Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
When you realize you are losing an argument, it is common to abandon the argument and attack the person. It is one of many forms of arguments called ad hominem, or to the person. A disagreement between two people makes an ad hominem argument easy to notice. The loser and the winner are clear, and a shift in the tone and focus of the discussion is relatively apparent.
The structure and method chosen to create the myth of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) guaranteed an ad hominem situation. The evidence against the hypothesis was overwhelming from the start. The only question was left academic. Can you have a collective ad hominem, that is a personal attack on a group, or does it only apply to an attack on an individual? The answer is not about the number but the nature of the attack. When it is an individual, the attack occurs because the debate on the issue is lost, and that is true when it is a group.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to test the hypothesis that human CO2 caused global warming. Most scientists naturally assumed that the scientific method would apply. This requires that other scientists test the hypothesis, which mostly involves testing the assumptions. The idea quickly faded as an early IPCC member, emeritus professor of meteorology at MIT, Richard Lindzen resigned because of what was happening. He identified a part of the problem with his observation that they reached a consensus before the research even began. In those early days, individuals like Lindzen experienced classical and severe ad hominem attacks and it continues.
Gradually, more people became aware of the deception driven by this bypassing of the scientific method. The website Still Waiting for Greenhouse created by that Tasmanian terror, John Daly, became a focus for early so-called skeptics. Fortunately, the momentum he built achieved a core of skeptics, so his work carried on beyond his untimely death in 2004.
It is difficult to identify when the word skeptic first appeared. The difference between the general definition and science created problems. All scientists are skeptics; otherwise, they are not scientists. Deviously, those who pushed the IPCC deception used the public definition. In that view, skeptics are disagreeable and not just people who disagree. Those not with you are against you encapsulates this view. The word skeptic and the pejorative mentality appear in a leaked email from Tom Wigley, a former Director of the Climatic Research Unit on 19 August 2003 Tom Wigley. He is talking about an article published in Climate Research by an early scientific skeptic, Chris De Freitas. He is angry that they dared to publish an article that questioned the IPCC and CRU science. The quote begins with another form of argument, an appeal to authority (Argumentum Ad Verecundiam). It implies that I am correct because another ‘expert,’ or group of experts, said it is true.
Jim Titus mentioned to me that in the legal profession here people are disbarred for behavior like that of De Freitas (and even John Christy — although this is a more subtle case). We cannot do that of course, but we can alert the community of honest scientists to such behavior and formally discredit these people.
In the meantime, I urge people to disassociate themselves from Climate Research. The residual ‘editorial’ (a word I use almost tongue in cheek) board is looking like a rogues’ gallery of skeptics. Those remaining who are credible scientists should resign.
His definition of ‘honest’ and ‘credible’ scientists is those who agree with him.
As Lindzen said, the IPCC accepted the AGW hypothesis from the start. This meant that when evidence appeared that contradicted, they ignored it or created false data. When this failed, they began orchestrated attacks on individuals and groups who asked questions or identified scientific problems.
They never answered the questions. The latest report used to justify the demand for action at the Conference of the Parties in Poland is another example.
Here is a short list of those questions. I am sure the skeptics on this site can add many more.
- Why was the definition of climate change used as the basis for the IPCC research limited to only human causes?
- How did this allow them to ignore water vapor, by far the most important and abundant greenhouse gas?
- Why were they allowed to build computer climates models when they knew the data was inadequate?
- Why was the IPCC membership and participation in Reports limited to only those chosen by bureaucratic members of the WMO?
- Why are almost all the people involved in the IPCC unqualified in climatology?
- Why did the IPCC only examine temperature and warming?
- Why didn’t the IPCC report on the positive effects of warming?
- Why don’t they release the Working Group I (WGI) Physical Science Report first?
- Why did they set up a separate group of politicians and bureaucrats with a few selected scientists to produce the Summary for Policymakers?
- Why was it released before the scientific evidence of WGI?
- Why were the forecasts made in the first IPCC Report in 1990 so wrong?
- Why did the second Report in 1995 stop providing forecasts?
- Why did they switch to providing scenarios or projections after 1990?
- Why did they ignore all the legitimate critiques of the early Reports?
- Why did they finally establish a method of feedbacks and critiques?
- Why did most of these never make it into the Reports?
- Why did approximately 30,000 attend the recent climate conference in Poland?
- Why were a majority of them environmental activists with no qualifications in climatology?
- Why were industry and business so poorly represented from the start?
- Why does that continue at the recent climate conference?
- Why is the IPCC the source of e annual production of human CO2 for their computer models?
- Why does a CO2 increase cause a temperature increase in their computer models when it doesn’t exist in the empirical data?
- Why are similar computer models unable to forecast weather much beyond 72 hours?
- Why were all the IPCC projections from 1995 to the present incorrect?
- Why has most of the global temperature record been altered?
- Why did all these alterations only change the record in one direction?
- Why did those adjustments only lower early temperatures?
- Why do major agencies that calculate the annual average global temperature get different results?
- Why did skeptics become deniers?
- Where is the evidence that climate change deniers deny climate change?
- Why, in fact, do all the deniers claim that climate change occurs?
- Why do the media never ask Al Gore about his climatology qualifications?
- Why in IPCC AR4 did they provide a completely different definition of climate change that they claimed, falsely, they used in their Reports? They didn’t even use it in the one in which they claimed it.
- Why, if the science is so clear, do most nations act hesitatingly or fail to act?
- Why did the Kyoto Protocol fail?
- What replaced the Kyoto Protocol?
- Why is China entitled to and now demanding $2 billion from the IPCC through the Paris Climate Agreement?
Most people reading this website know most of the answers to these questions. The challenge is to adjust the list as you wish then distribute it to the media and your politicians at all levels asking them to provide answers. If people have absolute positions on a topic and attack those who disagree, demonstrating their level of knowledge and understanding becomes mandatory.
Good list of questions.
They are not bothered by questions, just defending the climate ideology by all means possible. To understand properly ideological warfare, and that what it is, one needs to have personally experiencedof authoritarian regimes at first hand. Trump got it right , not much interested what science says, just pursuing ideology of the capitalist free market: don’t spend my money on something there is no profit in today or even tomorrow.
Tim the warmist get rich off climate crowd will never quite. It truly is a disease of the brain group mixed with a Mafia ponzi scam gang, a deadly combination!
Pot… kettle… black…
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/
https://www.desmogblog.com/timothy-f-ball-tim-ball
But then this comment will never be posted here.
Says you.
And the facts.
See my post down below, why is anyone listening to a “scientist” who can’t even tell the difference between a gas and a vapor.
Tim Ball gets it completely wrong:
“2. How did this allow them to ignore water vapor, by far the most important and abundant greenhouse gas?”
The difference is essential to understanding the existential threat that pumping the atmosphere full of a persistent gas with a single defined thermodynamic state and that is tuned to absorb longwave EM radiated from the Earth’s surface poses.
Water VAPOR in the atmosphere is temperature and pressure dependent but carbon dioxide isn’t, when was the last time you were buried in a heavy dry ice fall. Take all the CO2 out of the atmosphere and within decades there will be no water vapor either. The reverse doesn’t apply.
Rapidly raise the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and the Earth will warm meaning more evaporation of water and the ability of the air to hold more water as a vapor. Which causes even more warming.
It’s been over 150 years since it was demonstrated that carbon dioxide plays this role in warming our planet, congratulations and all those who still try and refute science so basic it was worked out that long ago.
There’s a reason that over 97% of peer-reviewed science is in agreement with anthropogenic global warming. Because it is fully supported by the evidence going back centuries.
As I also said below I’m not even a scientist and I know the difference that this “expert” someone is totally ignorant of.
What’s next, a flat earth exposition…
Doug, you total hack. Anyone who uses the “97%” theme has hung an “ignorant propagandist’ tag around his own neck.
CO2 DOES NOT AFFECT either temperature or pressure.
You have absolutely zero empirical evidence that it does.
We are waiting for your flat Earth nonsense.
Apart from a fraction of a degree of atmospheric warming, almost certainly related to the Grand Solar Maximum…
In what way has the global climate changed in the last 40 years, and what REAL empirical evidence is there that any changes were caused by human anything.
Simple question, DC !!
“Rapidly raise the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and the Earth will warm meaning more evaporation of water “
Scientifically unsubstantiated BULLC **P !!!
If CO2 was as powerful as your backers want you to believe, then why didn’t the earth melt back when CO2 levels were over 5000ppm?
PS: The claim that more CO2 results in more water vapor has been assumed, but never demonstrated in the real world.
PPS: The whole gas vs vapor thing is just more evidence that you know you don’t have any evidence and have to change the subject.
Doug,
You said, “… why is anyone listening to a “scientist” who can’t even tell the difference between a gas and a vapor.”
From a NASA web page on water vapor: “Water vapor is also the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.”
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV
From Wikipedia: “Water vapor, … is the gaseous phase of water. It is one state of water within the hydrosphere. Water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from the sublimation of ice. Unlike other forms of water, water vapor is invisible.”
So, here you are questioning the credentials of a meteorologist — an ad hominem attack — when you don’t understand phase diagrams. Incidentally, you remarked “Water vapor in the atmosphere is temperature and pressure dependent but carbon dioxide isn’t,…” Well, I have news for you. Carbon dioxide IS temperature and pressure dependent on Mars. But, it is still a gas! I think that you are confusing liquid water droplets in clouds with water vapor.
I do agree with your statement that you are not a scientist. You are an excellent example of exactly what Tim Ball is talking about!
You must mean that one that says 97.1% (of the 33.3% of abstracts that had a view on AGW) said so. You do understand even if it were 97% of abstracts it still wouldn’t be 97% of climate scientists as they claim.
150 years ago it was shown that CO2 absorbed relevant IR. Then it was hypothesised that this might significantly warm the planet. That hypothesis has never been proven true, and is now shown to be almost certainly false.
See:http://brindabella.id.au?f=EAR
Humor him. They’re desperate. Some are thought to carry CO2 extinguishers.
Your ending admission was not necessary. You demonstrated by your condescending authoritarian post, insisting upon unfounded truths that must not be challenged, that you are a Politician Scientist who knows nothing about physical science and the scientific method. You are either a tool or a fool of this great one world government hoax.
re Take all the co2 out of the atmosphere and within decades there will be no water vapor either. Gee Doug there will be no life either Ever thought of that?
I’m struggling to work out how 400ppm becomes “full of”.
Glad you admit to not being a scientist, Doug. Neither am I but I understand English usage and the commonly used expression “greenhouse gas” when applied to water vapor.
I also understand that nobody has yet produced one iota of empirical evidence that CO2 has any effect on atmospheric temperatures outside laboratory experimentation. If you have found such evidence, do let us know. Until that day I should be careful about using the phrase “full of”. It might rebound on you.
