the other day, they did realize that it wasn’t CO2 (maybe because of the context the question was asked) but after several answers they didn’t get water vapor.
If you’ve got a laptop handy, show them Dr. David Evans’ 12 minute video: “The skeptics’ case,” 2/20/13—484,000 views—it’s at https://youtu.be/0gDErDwXqhc
In a nutshell, Evans contends that all responsible climate change skeptics accept the existence of some global warming caused by CO2 (IOW, AGW), but do not accept its amplification by purported positive feedbacks from water vapor, as warmists do. If there is no amplification, there is no crisis (IOW, no looming “catastrophe”). Possible feedbacks are the core of the dispute, and the evidence for them is slight.
“Some global warming from CO2”
… could range from too small to measure
to +1 degree per CO2 doubling
— both would be harmless.
No one knows.
Nothing in the temperature record
of the 20th century
requires any explanation
other than:
“natural climate change”
(which has been the cause of all climate
change in the past 4.5 billion years,
until the warmunists decided,
without scientific proof,
there was only man made
climate change after 1940.
Solsten
There are two arguments I use.
1. No one has ever empirically demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 causes the planets atmosphere to warm.
2. The only empirical manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2 is that the planet has greened by 14% in the last 35 years or so, according to NASA. One of their researchers described it as greening the size of two mainland USA’s.
You are correct HotScot,
but it’s too much trouble
to debate with a leftist,
assuming they will debate.
I just grab
their New York Times,
roll it up,
and swat them
upside the head
a few times
as I am making
my climate points!
They are still very weak conditions for the formation of hurricanes in the Atlantic.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/satlooper.php?region=atl&product=wv-mid
Hail cannons. Look it up on your favourite interweb thingy. I never heard of them until my current holiday, staying in the “Prosecco Hills” here in Italy Seems the wine growers and other farmers think they work. When I asked our host what this thing up the hill was, she explained, and mentioned……… Climate change…… What a mess, superstition mixed with the latest bonkers idea. Well at least last year’s harvest is drinking OK, and the walking in the Dolomites is fab.
Okay, here are some thoughts I’ve had lately. It’s about hiding something enormous in plain sight.
We live in a period, the Quaternary, where temps fluctuate but where most of the time they are well below present temps. Been thus for a few million years. A mere twenty-odd thousand years back we went full-glaciation and a mere twelve thousand years back things were pretty chilly. You could walk to Tasmania from Victoria.
Within this period we live in yet another interglacial, unremarkable compared to the two previous named interglacials, not that long ago. The Holsteinian and Eemian got a bit warmer, but no biggie.
Within this interglacial, the Holocene, we’ve had temps higher than now (eight thousand years back markedly higher) and some three hundred years back there was a noticeable chill.
No big deal, because over the last ten thousand years homo sapiens, who has survived the highs of the Eemian and Holocene Optimum as well as the lows of eg the Toba eruption and last ice age, has been able to use a brief warm plateau to do something very different: stay in one place, populate heavily and build up these semi-permanent arrangements called civilisations.
Does anyone have ideas on why we should expect this present gig to last? We’ve had over ten thousand years, more or less the ration, and while we might get more millennia of relative warmth it’s hard to see how we can defy nature as revealed by geology, stratigraphy etc for very long.
Those who live in fear of a smirk by Brian Cox or DeGrasse-Tyson think “science” is telling us all sorts of things about climate. But doesn’t science (without quotes) tell us something very different? Namely, that there is nothing whatever remarkable about the present warmth, either as interglacial or upward blip within the interglacial, but that it will soon be impossible eg to have farms in Europe and Canada and that cold (thus drought) will make large-scale civilisation too tough everywhere. We survived the last major cooling as nomads in small numbers…that’s all we know.
Look I’m sure I’ve got details askew and I’m painting with too broad a brush for any expert. But is this summary of things so wrong?
One last question: is it possible that something so large and obvious really is invisible to those in authority, both intellectual and political? The end of the Holocene isn’t the elephant in the room. It’s the brontosaurus in the Volkswagen.