Doug C
Your idea about water vapour in the atmosphere is based on the erroneous claim that water vapour is “only a feedback”. It the planet had no CO2 in the atmosphere it would still have water vapour because of sublimation and the vapour pressure, both well understood in conventional physics.
Like many of your other incorrect assumptions, additional reading will help you. Your post was presented to us for our consideration, much against your expectations. There may exist additional lessons worth learning here at WUWT.
We are not hostile to your alternative views. We are willing to help you learn more about the world and how it works.
So, you believe that only CO2 keeps the earth’s temperature above absolute zero.
And to think you actually challenge other people’s expertise.
How is CO2 “tuned to absorb longwave EM”? Who “tuned” it to absorb those wavelengths?
Remember, You can lead a horse to water but you can’t tune a fish,
Doug: As soon as you said 97% you lost 100% of any credibility you might have had. LOL.
All of your facts are wrong. The reality is that, based on the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rationale that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero.
The AGW conjecture is based on only partial science and is full of holes. For example, the AGW conjecture depends upon the existence of a radiant greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere with LWIR absorption bands, Such a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed in a real greenhouse, in the Earth’s atmosphere or anywhere else in the solar system for that matter. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction as well.
Besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere as evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate so more H2O causes cooling and not warming.
There is no consensus. Scientists never registered and voted on the AGW conjecture. But even if they had the results would have been nonsense because science is not a democracy. The laws of science are not some sort of legislation. Scientific theories are not validated through a voting process. The idea of consensus is politics and not science.
Great response. There is nothing more distressing than seeing a highly trained scientist deliberately using their knowledge to twist facts. Dr Ball knows perfectly well what a dependent variable is, and he knows water vapour is such.
Similarly “why did IPCC only look at anthropogenic warming?” …because that was the exam question?
Then deliberate mythological statements:
Why were the forecasts made in the first IPCC Report in 1990 so wrong? Look it up. The 1990 report predicted 0.85 degrees warming (from 1970 baseline) by 2016. The actual figure was 0.77. Most of the difference was down to CO2 being lower than projected.
Why did the second Report in 1995 stop providing forecasts? It didn’t. It provided “projections”, which is the same thing. The brilliant Dr Ball completely fails to remark that the second report underestimated warming.
Why did they switch to providing scenarios or projections after 1990? Because that’s what scientists do when there are different possible future paths. Business as usual provides one obvious scenario, and more or less decisive action to curb greenhouse gases provides others. Dr Ball knows this. He’s just asking the question to allow people to think that scenarios are somehow dodgy science.
Just because you can generate lots of specious questions, it doesn’t mean you are clever. The sad thing is that Dr Ball is very clever, and uses that intelligence to deceive others who are less learned or intellegent than him.
Why did “skeptic” become “denier”? For the same reason that people who believed the world was flat went from deing regarded as mainstream thinkers to fringe lunatics. I prefer the honest term “liar”.
Now that’s what is called an appeal to authority. Unfortunately, these authorities have very little that appeal. If trying for a reaction, you are better served using Skeptical Science or better yet The Guardian…
Doug Coombes, what about the millions or billions flowing for scientific research for any proposal that has “climate change” in it? Who’s getting “paid off” to say what?
The attack on Tim Ball is just ad hominem and the expected cheap shot. Your link to DESMOG blog’ is a way overblown ad hominem attack. If they had any guts they’d debate Tim Ball instead of smearing him in a forum where he won’t be allowed to answer. My guess is that Michael Mann would be more than welcome to debate on this site, but he wouldn’t dare because he’d get his ass kicked– but, he would not be censored.
Let me tell you from personal experience that I’ve argued strenuously with Willis directly, and with Anthony indirectly, and not one single comment of mine has been deleted– not one, even though at one point I told Willis and Anthony to go jump in the lake and I was truly pissed. Contrast that with any number of alarmist blogs, such as skepticalscience, where if you think your opinion will be heard unless it’s obviously stupid (and therefore easy to attack) think again. I know that from experience.
This is a good site. If you want to debate, you can. People come here all the time to express contrary opinions.
But, you people are cowards who hide behind their ideology. I know that from experience, too.
Don132
Climate change research is not separate from mainstream science, what Tim Ball and people like him are doing isn’t even science.
If someone is engaging in a well established intellectual fraud that is already having catastrophic impacts here in Canada and many other places, then it is ridiculous to claim they shouldn’t be pointed out for what they are.
When Canadian cities start burning down(Fort McMurray) and entire provinces are covered in flame and smoke(two record wildfire seasons in a row here in BC) that reaches all the way across the continent due to the chaotic weather that climate change is already producing, then isn’t it time to end this fraud.
And as the study published in Scientific American indicates, this intellectual fraud is now being funded in the same way that drug cartels and terrorist groups use to move their money around.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/
People like Tim Ball have no scientific credibility because they aren’t doing science, they are doing PR. And an increasingly deadly PR when you look at things like the Camp fire that just killed 86 people in California and burned down over 20,000 buildings. That’s our future and worse thanks to “scientists” like Tim Ball. And Fred Seitz and Fred Singer before him who also worked with the tobacco lobby to deny the evidence in the same way that is being done here.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2
The point of genuine climate change research is to provide knowledge that will likely mean the difference between a world with or without a human civilization. Or possibly a human species if we force climate change rapidly enough far enough.
As opposed to people who are essentially using their expertise to distort the evidence in exactly the same way the tobacco lobby did for year decades killing millions of people. Now the lives of billions are at stake and I’m one of them.
Don’t tell me I don’t have a right to object to this criminal negligence on the part of those who should know better.
Again, when humans encroach on natural habitats. fires happen, things burn
THERE IS ZERO EVIDENCE of any cause by enhanced atmospheric CO2.
You have NONE
And the petty little attempt to link to the tobacco industry… seriously !!!
LOWEST of the low of baseless climate scam propaganda.
More stuff and nonsense without any scientific merit.
A) Explain, in explicit detail exactly how CO₂ a gas with 4 molecules per ten thousand atmospheric molecules aids fire?
B) Explain why the foresters and forest experts are all on board with human’s mismanagement as the major cause for more recent fires?
“DECADES OF MISMANAGEMENT TURNED US FORESTS INTO ‘SLOW-MOTION TIME BOMBS’
Everywhere environmentalists prevented forest thinning, clearing, underbrush clearing, preventative fires, etc. are places awaiting disaster! It is human mismanagement! At present only fools and fakes claim “climate change” or CO₂ have any contribution.
Nor do the fires equal historical fires! Every fire you point to is preceded by historical fires, often larger, in that same area.
C) Explain your libel against Dr. Tim Ball, who is a well respected and highly venerated scientist? Provide explicit quotes and links. Remember, desmog, skepticalscience and similar silly blogs are not valid sources, for anyone!
D) Prove your false statement equating “people who are essentially using their expertise to distort the evidence” and the tobacco lobby?
That false claim has been falsified repeatedly and the lawsuits filed based on those claims have been dismissed.
So far coombs, you parrot the nonsense sites, fling smears and libel yet utterly fail to cite or quote real science. Empty claims and empty insults, boring!
Doug, I was actually joking about using The Guardian.
With regards to Scientific American, in its current form it is hardly Scientific and German owned, so not American. As far as using it to support “Dark Money”, am I to assume you fully regard studies funded by the WWF, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and even the Government till are beyond reproach, by people whose intentions are as pure as the driven snow?
The amount of “Dark Money” being bandied about is in the millions. Current Climate Science is funded to the tune of BILLIONS! Why may I ask does this “Dark Money” seem to be so effective at provoking your disdain? In comparison, I would be asking about the return on investment of those billions as it does not seem to stand up to much scrutiny.
Doug really has been mainlining the kool-aid.
He really does believe that wild fires are being caused by CO2.
By impugning the alleged sources of funding, Doug is free from actually having to refute the arguments made.
People, like Doug, usually do this because they know that they are unable to refute the arguments, so they have to attack the messenger instead.
You really took the blue pill, didn’t you?
Doug Coombes – we have had huge fires in BC the last 2 years because we have an abundance of dead pine trees in the forest. It has nothing to do with “climate change” and everything to do with “pine beetles” and “environmental activists” who years ago opposed controlled burns in the forests when such preventative measures could have helped to alleviate the current situation.
Doug Coombes, maybe you should look into some history before you claim that human-caused climate change is having catastrophic effects. History such as the 70-year drought that hit California around 1100–as reported in your apparently favourite source for climate catastrophism. (Sorry, I don’t remember the issue, but it was perhaps 3 or 4 years ago, before I gave up on SciAm when it vilified CO2 in the same issue in which one of the articles highlighted climate change as a leading contender for the demise of the Neanderthals.) Or how about the Great Hurricane of 1780, which killed around 24,000 people and was only one of several major storms that year. You might also look at actual data, such as the data that shows “global warming” in Calgary (at least) means slightly warmer winters and nighttime lows but lower summertime highs (as opposed to the “burning earth” imagery that alarmists like to paint). Of course, there’s always the fact that most of Canada was covered with ice 20,000 years ago…maybe that’s your ideal climate state?
Regarding your comment about criminal negligence on the part of those who debate the “consensus,” if you want to live in a society where people can’t engage in open and honest debate over questions of science, why don’t you move to North Korea? Speaking of consensus, at one time it was “consensus” that Earth was the centre of the universe. The 97% figure is a load of crap anyway, as others have already pointed out.
CO 2 is a well-known and widely used FIRE SUPPRESSANT…..
Doug Coombes is an amusing study for psychologists.
I am seeing a pattern here…
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2010/01/01/al-gores-tobacco-hypocrisy/
Re F orest fires in western Canada..Environment minister Catherine Mckinna was in Alberta the other day going on about all the fires being caused by climate change and someone pointed out to her that nine arson charges had been laid in regards to some of the fires .She apparently didnt hear because she went on to the next stop and went on about the fires and never mentioned arson. Wonder why??
“And the petty little attempt to link to the tobacco industry… seriously !!!”
That link is real. Some of the same people who were involved in down-playing the science of tobacco use then did the same thing with climate change.
You have all the rights in the world to keep talking, Doug. Please do since rubbish like this does more to discredit the sloppy “science” it defends than anything else.
Re Coombes
**Don’t tell me I don’t have a right to object to this criminal negligence on the part of those who should know better.**
Sure you have a right to object. The problem is that you do not know what you are objecting to. You have no clue what your “climate scientists” are doing. You mention PR. The IPCC is not doing much science but engaging in bad PR and fear mongering as they have not proven that “global warming” causes increased fires and weather events.
Doug Coombes, you are not reporting on science when you refer to the wildfires, you’re reporting on “scienceism” or Oreskeism or something else. You refer to the attempt to cover up tobacco harms so I assume that you’ve swallowed the Oreskes kool-aid, which states that the reason scientists disagree with the mainstream is because they’re paid off or deranged. This is a way to silence the opposition. But in the case of climate science, the uncertainty and speculative quality of the science isn’t something put in there by paid off or deranged doubters: the uncertainty and speculative quality of consensus climate science is built into it. For example, how is it that we speculate about the future of a complex climate system when we actually know so little about it and rely chiefly on climate models that capture even less of what we know? How is it that we can say with any certainty what the effects of CO2 will be when the model predictions for the tropical troposphere are just plain wrong, as the best observational evidence tells us? Who is really denying science when they deny observations and elevate theory about data? Who is really paid off when billions go to studies to “prove” the effects of CO2?
Regarding wildfires again, you need to do some homework. This is a classic example of misappropriating causes to “prove” the effects of CO2. If we look closely at causes (hint: you actually have to do some work and research) and then eliminate the theory of CO2 warming from our minds for two minutes, we see that all the prime and central causes are still there, and that the “cause” of CO2 warming is just an fiction added solely to bolster a theory that is beginning to lose its grip, because you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Don132
Notice, Doug, that your comments aren’t being censored.
Can’t say that for that junk-science blog, skepticalscience, which does an excellent job of pretending to be science but is far from fair-minded or objective. Skepticalscience=cherry pick and present as established truth.
Don132
Don,
“You refer to the attempt to cover up tobacco harms so I assume that you’ve swallowed the Oreskes kool-aid”
I have no idea what Oreskes says about this. The documentation is from industry memos.
” But in the case of climate science, the uncertainty and speculative quality of the science isn’t something put in there by paid off or deranged doubters: the uncertainty and speculative quality of consensus climate science is built into it.”
Uncertainty is very different from speculation. Yes, there is uncertainty in the quantification – that is acknowledged. But there is plenty of evidence that climate is changing and that it is due to increased CO2.
“For example, how is it that we speculate about the future of a complex climate system when we actually know so little about it and rely chiefly on climate models that capture even less of what we know?”
This is your opinion. Perhaps you don’t realize how much is known, or what is captured by the models. There is a vast literature out there addressing these topics, and it’s hard for anyone to be fully up-to-date with even a subset of it.
” How is it that we can say with any certainty what the effects of CO2 will be when the model predictions for the tropical troposphere are just plain wrong, as the best observational evidence tells us?”
The “best observational evidence” is a matter of dispute based on the processing of the data. I would argue that it’s easier not to find the evidence than to find it.
“Who is really denying science when they deny observations and elevate theory about data?”
Who is denying science when they deny observations and dismiss theory?
” Who is really paid off when billions go to studies to “prove” the effects of CO2?”
This has nothing to do with science. Science must be taken at face value, evaluated on its own. People can make whatever claims they want about corruption, groupthink, bias, etc., but without verification it’s just prejudice. If you are going to claim that climate science is governed by funding, you might as well make that claim about most science – and particularly any research (including reports such as those produced by think tanks) that is funded by those who have a stake in the matter. Why do people believe that NFS has a vested interest in showing that AGW is a significant problem? Or liberals, for that matter? It’s not that people want AGW to be true. There’s bias, yes, but it’s based on trying to get across the idea that something should be done about it. Deniers/skeptics would rather sit back and let it happen, using a variety of excuses to eschew responsibility. It’s a moral disagreement, a question of values, and that’s why people are so emotionally invested in it.
Kristi,
Oreskes states that industry covered up tobacco harms: point granted. But she then goes on to accuse Singer and Setz of the same tactics. Not proved, but assumed. Furthermore, there’s zero proof that any of our major climate skeptics are paid by industry to sow doubt. That’s assumption and speculation.
There’s plenty of evidence that climate is changing. But if we look at historical records of medieval warm period and Little Ice Age and of the arctic, nothing that’s happening seems that unusual or unprecedented. We pretend that everything is unprecedented so we can blame it on CO2.
Our knowledge of climate: how recently was the AMO discovered? Fairly recently. How much to we really know about sun’s influence, ocean circulation, etc.? I’d argue that there are a lot of unknown unknowns out there, and we’re assuming that CO2 must be having a major influence.
Satellite and balloon data don’t match model prediction for the tropical troposphere. That would be three satellite datasets and four balloon datasets. Unfortunately the land records don’t measure the bulk troposphere. G
It seems to me that the alarmists are the ones denying observational evidence when they ignore tropospheric measurements, because these don’t match what models predicted. Did models predict the pause? Did models predict that the oceans would eat the heat from the pause, if that’s what happened? I don’t dismiss theory; in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others, theory has morphed into a monster that now tends to fly free of facts and is deeply committed to preserving itself rather than looking at objective evidence.
Paid off: I agree that the source of the payment is largely irrelevant, and that the science should be judged on it’s own merits. Please tell that to the other alarmists, who continually claim that those who disagree with the mainstream are either paid off or deranged. If you don’t know what Oreskes says, you might want to check it out because we’re living in Oreskeism, which is the continued dismissal of critics of the mainstream theory and the refusal to allow for any type of audit of the science in an attempt to ensure that the mainstream theory has no detractors. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/21/attention-scott-pruitt-red-teams-and-blue-teams-are-no-way-to-conduct-climate-science/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bc0556d4a53a
As I’ve mentioned before, the above link states that climate science is transparent, yet the entire point of the opinion piece is to prevent any examination of the science by anyone but the keepers of the theory. Sounds a bit fishy to me.
Don132
Don,
I don’t care what Oreskes says and I would rather stay away from reading it because I don’t want to be influenced by it. I try to stick to well-investigated facts. You might want to read this: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/S._Fred_Singer#Affiliations
And, just a couple examples of funding, this
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Patrick_J._Michaels_-_funding
and
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Robert_C._Balling
The rate of change in the MWP and the LIA wasn’t as rapid as that we are seeing now.
It’s not expected that the models are either perfect or that they predict when natural variation will happen. They are designed to incorporate natural variation, but not predict climate states. For instance, cyclones are an emergent property, but it’s not like when they do show up in a simulation, scientists will say, “A cylone will happen on July 10 and hit land at St. Augustine, FL.” I frankly don’t know much about the latest research about the pause, and would rather not comment.
Tropical troposphere: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0333.1
It’s not that alarmists ignore evidence (well, some do, I’m sure, just as some skeptics ignore evidence). There is naturally a tendency to confirmation bias on both sides of the argument, though. I personally try to look at a wide range of evidence, including that from biotic changes (insect outbreaks, migration patterns, phenology). I don’t put too much weight on any one prediction of the climate models because I know they are imperfect, but they are far from the only evidence out there. That’s me. I prefer not to be called an alarmist, as I’m skeptical of some of the predictions and I don’t automatically attribute every disaster to climate change.
Kristi,
Tropical troposphere, Santer et al, your link: “It is shown that amplification of tropical warming between the lower and mid-to-upper troposphere is now in close agreement in the average of 37 climate models and in one updated satellite record.” Great. So that got agreement with one (updated) satellite record, and they ignore the other two datasets as well as the balloon datasets. Why? I think they’re trying way too hard to find theory confirmation, whereas what they should be doing is adjusting theory according to data.
Since you want to sling a bit of mud at skeptics, here’s some for Santer, too: https://climateaudit.org/category/modeling/santer/
You may not want to know what Oreskes says even though she’s had a huge influence on the public perception of skeptics, but since you link to Santer you might be interested in what Santer says. You’re in luck: Santer was a co-author of the Oreskes piece. So Santer and Oreskes and Emanuel state that climate science is transparent but then argue for no transparency? Got it?
I think arguing about funding sources is something of a straw man, as you yourself implied in one of your comments. Probably best to stick to science rather than ad hominem attacks. Did I mention the huge amounts going to research for anything remotely connected to “climate change”? So if you want to argue that people are paid off, which it seems you might be, then again my question is, who is paid off to say what?
According to Greenland ice core records, temperature changes have happened as rapidly in the past. If you read “The Little Ice Age” by historian Fagan, a warmist, then you find that the reason he’s worried about CO2 is that it could trigger a rapid change such as happened in the past. http://diekaltesonne.de/temperatures-over-the-past-10000-years/
“Well-investigated facts.” There’s the rub, isn’t it, since climate science has been so heavily politicized. Both sides are fighting and cherry-picking evidence, which is to be expected to some degree, but as a former believer my opinion is that the skeptic side is much more honest with the facts, insofar as I can tell. Reading the piece by Santer, Oreskes, and Emanuel is a glaring example of how they want to twist reason and facts to make sure their theory comes out on top, and one doesn’t need a science degree to see this.
One other thing on rate of change in LIA: it was indeed rapid and very upsetting to the population. They burnt weather-making witches to try and make it go away. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1005554519604
History isn’t irrelevant to the current warming debate. Neither is Oreskes.
Don132
Kristi,
My original reply might be lost in cyberspace.
But, since you link to Santer, you might want to read Oreskes’ piece after all, since Santer was a co-author. As was Emanuel.
Summary: we don’t need no stinkin’ transparency ’cause we’re already as transparent as we wanna be!
Consensus climate science doesn’t want critics or anyone looking too closely at what they’re doing– at least not for a public airing. Ever wonder why not?
Don132
Don,
I knew Santer would set you off! But his science is one thing, his advocacy another. Scientists have opinions. Some scientists are You really think using $ instead of s will work? – Mod . Their science needs to be viewed on its own merits.
The thing is, there are many, many papers that discuss this issue, using a wide range of methods. And many researchers have found independently that the warming does exist. Do I know if they are right? No, I am not and expert, and it is clearly a difficult subject. But I’m not going to choose the evidence of contrarians over others, either. The radioisonde data seem particularly problematic. It is certainly not ignored by the scientific community.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo208
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2008JCLI2320.1
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2004GL022266
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02524
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI3717.1
https://www.nature.com/articles/29267
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.80
You stated, “But she then goes on to accuse Singer and Setz of the same tactics. Not proved, but assumed. Furthermore, there’s zero proof that any of our major climate skeptics are paid by industry to sow doubt. That’s assumption and speculation.” I was addressing that.
Not sure which post you wanted me to read on the CA site. I read a couple. I have no sympathy for Mc and Mc. They choose the results they don’t like and try to discredit them, not through original research with improvements in methods, but depending on the data and methods of the researchers they want to discredit. Why would scientists want to cooperate with this? It’s not the way science is done. Science is a cooperative endeavor, and depends on standards in the way scientists interact. That doesn’t include the kind of tactics that are used by Mc and Mc. Blogs are not the place to publish critiques of others’ work. Yes, I know, Mann has done the same, but in reply to the criticisms of Mc and Mc (and I don’t defend Mann’s actions in general). …Ach, I really don’t want to discuss this anymore. I have my ideas, and I don’t need to convince you of anything.
“So if you want to argue that people are paid off, which it seems you might be, then again my question is, who is paid off to say what”
What makes you think I’m paid by anyone? I’m not.