At best the earth might have about about 15,000 years before temperatures begin dropping into the next glacial cycle, but odds are better that the start of the drop will happen within the next one or two thousand years. Here’s a comparison of our current interglacial with the previous four based on ice core oxygen isotope proxy estimates of Antarctic temperature adjusted to better represent the global temperature:
The next glacial period in our current ice age will likely be a major challenge for humanity and scientists will some day look back and scoff at all the unwarranted attention to the minuscule warming from CO2.
Javier provides some good arguments favoring a faster end to our current interglacial here:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/10/24/nature-unbound-i-the-glacial-cycle/
The Interglacial to compare is the one 418,400 YBP because eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit was about the same, very low. So yes, it will be another 20,000 years or so before this one ends. (not sure I will still be around then, but there is always hope)
Looking forward to reading the emails that are supposed to be released soon by the University of Arizona. Assuming that there is no shenanigan science in them. But given that there was a lot of fight to block them from being released, I think they’ll make for interesting reading.
There’s a small part of me that says they won’t get released just yet (if ever)…
Jonathan Overpeck’s email from 2005-2006-2007 will be of extreme interest. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the WG1 report of the Fourth Assessment of the IPCC. This put him as a nexus for coordinating whose research would and wouldn’t be included in the report.
In the years immediately after the TAR’s release, the controversy around Mann’s hokey-stick were swirling and much skeptical pushback was being put forth by 2005. Such as how the warmists had flattened the temperature reconstruction (the “handle”) to eliminate the LIA.
So the AR4 WG1 lead auhros certainly had a mandate to push-back the dissent (like M&M’s take-down of Mann’s statistical methods) from skeptics to the chicanery of Mike’s Nature trick and the hide the decline dishonesty (terms not yet known to the world, as the Climate Gate emails weren’t yet known.)
So everyone is expecting a lot of smoking guns of science suppression going into AR4 WG1 in those emails.
Move on, nothing to see here. They just didn’t want you looking at their yoga schedules and cupcake recipes.
Retiring Worn-Out Wind Turbines Could Cost Billions That Nobody Has:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/07/13/2349236/retiring-worn-out-wind-turbines-could-cost-billions-that-nobody-has
excerpt:
Estimates put the tear-down cost of a single modern wind turbine, which can rise from 250 to 500 feet above the ground, at $200,000… Which means landowners and counties in Texas could be on the hook for tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars if officials determine non-functional wind turbines need to be removed. Or if that proves to be too costly, as seems likely, some areas of the state could become post-apocalyptic wastelands steepled with teetering and fallen wind turbines, locked in a rigor mortis of obsolescence.
Here’s an actual decommissioning of Alberta’s earliest wind turbine farm.
https://www.windpowerengineering.com/business-news-projects/decommissioning-canadas-oldest-wind-farm/
Metal recovery (copper and steel) paid for 50% of the cost of site decommission and cleanup.
Here’s another one in Sweden for an offshore turbine farm.
Much lower service life and much higher cleanup costs.
The turbines at Vattenfall lasted less than 15 years.
and these marine-based turbines are a lot more costly to remove and recycle.
“When all aspects of the decommissioning phase are considered, costs may approach [€1 million] per turbine unit and in particular cases the costs are estimated to be much higher,” warned DNV GL.
http://www.powermag.com/vattenfall-completes-worlds-first-decommissioning-offshore-wind-farm/
Just leave them.The diddicoys will have them away in days/
Shame about tee concrete plinths. I guess the diddys can park their mobile homes on them and create a trailer park
After all, the subsidies were for putting them up, not keeping them up, nor taking them down when they couldn’t be kept up anymore.
The Radiative Greenhouse Effect Theory
Premise 1:
The earth is 33 C warmer with an atmosphere than without. (288 K – 255 K = 33 C)
So, just how does that work?
Premise 2:
There is an up/down/”back” radiative CO2/GHG energy loop between the surface and the atmosphere that “traps” and recirculates energy through QED processes warming both the atmosphere and the surface.
And what powers that energy loop?
Premise 3:
The surface radiates as a 288 K black body with an emission of 390 W/m^2 (K-T 289 K & 396 W/m^2)
Premises 1, 2 & 3 are demonstrably false.