There are lobbyists and advocates on both sides, sure. But who stands to gain by convincing people that AGW is a problem? I suppose environmental groups might get donations based on their activities. Authors make royalties. But when people aren’t up front about their funding sources and conflicts of interest, you have to wonder what they are hiding. Those who speak out against climate change aren’t usually directly, openly representing industry. There are all kinds of front groups with hidden donors and names that suggest scientific or environmental ideas, like Friends of Science. How is that honest and transparent?
Your diekaltesonne article is just about Greenland, and I don’t see any way to assess rate of change now vs. in the past. I could easily post a graph of reconstructions that show the relative changes better – but that would be interpreted as cherry-picking, since other graphs show things differently.
We won’t agree. That’s the way it goes.
Sorry Kristi, but McKitrick and McIntyre are just doing what climate scientists should do: due diligence. If you took the time to read what they say you might learn something.
I never said that you, personally, were paid off, and I assume that you are not. You’re just looking at what you want to see.
I am sick and tired of the Oreskes crap that says that all this “doubt” about climate science is ultimately due to industry funding. It ain’t. On the one hand you say we should talk about the science and on the other hand you continually go on about industry funding: “But when people aren’t up front about their funding sources and conflicts of interest, you have to wonder what they are hiding.”
No one is hiding anything! We DO NOT believe that CO2 is a problem, and we believe (that is, most of us) that our society needs oil and gas and fossil fuels, and that the CO2 warming problem is pseudoscience. Most of us are against real pollution, but CO2 is not a pollutant.
So people get paid to speak at Heartland events. Big deal. So oil industry is fighting back by funding people who don’t demonize CO2. Fair enough.
If you want to sling the funding mud, then look at the billions going for research for any grad student that puts “I believe in global warming” or some such wording in their proposal. Who’s getting the billions? Skeptics? No me. Grant writers who look for evidence of CO2 warming under every rock? Sure looks like they’re the ones getting the lion’s share of money to put forth their viewpoint on CO2. You’re blind if you can’t see the shitloads of money going to prop up the CO2 warming theory, not to mention the billions the banks and financiers will make if this carbon trading scam really gets going. Carbon trading will be one of the world’s largest commodity markets; we’re talking boatloads.
We assume that CO2 is some sort of control know and we’ve been very dismissive of natural variation– for cripes sake, wasn’t that the point of Mann’s hockey stick, to erase all previous understanding of the medieval warm period, such as was published in a previous version of the IPCC?
It’s utter BS to say that Christy, Happer, Curry, Lindzen, Spencer, Ball, etc., etc., are paid off or to imply that somehow they’re underhandedly funded to promote the oil industry’s point of view. That is speculation and ad hominem attack, mud-slinging, and cheap attacks we’ve learned to expect from the other side. If you take anything that Christy says, for example, the ONLY conclusion you can come to is that he is an honest scientist calling it as he sees it, and honest disagreements are extremely common in science.
But when we get Oreskian bullshit, then suddenly all those who disagree are demonized. It’s a milder form of Lysenkoism.
Utter horseshit, and yes, I’m pissed and sick and tired of this nonsense. Wake up.
Don132
Couldn’t agree more. That is the reason why WUWT is a fountain of mental youth. After so many attempts in daily life to indoctrinate me, WUWT gets me back to the facts of climate change and to a very healthy skepticism I learned to love and which is very helpful at many occasions. Thanks to Tim Ball who deserves a big hand for this article as well.
I love when they post something from desmogblog. The articles generally state what the individual has said, his or her qualifications, who they hang around with and what they’ve written. But in the ones I’ve read they never really refute a thing.
A few years ago I posted one contradictory comment on desmogblog and was banned immediately and permanently. I think that sums up desmogblog rather nicely, don’t you?
As Dr. Ball noted, when the real data doesn’t support the warmists, they first attack those who disagree with them, then they invent data to back up these attacks.
I’ve known thousands of skeptics, every single one of them is working on their own dime and have never gotten a penny from anyone.
Those are all lies. I never received a penny from any oil or other energy company.
That was all established under oath in the trial I won against IPCC member and Green party leader Andrew Weaver. Desmogblog is a website set up by James Hoggan, chairman of the David Suzuki Foundation, one of the biggest environmental distortion agencies and web sites in Canada. Hoggan owns one of the biggest PR companies in Canada, Hoggan Associates. Is it just coincidence that major clients are companies who benefit from the demonizing of CO2?
Why don’t you get your smears accurate before you start calling people names, just as my article suggests.
PR=get “paid off” to convince the public of whatever you’re paid to convince them of.
PR can be insidious and many times constitutes what we’d call “propaganda.” PR exists to shape and mold public opinion, and it does this while remaining in the background and sending out free news feeds, etc., and by maintaining junk science blogs similar to skepticalscience (but, I have no idea how that blog is actually funded.)
Don132
Don 132,
The best, most effective propaganda is much more subtle than free news feeds. It is the power of suggestion, the claims that are based on assumptions and not backed up by fact even though they are presented as such.
Dr. Ball is very good at this. For instance, half-hidden in his questions are unverified claims. Making these claims in the form of questions is an excellent way to fool the mind into thinking that they are factual, when to state them outright would draw debate and demand for evidence.
Until people learn to recognize propaganda in its many forms, people like Dr. Ball will remain a threat to the pursuit of truth. Of course, there is plenty of propaganda on both sides, I’m just more familiar with that on the skeptic side because I steer clear of sites like desmogblog.
Thank you Kristi for describing mainstream climate science, the realm where “claims … are based on assumptions and not backed up by fact even though they are presented as such.”
Don132
Tim Ball,
So who pays your speaking fees? Are you paid by anyone to write these posts? Why do you do it? What kind of consulting do you do?
What made you leave academia to instead spread your opinions? Why should rational, truly skeptical people care about opinions that you don’t support with evidence?
If you don’t want smears against you, maybe you should stop smearing the reputation of others. You behave no better than they, and deserve no sympathy.
Question “kristi.
Are you paid by anyone to write these posts? Why do you do it? What kind of consulting do you do?
It is funny that Silber wants to play the “who pays you” game at the same time ignore the many questions Dr. Ball posted in the article.
It is clear you have nothing of substance to offer here, Kristi.
Kristi,
Talk about smearing! What about the DeSmog blog smear of Dr. Ball? Hello? Does he get a chance to defend himself? You can defend yourself all you want here; no one will stop you so long as you’re civil. I have found skeptic blogs much more accommodating of critics than alarmist blogs.
At least you can say what you want here; people may not agree, but you can say it. Try it with those cowardly blogs like DeSmog or skepticalscience. Only thing they’re interested in is promoting their junk science without anyone calling BS on it.
Don132
clipe,
I don’t write posts, I write comments. There’s a difference.
sunsettommy,
I addressed virtually all Ball’s questions in a post below.
Don,
If you read my comment, I don’t defend desmogblog. I stay away from it. My point is that if someone is going to complain about smearing, one should be above such tactics or it becomes meaningless.
clipe – I forgot to say, no I’m definitely not paid to write here. I wish I were! I do so mainly because debate is an intellectual challenge and I learn a lot from the process.
UNSDSN
Report
“pathways to deep decarbonization in Canada”, 2015, 54 pages.
Also known as DDPP.
http://deepdecarbonization.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/DDPP_CAN.pdf
And,
UNSDSN
“A Global Initiative for the United Nations” Est. 2012
Leadership council includes: Sachs, Hansen, Turner, Espinosa and others.
Another Report on deep decarbonization from the UNSDSN was published in April, 2018 that includes the Northeastern States, USA.
UNSDSN/United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Perhaps Canadians should become aware of what’s taking place in their own country?
http://www.unsdsn.org/about-us/leadership-council
More information on this topic is available using UN Enterprise Search.
United Nations
UN Enterprise Search
https://search.un.org/results.php?query=SDSN+decarbonization
For anyone who might be interested in the decarbonization topic.
UN Environment
UNSDSN history.
Launched August, 2012.
Information on the UNSDSN launch. Webpage has a link to the August 2012 information release with more detail.
http://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/un-launches-sustainable-development-network-help-find-solutions
The only solutions the UN can achieve are for stealing other people’s money. They are quite adept at that!
And,
UNFCCC
Articles: about 357
Search results: Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), & decarbonization.
https://unfccc.int/gcse?q=Sustainable%20Development%20Solutions%20Network%20decarbonization
UN DESA
News: 16 August 2012
“Sustainable development network launched to help find solutions to global problems”
SDSN, a UN High Level Panel.
http://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/sustainable/sustainable-development-network.html
Dr. Ball,
United Nations
UN Enterprise Search
Search results: Timothy Wirth
https://search.un.org/results.php?query=Timothy+Wirth
And,
UNFCCC
Search results: Timothy Wirth
https://unfccc.int/gcse?q=Timothy%20Wirth
“Dark money-558 million to climate denial organizations in the yrs 2003-2010.” First, no one is denying climate change. Using that phrase is simply labeling in lieu of an argument. So if funding, or the source of funding somehow taints the end result, then let’s look at funding on the alarmist side. Couldn’t find anything more recent than 2014 for the US, but here-11 billion spent on climate change. That’s one year, for one country. Now multiply and do the math. https://www.gao.gov/key_issues/climate_change_funding_management/issue_summary
“Dark money-558 million to climate denial organizations in the yrs 2003-2010.”
The wording dishonestly insinuates that these recipients do NOTHING ELSE but engage in climate contrariansm. At most, in the case of Heartland, it is a bit under 20%. In the case of other recipients it’s under 10%. This counterpoint has been made repeatedly and yet most greens ignore it and persist in their slimy smear.
You seem to be operating under the impression that the greens have any interest in accurately portraying the data.
Some of them have incomes to protect, so they will say whatever is needed to protect that income.
Others have convinced themselves that they are saving the planet so they are entitled to lie and cheat, so long as they win.
I wish they would tell us what we “deny”, that has a solid empirical science basis.
I have asked this question before.. and never got an answer, because they KNOW they cannot provide that solid empirical science to back any of their junk science up.
Perhaps DC can put forward something for us all to laugh at !
(Once he figures out what the words “empirical” and “science” mean. ! 😉 )
desmog smear site and the pedantic pubescent ex science scientificamerican as links…
Making your comment pure propaganda based on smear, invective, religious devotion to all negative claims against CO₂, and falsehoods galore.
The wonder isn’t that your trollop post was published, it is simply different. Since the sites you link to are egregious in their censoring of contrary science, findings, discussion and history; as well as enabling wire fraud and theft when they cooperated with Gleick.
One example of desmog’s attempt to demean, slander,, defame and if possible to harm the careers of real scientists:
desmog is a paid propaganda site seeking to harm the lives and careers of honest scientists while promoting the largest global scam ever, that of frightening people to give up freedom and their earnings towards elitist overlords.
Christiana Figueres and other Euro and UN bureaucrats have admitted that the whole “Global Warming” movement is solely to transfer Western wealth to third world countries; by and large the pockets of tyrants and despots.
A claim that has been echoed many times recently by officials at the EU and the UN.
The jig is up. desmog exists solely to spread misinformation while SciAm is wholly owned along with the Nature publishing group and very obedient to their masters, not science.
Lol! Thanks for making his point. Enjoy being a useful idiot and please enjoy your eco-fascist sites.
Not only is your comment posted here, but here’s a reply: Scientific American is no longer credible. You were wrong on both assumptions.
So, all money that funds “climate-change-denial” is dark money, and all money funding climate alarmism is the polar opposite of dark money? Think about that for a bit. It’s quite insane. It simply boils down to the fact that “dark money” means anyone you disagree with. That’s the prerogative of anyone with an opinion. It doesn’t make that opinion any more valid than the opinion of those who disagree with you.
So you go with a logical fallacy as a defense?
That’s all that we need to observe.
Question # 21 doesn’t make sense – Typo?
I slapped this up on an earlier post today or yesterday:
I’d accept Climate Science:
If climate science wasn’t pushed as an absolute in schools.
If the predictions from climate science seemed to be true.
If climate science didn’t confuse accuracy and precision.
If climate scientists didn’t rig the peer review process.
If climate scientists didn’t sabotage scientific careers.
If IPCC reports weren’t re-written after final approval.
If climate scientists didn’t try to sue the opposition.
If climate scientists didn’t appear to fudge the data.
If climate scientists didn’t resort to name-calling.
If climate scientists complied with FOI requests.
If climate scientists agreed to debate the issue.
If climate scientists didn’t exaggerate findings.
If climate scientists didn’t rig grant programs.
Canards bullshit & lies:
Methane is 86 times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat.
Warm sea water is melting Antarctica from below.
Thermal expansion affects world-wide sea level.
Water vapor rains out after a few days.
People depend on glaciers for water.
Burning biomass is carbon neutral.
Methane from Cattle is a problem.
Sea level rise is accelerating.
Polar bears are going extinct.
CFCs caused the Ozone Hole.
The deep ocean is warming.
Average world temperature.
97% of scientists agree.
Coral reefs are dying.
Drought is increasing.
Antarctica is melting.
Greenland is melting.
Ocean acidification.
“People depend on glaciers for water.”
Yeah. It actually benefit, if one has global warming- people can get extra water from melting glaciers.
One also gains usable land if the glaciers melt.
There is little benefit to humans or wildlife in having glaciers.
Deserts are more useful or have more wildlife than glaciers, but global warming should reduce the amount of deserts, and be another benefit of global warming.
gbaikie December 15, 2018 at 12:39 pm
“People depend on glaciers for water.”
Yeah. It actually benefit, if one has global warming- people can get extra water from melting glaciers.
Ultimately it’s precipitation that provides the water. All glaciers do is temporarily interrupt the flow.
I would add “if” to the list:
If climate science were not bereft of error analysis.
“The Paris Climate Agreement” and “Yellow Vest”…have become one….it will forever squelch Liberal politicians who dream of Global Warming Taxes
I invite you all to see a scandal. If you have the opportunity then read how the BBC portrayed the petulant childish blocking of bridges over the Thames two weeks ago..to save the planet and how they twist and portray the Yellow Vests as extremists infiltrated by the BBC bogey man the FAR RIGHT! What was so incredible they were citing the very reasons people were protesting…. as consequences of the protest with no mention at all of WHY they were protesting! If it was not so serious it would be funny. What I cannot get my head around is that the BBC is not Fox News. It is a public subscription broadcaster expressing seriously left wing views on a range of subjects. How did this happen? Why is it being allowed to continue to happen? The silence from our politicians is deafening!
>>
The website Still Waiting for Greenhouse created by that Tasmanian terror, John Daly, became a focus for early so-called skeptics. Fortunately, the momentum he built achieved a core of skeptics, so his work carried on beyond his untimely death in 2004.
<<
I miss John Daly. I’m sure he would have loved WUWT!
Jim
Not really.
John Knew that changing the time of observation caused a bias in data that needed to be corrected.
Most WUWT readers refuse to accept that TOBS changes in observation method need to be corrected.
Most readers prefer the cool biased records to the corrected records, even though the need for the correction was proven by readers at Daly’s site
97% WUWT readers refuse to accept
(SNIPPED out unwarranted attack on Mosher) MOD
Most WUWT readers refuse to accept that
≠≠========
Since when was science based on a majority vote. Sounds more like a case of sour grapes.
** Most readers prefer the cool biased records to the corrected records, even though the need for the correction was proven by readers at Daly’s site**
NO Steve, most reader prefer accurate records. The need for correction may have been prove by Daly but how much? You gave only part of the story.
Tony Heller has shown that there is very little difference so the adjustment is too much.
Mosher ignores Tony Heller because Mosher knows that Tony Heller would destroy him in any argument over global warming. Heller knows the truth. Shame on you Mosher.
Anthony also tends to ignore Tony Heller as well; he has reasons but I don’t know what those reasons are??????????? Anybody care to enlighten me?
Cheers,
Speed
I actually don’t ignore him. I exposed his data hiding.
I interact withhim daily on twitter.
‘Anthony also tends to ignore Tony Heller as well; he has reasons but I don’t know what those reasons are??????????? Anybody care to enlighten me?
yes, in the past there were several episode where Heller was proven wrong and refused to admit it.
“Tony Heller has shown that there is very little difference so the adjustment is too much.”
No didnt show that. He claimed to but he didnt show it. He could not actually.
Except that you guys make ‘cool biased’ temperatures before 1940s even cooler. Did these early folk sleep later or go to bed earlier than today’s?
Gary,
Might the erratic adoption dates of daylight savings time been an influence? 🙂
The problem with adjustments is they introduce human bias. This makes the adjusted records less reliable than the original data.
As far as TOBS adjustment this is a result of the naive statistical assumption that weather stations remain unchanged from observation to observation.
This is clearly a false assumption and it has corrupted all the temperature records.
The correct approach is to treat all records as independent of all others and sample them over a random field.
This will result in a convergence of the average error term around zero, without the need for any adjustments
TOBS adjustment is simply trying to correct one error by introducing another error. The problem is the underlying statistical method and the false assumption that stations are static in time.
Steven Mosher,
Could you please direct me to the study that identified TOBS and the extent it impacts the temperature history of a site. When I look at raw temperature data histories for individual sites I don’t see any step change that would indicate a TOBS correction. This is what I would expect.
I would assume that the letter sent out by the meteorogical head office to make the necessary changes in temperature gathering (US) would have gone out to all temperature stations at the same time. Included would have been instructions on how the new observation times would have to be followed. This would create a step change. Not a correction dribbled out over 100 years of temperature history.
SMS you can do the study for yourself.
Go to CRN get hourly data.
Calculate Tmin and Tmax for a given observation time
Then change the observation time
Here is the thing
you could read this from Climate audit
https://climateaudit.org/2007/09/24/tobs/#comment-107774
You could read this
https://judithcurry.com/2015/02/22/understanding-time-of-observation-bias/
You could read this
https://moyhu.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-necessary-adjustment-time-of.html
you could read this
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/papers/vose-etal2003.pdf
You could read all of those studies and then object.
heck even EVAN and Anthony know that changings TOBS is a problem
But Here is what I have found. Every single person who does the test for themselves
with data is convinced
So you could use the data produced for John daly
http://www.john-daly.com/tob/TOBSUM.HTM
“When using a pair of min/max thermometers for daily temperature observations, the time of day at which the readings for the previous 24 hours are observed, and the thermometers are reset, will often cause a time of observation bias (TOB). If readings are taken near the times of daily highs, or daily lows, those highs, and lows, often affect the readings of two days. Annual averages of the effects of TOB on recorded temperatures can be more than 1° F (0.56° C) at many locations, and near 2° F (1.11° C) at some. (This review of TOB is limited to temperature observations using min/max thermometer pairs, and/or electronic min/max thermometer sets which yield comparable results. Temperature observations using other kinds of thermometers may also have some kinds of TOB, but they are outside the scope of this review.)
In the “United States Historical Climatology Network” (USHCN), one kind of temperature adjustment is a TOB adjustment relative to midnight for observations made at times other than midnight. The occurence of TOB, and adjustments for it, are particularly important factors if the time of observation at a weather observation station changes.
In order to gain a better perspective of this bias, hourly temperature data of 190 US locations were used to calculate estimates of TOB relative to midnight, as well as estimates of some other items that seemed interesting.
The approach used is to choose several hypothetical “times of observation”, and to calculate what high, and low, temperatures a 24 hour min/max thermometer set would have “observed” at those times based on the hourly temperature records. These estimates cannot be precisely accurate partly because hourly observations will miss highs, or lows, that occur between the times of those observations, but hourly observations can provide at least an approximation of TOB.
Since some people prefer their temperatures in degrees Celsius, and others in degrees Fahrenheit, this discussion continues in either. Select your preference: Celsius , Fahrenheit .”
Most of the work is done for you
http://www.john-daly.com/tob/TOBSUMF.HTM
#################
Here is what I predict
I predict that no one here will go to the trouble of checking it themselves. Its easy
But then you would have to say
Mosher is right, Anthony is right, Evan is right, karl is right, Zeke is right, Nick is right,
Steve mcintyre is right
and
Heller is wrong
You missed the point of the comment. No one is denying that TOB exists.
Where is the study that identifies the point that TOB stops on the US temperature record and a (one time) correction is needed, how much is that impact?
Temperature stations did not just change the way they were reporting data on their own. They had to be told to do so. Show me the step change on the temperature record where this happened.
Where is the study(s) used by NOAA, BEST, GISS or Hadcru to justify their TOB adjustments?
When I look at raw data for different temperature sites, I see no step change to indicate where this occurred. Maybe you can point out one where you know it happened.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who believe that DATA is SACROSANCT, such as myself, and those who believe that records from the past can be “improved” to gain information that simply is not there, such as “Climate Scientists”…
Data costs money. Data inadequate to help one’s CAUSE still costs money. If one does not, nor did not, have the money to find such data, one can always FABRICATE such data by pretending to be smarter than the people who actually wrote down the numbers, because, well, they did not know what they were doing, and we now know much better.
Of course, such a simple game, anyone can play. If they had just woken up earlier, or later, THESE would be the actual numbers, not the ones they WROTE DOWN…
Our Father, Full of Grace…
Our Father, who Art in Heaven,
Hail Mary, Full of Grace,
I better go back to church in the morning….
Once again Steven has proven that first off, he is incapable of arguing honestly and that he has no knowledge of actual science.
Rather or not TOBS changes are real and are as big as the warmists claim they are, it’s a very small matter.
For normal people, the mere fact that some of us here disagree on this issue is sufficient to cause us to abandon this site.
Of course as Dr. Mass has found out, for warmists, agreeing with them 95% is sufficient. It has to be 100% of the time or they try to destroy you.