No 33 C warmer + No up/down/”back” radiation loop + No BB radiation = No RGHE & carbon dioxide and mankind play ZERO role in the behavior of the climate.
Premise 1:
http://writerbeat.com/articles/15582-To-be-33C-or-not-to-be-33C
Premise 2:
http://writerbeat.com/articles/14306-Greenhouse—We-don-t-need-no-stinkin-greenhouse-Warning-science-ahead-
Premise 3:
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/21036-S-B-amp-GHG-amp-LWIR-amp-RGHE-amp-CAGW
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6394226874976919552
Here in Ontario Canada, our newly elected government is scraping carbon taxes on fuel and Cap & Trade, ending lucrative contracts with renewable energy, stopping subsidizing electric cars (was up to $15,000 C), all in the effort to save money. We are winning too here in Canada, could not come soon enough. Of course there is a lot of crying and moaning going on but they all can pound sand.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/end-of-ontario-electric-vehicle-rebate-program-expected-to-hit-sales-1.4012761
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2018/06/15/news/ontarios-doug-ford-says-province-abandoning-its-price-carbon-pollution
Good to hear.
Is Climate Barbie out of a job yet?
Sadly, Climate Barbie seems to be one of Trudeau’s star cabinet members. link
My favorite Liberal cabinet minister is Chrystia Freeland if only because she’s persona non grata in Russia. IMHO, she should be Prime Minister and Trudeau Jr. should be relegated to the back bench. Actually, he’d make a wonderful unicorn keeper at the parliamentary petting zoo.
Wonderful news! Thanks Duncan!
Here’s something on an investment site that might otherwise be missed—a very long, detailed critique of BEVs (like Teslas) and autonomous vehicles. It’ll go behind a paywall in a week, so check it out (and save it to Pocket or Evernote) now.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4186763-investors-test-drive-autonomous-bev-pitch
PS: It might not be paywalled—authors on the Seeking Alpha site can choose to have a few of their articles permanently available to all.
In calm weather I had a large tree in thick brush in the backyard decide to fall down in slow motion yesterday, it would split and make a racket, then move some more down towards the ground every minute or so, cracking, popping and branches flying and sort of scary. It took an hour and was quite a show, at first I thought a bear or deer or person was doing it, the dog even thought it was a large animal. The mind fills in all sorts of terrible possibilities when it doesn’t understand what is going on.
“the mind fills in all sorts of terrible possibilities when it doesn’t understand what is going on.”
A fine description of climate alarmism.
I took my giant fluffy white guardian dog out for a walk in the middle of last night … no moon … very dark. He likes to walk along the top bank of a channel looking for nutria or ducks (or goose poop); this night he saw a soccer ball sitting in the slack water. I could not have moved his 140 lb bulk without literally dragging him by the neck, so for about five minutes he just stood and stared as he tried to reconcile just what it was that he was seeing (or not seeing).
After regally pondering the situation for an appropriate amount time he decided it was not really a situation, gave the soccer ball a big head waggle as a final hopeful test at getting a response (nothing happened), and continued on his bank patrol, moving a little faster so he could catch up with me.
I don’t think he was imagining anything terrible … he just wanted to understand what is going on around him, so he could then decide what to do next.
This puts him one level above the AGW crowd.
I would like to point out here that I believe that the US is the only English speaking country left where any vestige of balanced debate on climate change remains.
We in New Zealand are being drowned by a tsunami of alarmist narrative. It is now deeply entrenched in mainstream media, public policy and education. Even farming representatives have climbed on board to be seen to be doing the “right thing” – if you can’t beat them, join them to try to minimise the impact of pending taxes. The only possibility of some kind of re-think is through temperatures and sea level rise stabilising or dropping over a period of no less than 20 yrs in the future.
Many people like myself have given up trying to quell the fire. The only means left is to point out inaccurate statements (e.g. “all time records”) through using our official climate data to those making such statements. No such corrections are ever published though.
Keep it up America. You are the last hope. Though I doubt that China or Russia are getting sucked in. There is some good science coming out of such places.
All we are asking for is truth.