Nice to see that Steven actually believes such tactics to be the normal means of science.
‘”that TOBS changes in observation method “‘
It has been proven by actual data, that it DOESN’T. !
Steven
I can see that there are reasons for certain adjustments. What I can not accept is adjustments which increase the values after a certain date and decrease them before that date.
I can understand how adjustments might change in value over time due changes in methods, but I can’t for the life of me understand why an adjustment would change sign at a certain point in time.
You mean like this:
Mr. Mosher,
I don’t usually respond to your drive-by, ambiguous comments. I rarely agree with them, and because your comments are protected by the management, I risk being snipped.
>>
Steven Mosher
December 15, 2018 at 12:44 pm
Not really.
<<
“Not really” what? I made two statements. One was that I missed John Daly. We’ve never met, so I doubt you could tell if I did or didn’t miss him. The other statement was that John Daly would’ve liked WUWT.
You don’t sound like someone who spent a lot of time on John Daly’s website.
>>
John Knew that changing the time of observation caused a bias in data that needed to be corrected.
<<
Mr. Daly passed in January of 2004. That “Time of Observation” post has a November 2005 date. I doubt that John “Knew” anything about it. It was also the antithesis of what John usually posted.
Jim
Why is anyone against Global Warming? The alternative is much worse.
Given that past levels of atmospheric CO2 were in the 1,000s of ppm, what evidence is there that there has ever been catastrophic runaway global warming and what evidence is there that CO2 was the cause, if there is evidence of a prior catastrophic runaway global warming episode?
If there was a prior episode of catastrophic runaway global warming due to high levels of atmospheric CO2, how could it have been catastrophic given the current climate regimes?
Do 97% of climate scientists agree that the oceans will boil away if there is a doubling or quadrupling of atmospheric CO2?
(Just some questions that I think haven’t been addressed by the IPCC.)
H.R. December 15, 2018 at 11:29 am
Why is anyone against Global Warming? The alternative is much worse.
That most of the world’s governments and bureaucrats and a sizable percentage of ordinary people have been convinced that a warmer world will be a catastrophic disaster is testimony to the power of propaganda and carefully worded non-sense.
#27 Why did those adjustments only lower early temperatures?
No, GISSTEMP’s LOTI bumps up all the monthly entries since 1980.
Steve. He’s talking about the adjustments made prior to that date
David Guy-Johnson December 15, 2018 at 11:46 am
… He’s talking about the adjustments made prior to that date
Here’s the questions 25,26 & 27:
25 Why has most of the global temperature record been altered?
26 Why did all these alterations only change the record in one direction?
27 Why did those adjustments only lower early temperatures?
25 Most of the record? I’d say all of it has been altered. The GISS LandOceanTemperatureIndex is changed every month and most months around 25% of the monthly entries are changed. You can multiply that up and it comes to around 80,000 or more changes over the last 20 years. Really it does.
Other than that, I guess it’s an interpretation what exactly what Dr. Ball’s choice of phrasing means. Here’s another representation of how the changes have changed things:
https://postimg.cc/F7ypT1Jn
I suppose a quarter of a degree isn’t much, but the fact that they change 100 year old data every month is something to ponder about.
No, GISSTEMP’s LOTI bumps up all the monthly entries since 1980…..
..and bumps down the monthly entries before 1980
And tuning the computer models to that…also shows a false rate of warming
De Freitas in 2007
The climate has warmed about 0.6 °C in the past 100 years, but most of that warming occurred prior to 1940,
Half a degree (C) of cooling from 1940 to the mid 70s set off the global cooling scare so what is really damning is how bespoke the adjustments are so that warming before 1940 is no longer greater than after up to 2006, for example. The most damning is the little added warming around 1940 to make that half a degree of cooling look like it was due to a spike.
re. point 23
Interesting thing: when I google for the above quote on the IPCC website, google finds results but when I try to access them, they produce:
Why would they wish to expunge that simple honest statement?
I just tried it. Wow, isn’t that just ever so amazing.
What’s the date for the quote
Here’s the page for the IPCC’s TAR report where the quote is found, and the whole report is missing:
https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
And you know what? It’s not GOOGLE, it’s the IPCC that removed the page.
Maybe that was clear to everyone else but I just figured it out.
See this
https://web.archive.org/web/20181123014117/http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
Ashok
Thanks, I got up this morning and did the same search on the WayBack Machine and contrary to my previous epistle
https://www.ipcc.ch/
is saved on the Internet Archive WayBAckMachine back to 1998
Thanks for your post (-:
Steve
My search found title
Report of the IPCC Workshop on Rapid non-linear Climate Change
Published in 1998 , “out of print”
What a joke.
If a publisher isn’t going to print more copies of a book, and doesn’t have any to sell, then the book is “out of print”.
It costs almost nothing to keep a web page up. There’s no excuse for taking it down.
Interestingly enough, I can still download the Second Assessment report from the IPCC web sit; I wonder why it is not also “Out Of Print”? https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ipcc-second-assessment-full-report/
I searched for the word chaotic in the above document. It is not in that report. However that was the report for policymakers only.
I think the “chaotic system” quote only appeared in the Third Assessment Report (which appears to longer be accessible) but not in any of the other reports published at the same time as the Third Assessment Report nor in any of the other assessment reports.
I also tried it in GOOGLE and get the same results. Wow indeed. It seems like a blatant case of editing the past; they must have hired Winston Smith to handle their archives.
“coupled non-linear chaotic system”
This is a classic example of why it is necessary to use and even more important to support the Wayback Machine at Archive.org
Amen!
Philip Mulholland…at 2:22 pm
…
This is a classic example of why it is necessary to use and even more important to support the Wayback Machine at Archive.org
I am very discouraged to report that apparently absolutely no one over the last decade has thought to enter the IPCC’s publication page
https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/
into the internet Archives WayBack Machine
https://web.archive.org/
My God in heaven if our side finally wins this insane battle against the forces of evil it will be because of divine intervention because we damn sure aren’t going to win it by ourselves.
OK so just now I entered the IPCC publications page
https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/
into the Internet Archives WayBack Machine.
Too late as the previous version was user friendly and the new [I suppose improved version] is not. My guess is that they want it to be difficult to find things.
You missed the memo! We have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia!
Our “science” has NEVER been uncertain, either!
. . . they must have hired Winston Smith to handle their archives.
It would appear it was there until at least November 7 of this year:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ErJAHlJggggJ:www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-ab
I hate to see that reference is no longer extant . . . I use it extensively.
For anyone interested, you can find the full report by chapter in the wayback interface:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071215181259/http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/index.htm
I uploaded a copy of chapter 14, which contains the description of the climate as a “non-linear chaotic system” here:
http://www.thestupidithurts.org/downloads/
Try DuckDuckGo.
Given business as usual, when will the achievements, wealth and value of civilization peak?
If the evidence for anthropogenically caused global warming is ‘overwhelming’, why is a fully qualified former lead author for IPCC (Richard Lindzen) not overwhelmed?
The UN is a horrible institution. It manifestly doesn’t achieve its goals of reducing the misery of the poorest people on Earth. In fact, it goes out of its way to thwart meaningful solutions.
At one point Stephen Lewis was the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. I heard a radio interview in which he described, in great detail, how the bureaucrats, including the Secretary General, stopped him from getting anything useful done.
I just finished listening to the Jordan Peterson, Bjorn Lomborg interview featured in a WUWT story on Dec. 13. In it they talked about the beyond obscene amount of money spent on CAGW and compared it with a list of actions that would produce huge improvements in some of the world’s worst problems for a tiny fraction of the cost.
Around the 52 minute mark they note two conferences. There was a TB conference which almost nobody attended and there was a climate conference attended by almost everybody. It would be relatively cheap to eradicate TB and it would do a world of good in developing countries. Some folks think the brain damage caused by things like malaria and TB is the cause of the shockingly low IQ of Sub-Saharan Africans. link It disgusts me that the supposedly humanitarian left would make CAGW a priority over improving the well-being of hundreds of millions of people.
For sure, the IPCC should be de-funded. There are much better uses for the money.
The UN should be defunded
Actually there is only one question.
If 396W/m^2 BB LWIR upwelling from the surface is not possible (It isn’t.) RGHE fails and the entire climate change debate collapses like the handwavium house of cards it is.
What is called “climate science” is really an exercise in adversarial advocacy. This is based on legal practice and as such does not fall in the domain of the scientific method. In a court, “expert witnesses” can be challenged by their opponents on the basis of their qualifications. It is presumed that only those who are highly qualified can understand and evaluate results obtained by the use of scientific instruments, analyses, and even the summary reports. Prospective jurors with scientific or engineering backgrounds are routinely excluded from serving on a jury, since they tend to exercise their own judgement on issues that the lawyers would prefer to be decided on the appearance and behavior of their “experts”. Lawyers may not understand the scientific issues per se, but they are capable of evaluating the credibility of “their” witnesses. This makes the process more predictable, and thus more manageable from their standpoint.
It is natural that ad hominem attacks are grist for the mill of CAGW. The deeper thinkers within the CAGW movement have embraced the adversarial conflict reality, and it follows that they seek to discredit their opponents by any means. The attack on Cliff Mass at the U. of W., is just one example. Those who support CAGW fight on the battlefield of political policy making, and removing credible dissenting voices from the ranks of those who oppose them is just good practice. They appear to make it personal, but it is really just business as usual.
We are like chess masters who find ourselves thrown into a cage fight. The lawyers and the CAGW enthusiasts have no interest in answering any questions or debating the issue on logical grounds. They operate in a different universe. Consider the difference between the Mann controversy, and Cliff Mass. It took years of polite inquiry for MM to figure out how flawed the Mann analysis was, and then it took another six years for the ClimateGate emails to emerge which documented the fraud and the altering of the data. And it is only this month that Mann has finally responded to FOIA request. Mann has earned the disrespect of scientists of good conscience. Mass has just been insufficiently supportive of the wild claims of the CAGW crowd, and now he’s on the chopping block. The alternate realities of our two camps couldn’t be more clear.
Robert Stewart
Unfortunately, you are all too correct!
“It is difficult to identify when the word skeptic first appeared. ”
“Skeptic” is certainly the wrong word to use. “Global Warming” has become a RELIGIOUS argument, led by two failed seminarians, Al Gore and Jerry Brown.
The appropriate term is therefore “heretic”. I’m not a globull warming skeptic; I’m a globull warming HERETIC.
Absolutely. And those (like Drs Lindzen & Curry) who have left the church are apostate – which is far worse. Oh, and to continue the parallel, IPCC seems awfully like a ‘Council of Nicea’ (every 5 years) to me . . .
Seems that our parasitic overlords took “The Emperors New Clothes” as an instruction manual.
So many of the “Appeals to authority” seem to come straight from that cautionary tales.
The many acknowledgements from high placed politicians and bureaucrats that the “precautionary principle” overruled evidence,common sense and history, made it very plain from the beginning that Climate was of secondary importance.
“Never waste a crisis, the means justify the ends and I was just following orders.”
Power hungry takers have always plagued/educated? the masses?
Today those attempting to defend the past antics of overzealous activists, know that they defend the indefensible.
In answer to the WHY question is this. Who actually runs the IPCC. I think that it used to be STRONG, but who is it now ?
MJE
How many peer-reviewed articles on global warming has Tim Ball produced?
I’m not even a scientist and I can punch holes in Tim Balls points.
“1. Why was the definition of climate change used as the basis for the IPCC research limited to only human causes?”
Because it is humans who are rapidly driving up the atmospheric concentration of the most important persistent greenhouse gas.
“2. How did this allow them to ignore water vapor, by far the most important and abundant greenhouse gas?”
WATER VAPOR, the title says it all. Water vapor isn’t a persistent GAS in the atmosphere which means it readily precipitates out. Maybe at some point in your life you’ve noticed something we refer to as rainfall, snow, hail, sleet. That water falling from the sky due to changes in temperature and pressure in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a persistent gas that will stay in the atmosphere for centuries after we emit it.
“3. Why were they allowed to build computer climates models when they knew the data was inadequate?”
For the same reason many disciplines in science do, it allows a continuous refinement of the research. Maybe you’d prefer that no research was done on this subject.
“4. Why was the IPCC membership and participation in Reports limited to only those chosen by bureaucratic members of the WMO?”
Why keep hammering on about the IPCC which is a political body not a scientific research institute. A body that includes many members who want no negative results that might influence national economies. Nations like Saudi Arabia, the US and others. If anything the results of the IPCC are conservative which is seen over and over with real world outcomes.
“5. Why are almost all the people involved in the IPCC unqualified in climatology?”
Why is Tim Ball who has almost no qualification being presented as an expert in this field when his “work” contradicts that of scientists as far back as Joseph Fourier, John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius who were doing research in the field in the 1800s before we even knew what photons were. And who’s work is still consistent with what we observe. Tim Ball can’t even tell the difference between a gas and a vapor.
I also find it ironic that Tim Ball is complaining about how the heavily funded disinformation machine he is obviously part of is complaining about how denier like he is are treated. When authentic researchers in the field receive death threats and government censorship like James Hansen and Michael Mann have in the past.
How much of the dark money that flows from fossil fuel producers goes to Tim Ball… or this site.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-climate-change-denial-effort/
That’s not real science and neither is the nonsense being presented here.
Doug- using your own argument here, I quote WATER VAPOUR, results in rain, snow, hail, sleet, etc.
May I point out using your own argument as above, carbon dioxide, results in trees, cabbages, lettuce, onions, grass (which you have to cut on a regular basis) do I need to carry on, what did you eat for dinner last night, any greens at all.
Did you not realise that plants absorb carbon dioxide and output oxygen, you say it is a persistent gas, I say NO it is a recycled gas just like WATER VAPOUR, and just as we need oxygen as a component of the air we breathe, plants need carbon dioxide.
Which isn’t a rational argument at all.
The issue is not the presence of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere without which the entire planet would be a giant snowball.
The issue is driving the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide up so fast that natural mechanisms can not adjust resulting in catastrophic climate change.
And we no longer have to wonder what catastrophic climate change looks like.
It looks like two consecutive years of wildfire hell in the North America west culminating in the deadly California fires.
It looks like half the coral reefs in the Great Barrier reef system dying in two years.
It looks like continued massive loss of the cryosphere and all the attendant issues with that.
And that’s just the start of the list.
And as you’ve obviously totally missed my point I’ll try one more time.
The only reason the Earth is not a ball of ice is because of a tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere as a persistent gas. It doesn’t rain, snow, hail or sleet out. Much of what is put there stays there for centuries. It’s the framework of the greenhouse effect without which ALL the water VAPOR would soon precipitate out and be the snow and ice covering a snowball Earth.
And we humans are putting massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere compared to natural mechanisms.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/
“According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors.”
Add a little bit of CO2 to that framework and it allows even more water to be evaporated and held in the atmosphere where it creates even more warming as it also intercepts and redirects longwave EM emitted from the Earth back to the Earth’s surface.
We can measure this increase.
The issue isn’t the temporary water VAPOR in the atmosphere, the issue is steadily increasing the amount of persistent and long term CO2 that allows it to be there in the first place.
Tim Ball obviously either doesn’t understand this or doesn’t care. Either approach disqualifies him as an authority on this existential issue.
If I was someone who had engaged in a willful distortion of the evidence for decades in a way that has great negative societal and personal impacts I wouldn’t be worried about personal attacks over my “work”.
I’d be far more worried about the civil and criminal liability that attaches to such deceptive practices.
Please explain how 400ppm of CO 2 has ANY impact on the overall temperature – as a matter of science, not as an opinion. Show the method and calculations/equations which support your answer.
Doug, once again, nothing you wrote comes even close to being true.
Nonsense on stilts
Arghh, messed up the block quotes.
1) “Because it is humans who are rapidly driving up the atmospheric concentration of the most important persistent greenhouse gas.”
There has been an increase of global temperature since 1850 of 1C. Whoopidty doo
Since 1950 there has been a net increase of only 90 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere of CO2. This despite the fact that manmade global CO2 emissions have increased 4X.
2) “Water vapor isn’t a persistent GAS in the atmosphere which means it readily precipitates out.”
At any one moment in time there is an average of 2% water vapour in the total atmosphere. That % does not change very much.
3) “Maybe you’d prefer that no research was done on this subject.”
Yes that would be the best option. Billions of $ have been wasted on this. Put the research money into improving weather forecasts.
4)”If anything the results of the IPCC are conservative which is seen over and over with real world outcomes.”
Warning us of catastrophe if the world warms another 0.5C is NOT conservative.
5) “When authentic researchers in the field receive death threats and government censorship like James Hansen and Michael Mann have in the past.” “How much of the dark money that flows from fossil fuel producers goes to Tim Ball”
Those statements are preposterous. No one is threatening either one of those clowns. Hansen was head of GISS for 30 years and been given millions of $ in grant money. Michael Mann has also been given millions of $ in grant money. Fossil fuel companies believe in global warming . They do not fund skeptics.
“There has been an increase of global temperature since 1850 of 1C. Whoopidty doo
Since 1950 there has been a net increase of only 90 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere of CO2. This despite the fact that manmade global CO2 emissions have increased 4X.”
That’s the global average temperature, it’s not spread out evenly over the Earth.
What all that addition heat has done is reorder how climate and weather work on Earth.
So now we get massive and deadly firestorms on both hemispheres. We get equally massive dieoffs of coral reefs systems heading to a near total loss in 30 years, keep in mind that 25% of species in the ocean spend part or all of their lifecycle in coral reefs. With 95% of life in the oceans and a quarter of that gone in a few decades we have an extinction level event right there.
Then there’s water and food security which is already being threatened by rapid shift in climate globally and the list goes on and on.
Would you be so totally blase about this unfolding catastrophe if you lived at sea level and had rising seas in the coming years to contend with.
Or in a town or city with interface fire risk like many places here in western Canada and places that no longer exist due to climate change driven wildfires like Paradise California.
I’m pretty sure that the 86 people burned up there would prefer to still be alive and that billions of people on Earth would prefer a world to live on.
Or maybe you bought the Trumpism that we just need to rake the forests and all will be fine.
Doug Coombes, several times show his lack of respect for a scientist with his insulting remarks, better if you just left those wrong words stay deep in your mouth instead. You ignorantly wrote this stunner statement,
“5. Why is Tim Ball who has almost no qualification being presented as an expert in this field when his “work” contradicts that of scientists…”
Here is a simple background Information of DOCTOR Ball:
From Wikipedia,
“Ball received a bachelor’s degree with honors in geography from the University of Winnipeg in 1970, followed by an M.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1971 and a PhD in climatology from Queen Mary University of London in England in 1983.[5][11] Ball became an instructor at the University of Winnipeg in 1971, and a lecturer the following year. He then served in the latter capacity for 10 years. In 1982 he became an assistant professor there, and was promoted to associate professor in 1984 and full professor in 1988. He retired in 1996.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ball
Better to be ignorant and quiet, than open your mouth to be exposed as a fool.
No, I show my genuine someone hiding behind the mantle of science.
I have a deep respect for people who are engaged in a genuine examination of the evidence in the context of the scientific method.
And utter contempt for those who are misusing their position for likely person interests.
Climate change denial benefits no one in the long term. And if the worst case scenarios with climate change come to pass then climate change denial will be one of the worst crimes in human history.
Which may not matter anyway if eventually there are no people left.
The entire world is joining together to deal with this growing crisis for a reason. What is your’s in denying it even exists.
Gosh did you forget what you wrote earlier?
“5. Why is Tim Ball who has almost no qualification being presented as an expert in this field when his “work” contradicts that of scientists…”
You said something totally stupid, then when you got exposed on it, you come back with more empty drivel. He is doing his job being skeptical of their claims most which are untestable, thus lack valid scientific value.
No one here denies that Climate changes over time, NO ONE!
You are clearly anti science, since you make clear you accept far into the future modeling claims that are NOT testable or falsifiable. You want to brand people guilty for being skeptical of claims that are NOT verifiable.
This still applies to you:
“Better to be ignorant and quiet, than open your mouth to be exposed as a fool.”
Ah yes, the classic troll tactic of declaring that only scientists who’s work they agree with are scientists.
Dr. Ball has more expertise in this area than do many of the so called scientists that you have been quoting.
I really am fascinated at how some people religiously cling to the notion that anything bad must be caused by CO2.
Doug, like most of his co-religionists believe that because this year isn’t perfectly identical to last year, that is proof that CO2 caused the change. They don’t need facts. Indeed they run from any facts that are presented.
James Hansen and Michael Mann have already qualified for a Black Belt in Professional Infamy.
There is no need for either to make any further utterances on the subject of climate.
Doug Coombes:
1. Because it is humans who are rapidly driving up the atmospheric concentration of the most important persistent greenhouse gas.
Actually the IPCC never proved CO2 is an important greenhouse gas, they simply assumed it was.
2. WATER VAPOR, the title says it all. Water vapor isn’t a persistent GAS in the atmosphere which means it readily precipitates out…
If WATER VAPOR is not a persistent GAS than it isn’t available to cause the Water Vapor Amplification Effect, and without this effect CO2 is a minor player in Global Warming (about 1.0c to 1.3c per doubling of CO2) and we won’t have to worry about exceeding the 1.5c target set by the IPCC.
3. For the same reason many disciplines in science do, it allows a continuous refinement of the research. Maybe you’d prefer that no research was done on this subject.
I agree with this statement though I would add that models that diverge so much from the actual temperature measurements as the current models do are not fit for making projections about the future.