Regards
M
NZ will suffer more from the next big earth quake or volcanic eruption before any noticeable effects from climate change are felt.
Rug Up Australia!!
“Australia hit with extreme cold front as snow hits and people are warned of dangerous conditions”
“SYDNEY is coping the worst of the freezing weather lashing towns and cities along Australia’s east — and the bad news is it’s going to get even colder.”
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/australia-hit-with-extreme-cold-front-as-snow-hits-and-people-are-warned-of-dangerous-conditions/news-story/61dd84de00f72de94d8f17b8d094bb23
This is true, it’s a bit cold alright, even in the sun dropping to below 5c at night. I am originally from the UK so know cold all too well.
“Rug Up Australia!!”
That was about a month ago. It’s been a beautiful sunny weekend here; I saw the first magnolia flowering today. Forecast looks OK.
And today, NOT a month ago…
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/no-early-let-up-for-sydney-s-overnight-shivers-as-cold-records-tumble-20180715-p4zrkw.html
A chilly, clear morning. And very pleasant days:
“Daytime temperatures, though, will continue to bring relief, as sunny conditions lift the mercury to more comfortable levels.
Sydney’s maximum is predicted to reach 18 degrees on Sunday and Monday, with a top of 22 tipped for Tueday and Thursday. The long-run maximum average for July is 16.4 degrees.”
Totally usual for Sydney on a sunny winter’s day. Nothing to see, move along!
I’ve read some posts on WUWT over the years on the Ceres Instrument, but I came across something the other day that I somehow missed when it came out. Back in November of 14, MIT News put out a story on the Ceres Instrument at http://news.mit.edu/2014/global-warming-increased-solar-radiation-1110
“The missing piece of the climate puzzle
In computer modeling of Earth’s climate under elevating CO2 concentrations, the greenhouse gas effect does indeed lead to global warming. Yet something puzzling happens: While one would expect the longwave radiation that escapes into space to decline with increasing CO2, the amount actually begins to rise. At the same time, the atmosphere absorbs more and more incoming solar radiation; it’s this enhanced shortwave absorption that ultimately sustains global warming.”
My understanding is that an increase in CO2 should mean a decrease in long wave radiation escaping to space because it’s trapped in the atmosphere. So, if the Ceres Instrument shows long wave radiation increasing with an increase of CO2, doesn’t that mostly invalidate the story of CO2 as a greenhouse gas? MIT News goes on to say,
“The finding was a curiosity, conflicting with the basic understanding of global warming,” says lead author Aaron Donohoe”
Another quote from someone else says,
“So there are two types of radiation important to climate, and one of them gets affected by CO2, but it’s the other one that’s directly driving global warming”
Either I’m reading this wrong, or they can’t make up their minds about CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Has anyone done any more work on this to shed light on what’s going on? If CO2 increases and more long wave radiation escapes to space, doesn’t that mean the system should cool, not considering all the other positive and negative feedbacks?
Only upon my worst enemy would I ever wish “a bit of a computer crisis at my business”.
You’ll figure it out Anthony, and you’ve got a whole army watching the flanks.
I did. It traces to the fact that the Mobo manufacturer didn’t allow for a large enough heatsink on the NorthBridge chip and even though there was lot of airflow in the chassis we use: http://www.buildablade.com/bb-itx96.htm
There was an eddy created by the taller DRAM next to it, which reduced the effectiveness of front to rear airflow. Added a small fan at that location, and problem solved.
Anthony Watts
Blimey. Climate change in a computer.
🙂
No, just an an unexpected micro-climate issue.
Clyde Spencer
Like I said, climate change. Well, the green version.
🙂
https://t.co/JeuQg0jZ1d
What are the thoughts here on this article?
Try
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/11/straining-at-gnats-in-antarctica/
Thanks! I would add that I am not at all sure the findings in the articleI linked are even trustworthy.
Scientists obsessed with computer models and math should become pure mathematicians. At least they don’t have to pretend they’re dealing with reality. This what infinity looks like. They can search for the end of infinity. They might our universe in there. Good luck!
They might find our universe in there
Looks like an old hippy’s rug pattern.
There is an important issue arising in Australia.
The National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) Committee is seeking submissions on a Discussion Paper concerning a review of the NPI which,among other issues, lists 93 pollutants for the Commonwealth of Australia.
Submissions are due by 10 August next.
The original list was drawn up by a Committee of scientists and bureaucrats in 1995/1996 for industrial and commercial purposes nationwide.
Neither Carbon nor CO2 are presently listed although Carbon monoxide and Carbon disulphide are listed.
Sceptics have pointed to the absence of C and CO2 as persuasive that neither is a “pollutant” but in truth the issue of greenhouse gases was controversial at the time and it appears that the matter was put in the “ decision pending” basket instead of an adverse finding.
The 67 page discussion paper does not appear to raise directly the question of what in effect would be an “endangerment ruling” but the issue of a possible “ black carbon index” is raised.
Can Willis or Eric look at this?
It may be important and is well above my “pay grade”.
The discussion paper is at NIP@environment.gov.au
There are some topics where sceptics should have better ways to express their positions. Here are some that need work.
1. It is often said that the earth is warming as it recovers from the little ice age. A mechanism is needed. Where is the heat coming from to produce the alleged warming? Or, alternatively, what change has happened, such as a change in the amount of cloud cover causing more incoming sunshine to hit the earth’ surface.
2. People often say glibly that aircraft jet was heats thermometers at airports. This assertion needs better observation. It is clear that a thermometer placed a few metres from the engine will read too high. Move it further away. What is the approximate distance at which the jet wash effect becomes essentially zero? Looking more wisely at airports, has anyone seen a calculation where the total fuel being burned inside the airport boundaries, to a specified altitude, for a given time period, is enough to raise the steady-state air temperature enough to affect a thermometer reading?
3. It is often said that downwelling IR cannot penetrate far enough into the sea to variously heat it, or to heat more of it than just a thin surface film, or to increase evaporation and hence cause cooling. This is a fairly important topic. Has anyone found a definitive paper that discusses credible figures and outcomes?
Many sceptics have stated that the natural flux of CO2 between surface and air is very large, so large that it dwarfs the man-made contribution and allows it to be ignored. Yet, the measured CO2 in the air correlates well with the tonnes of fossil fuel burned. These statements are contradictory. Which is correct?
4. The pre-1900 level of CO2 in air was measured many times, often under less than ideal sampling conditions. Nowdays, the Mauna Loa record, which sits well with other similar stations around the globe, is taken as the reference. Back to pre-1900, is it safe or prudent to dismiss actual analyses, or is there enough information content to infer that there was either very little variation year to year, or a lot, or that a pattern can be discerned? Geoff
Geoff,
You asked, “Where is the heat coming from to produce the alleged warming?” Assuming that the Milankovitch Cycles explain the onset of glaciation by reducing insolation, then the reverse process of coming out of an insolation minimum should supply the forcing needed to increase the temperatures. CO2 theorists need not apply unless they can provide compelling evidence that Occam’s Razor is to be ignored.
Still low surface temperature of the equatorial and North Atlantic.
Elon Musk attacks hero British diver and questions if he was even part of Thai cave rescue in extraordinary rant – after the caver dismissed the billionaire’s plan saying he ‘can stick his submarine where it hurts’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5955753/British-caver-helped-save-Thai-boys-says-Elon-Musk-stick-submarine-hurt.html
So…when the problem first arose, what did you say? “DRAM it!”
(Sorry.8 -)
That’s a nice, easy fix for the overheat problem. I’ve found you can never have too much ventilation. I’m a fan of fans!
Open Tread.
Has anybody noticed that at the end of the last Harry Potter movie (In the “19 years later part) someone walks across a scene wearing what looks like an original Star Trek uniform with a tricorder over his shoulder?
It was probably intentional but I’ve never heard the “behind the scenes” explanation or even that anyone else noticed.
https://youtu.be/pEKA6rmVfW8
Aha!! Global warming fried your Northbridge chip. The Arctic is losing ice, too!
Funny in a way. Climate modelers claim the ENTIRE planet’s weather a hundred yrs or more into the future can be predicted, but a computer manufacturer can’t properly model airflow thru a computer chassis!