4 Why keep hammering on about the IPCC which is a political body not a scientific research institute.
This is a very good point which means that anything published by the IPCC should be treated as politics and not science.
5. Why is Tim Ball who has almost no qualification being presented as an expert in this field when his “work” contradicts that of scientists…
Argumentum ab auctoritate. Very persuasive.
The ad hominem attacks continue just as expected from Coombes. He gets those attacks wrong including his charge about lack of qualifications. He would know how many peer-reviewed papers I had if he did even modicum of research.
He then tries and fails to answer some of my questions. For example, you cannot determine what impact humans are having on the climate if you don’t know how much and what causes natural variability, and we don’t.
Now who’s making ad hominems.
(He didn’t make any with you) MOD
This is your claim from above.
” How did this allow them to ignore water vapor, by far the most important and abundant greenhouse gas?”
You’re own statement points out the fundamental fallacy your position is based on. You’re trying to claim that what you define as a vapor is actually a gas.
Don’t blame me for pointing how baseless you position and authority is in this matter.
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/15/677109487/nations-agree-on-rules-to-put-paris-climate-agreement-into-action
The entire world is moving forward on an issue you and tiny minority refuse to admit even exists.
I’m not apologizing for seeing something very sad and desperate in that. What you;re doing truly isn’t science, at best it’s deceptive advertizing and at worst it’s criminal negligence. Many people are already dying from this growing catastrophe and I’m pretty sure you’re not going to be there for me and thousands like me next time we’re put on evacuation notice or forced to flee the flames here in BC.
Like in California some here will lose their lives to this threat as anyone who is even a little objective understands is only going to get worse.
Where is your professional ethics, and morality you want respect, act in a manner that deserves.
The scientific community at the highest level has condemned the behavior you still engage in, are going to say the Royal Society of London who’s fellowship includes Newton, Hawking and some many more incredible minds have it wrong as you so arrogantly put forward.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/sep/20/oilandpetrol.business
Or that the US Supreme Court got it wrong when based on the best evidence that the levels of CO2 now being emitted constitute pollution driving climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_v._Environmental_Protection_Agency
I don’t respect you because you do not respect the incredible tradition you are hiding behind.
Gosh Doug, you did it again, be overtly disrespectful with Dr. Ball attacking him over something you demonstrate how scientifically ignorant you really are:
You stated this:
“You’re own statement points out the fundamental fallacy your position is based on. You’re trying to claim that what you define as a vapor is actually a gas.”
From Wikipedia:
“Water vapor, water vapour or aqueous vapor is the gaseous phase of water.”
and,
“specific gas constant 461.5 J/(kg·K)”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor
Not convinced?
Here is the THREE known phases of water:
“Under normal conditions, water exists in one of three phases, the solid phase (ice), the liquid phase (water), and the gaseous phase (steam).”
http://electron6.phys.utk.edu/101/CH7/Phases%20of%20Water.htm
You need to stop parading your ignorance on simple science stuff.
I notice that Doug “snotty” Coombs completely ignored this valid observation by Dr. Ball:
“He then tries and fails to answer some of my questions. For example, you cannot determine what impact humans are having on the climate if you don’t know how much and what causes natural variability, and we don’t.”
You are more and more coming across as a person who doesn’t know much of anything surrounding science research on weather and climate, you keep making absurd statements and being overtly disrespectful with Dr. Ball, who was civil the entire time here and in his post deserves cogent criticism.
Why are you coming across as being an ass, did Tim steal your rusty bike 20 years ago?
“Many people are already dying from this growing catastrophe”
Again, totally unsubstantiated BS. !!
Name one, and prove it was from enhanced atmospheric CO2.
So far your feeble responses have been NOTHING but empty, brain-washed, zero-science fallacies.
Doug is proving that not only is he uneducated, he is uneducatable.
He keeps regurgitating the same disproven facts over and over again, growing ever more agitated towards those who fail to convert to his religion just because he insults us.
Dr. Ball,
Your posts always seem to ‘trigger’ the doomsters. They seem to be like hysterical groupies forever reading WUWT for one of your essays. Poor ‘ol Doug is all alone on this one.
Maybe your use of “Why” is the trigger! Why it sure got Doug’s panties in a twist. Why … why … why. Does he understand why or not understand why?
I find it very revealing that I a citizen scientist am forced to explain to an “expert” the difference between a vapor and a gas that is so essential to understanding how the greenhouse effect works and why carbon dioxide is so essential to the greenhouse effect in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The difference.
“A gas refers to a substance that has a single defined thermodynamic state at room temperature whereas a vapor refers to a substance that is a mixture of two phases at room temperature, namely gaseous and liquid phase. … A vapour can co-exist with a liquid or solid when they are in equilibrium state.”
What this says is that in the atmosphere water a has a choice between states, it can be a gas or a liquid. And water obviously readily precipitates out of the atmosphere or we wouldn’t have rain, snow, sleet, hail etc…
Carbon dioxide doesn’t.
They both have strong absorption lines in the spectrum of electromagnetic energy emitted as black body radiation by the Earth’s surface which is heated by photons from the Sun.
The surface of the Sun is at 5,778 K and the frequency of photons emitted by atoms is a function of their temperature. The hotter the temperature the shorter the wavelength. The surface of the Earth is at 288 K which means that photons emitted by atoms at the Earth’s surface have a much longer wavelength than sunlight.
Most of the atmosphere is made up of gases and vapors that do not readily absorb sunlight because of its short wavelength most get through and warms the Earth. Carbon dioxide and water vapor do however have a strong absorption of photons in the wavelength emitted by the Earth’s surface.
Which is the crux of this growing catastrophe, by adding ever more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it is trapping and re-radiating more and more photons emitted by the Earth’s surface. And it is a stochastic function meaning almost half of those re-radiated photons are heading back to the Earth’s surface.
The carbon dioxide is always in the atmosphere and evenly mixes in a matter of weeks. Which means it is always there sending more and more heat back to the Earth’s surface. The water vapor concentration in the atmosphere is dependent on the temperature of the atmosphere. And even small increases in temperature as a result of more carbon dioxide means that there will be more water vapor in the atmosphere trapping more heat creating a feedback.
Carbon dioxide is essential to this process and forces it in a manner that water cannot because it is not a persistent GAS as you erroneously claimed.
That’s science, that not ad hominem, it’s not something thought up in a think tank funded by “dark money” from ExxonMobil or Koch Inc.
And it’s not something that I a member of the public who with billions of people on Earth are forced to live with the consequences of decades of intentional deception on this subject should be forced to explain to someone who claims to be an authority and speak on all our behalf.
Whether your statements are a function of total incompetence or something else is something only you know.
Fortunately most of the rest of the world doesn’t share your deep misconceptions of science that dates back to the late 1600s when it was first realized that the Earth was much warmer than it should be.
Being over three hundred years out of date in a profession is nothing to be proud about in my opinion.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Doug Coombs doesn’t know when to stop making a complete fool of himself, I see that Clyde Spencer tries to correct Doug over Water Vapor being a gas, by showing what NASA says about it, quoting Clyde’s comment:
“Clyde Spencer December 15, 2018 at 6:05 pm
Doug,
You said, “… why is anyone listening to a “scientist” who can’t even tell the difference between a gas and a vapor.”
From a NASA web page on water vapor: “Water vapor is also the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.”
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV
From Wikipedia: “Water vapor, … is the gaseous phase of water. It is one state of water within the hydrosphere. Water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from the sublimation of ice. Unlike other forms of water, water vapor is invisible.”
So, here you are questioning the credentials of a meteorologist — an ad hominem attack — when you don’t understand phase diagrams. Incidentally, you remarked “Water vapor in the atmosphere is temperature and pressure dependent but carbon dioxide isn’t,…” Well, I have news for you. Carbon dioxide IS temperature and pressure dependent on Mars. But, it is still a gas! I think that you are confusing liquid water droplets in clouds with water vapor.
I do agree with your statement that you are not a scientist. You are an excellent example of exactly what Tim Ball is talking about!”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/15/stop-the-personal-attacks-and-answer-the-climate-questions/#comment-2557868
You should stop digging that hole, it is deep enough now.
“Which is the crux of this growing catastrophe”
Poor Doug.
The ONLY catastrophe is that people like you are so gullible and scientifically ignorant that you actually fall for the AGW scam.
I have never read so much scientifically UNSUBSTANTIATED NOSENSE as in your post above,.
PURE FICTION.
There is NO climate catastrophe, it is all in your brain-washed imagination.
There is NO EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that human CO2 has any affect whatsoever on the global climate.
You are INCAPABLE of presenting anything except mindless AGW mantra and baseless rhetoric, backed by absolutely ZERO evidential science.
Doug, you might want to look into the carbon cycle! Here is what some rocket scientists think:
Pure water has a pH of 7.0 (neutral); however, natural, unpolluted rainwater actually has a pH of about 5.6 (acidic).
*NASA Earth Observatory: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle/page2.php
Sciencing: https://sciencing.com/ph-level-rain-water-5552228.html
Chemistry, Washington University: http://www.chemistry.wustl.edu/~edudev/LabTutorials/Water/FreshWater/acidrain.html
I’ve read your CV, Dr. Ball, and I don’t find that it gives any indication that you have the qualifications to critique climate science as you do. Your research career ended decades ago, and even then it seems to have tended more toward historical written records, and not the kind of research and data analysis that is being used today.
We don’t know the precise impact humans are having today, no, but there is plenty of research estimating those impacts, both on a regional and global scale. We also have a fairly good idea of the causes of natural variability…and every day we are learning more. Yes, there are some things we don’t understand. It’s a process. But there is plenty of evidence that AGW is real, despite the uncertainties in its quantification.
kristi silber, apparently you didn’t read the title of the post… “Stop the Personal Attacks and Answer the Climate Questions”!
Making appeals to authority and “attacking the man” are not valid arguments, they are the mud slinging techniques of power politics and slander.
You just weaken your own position by questioning Dr. Ball’s “authority”.
Scott W Bennett,
You call that an attack? He said, read my CV. I did. I gave my opinion based on what I read. Why shouldn’t I question Dr. Ball’s authority if I have reason to do so? I’m not making the kinds of assumptions he does when he attributes thoughts and desires to others.
I’ve read your CV, Dr. Ball, and I don’t find that it gives any indication that you have the qualifications to critique climate science as you do.
That’s pretty bad starting point. What’s wrong with challenging and asking experts? If those experts are right they will be able to provide strong arguments supporting their position. The problem here is that they are not able to supply such convincing and clear argumentation.
Parameter,
The “experts” are also not here to defend themselves or their positions. What Dr. Ball is doing is spreading his opinions as if they were fact. I discuss this in a post below.
Silber
You still don’t get it! In science, you should respond to the points in the argument, not try to destroy the argument by denigrating the author. You are engaging in an ad hominem attack and ignoring the substance of his claims. You have become a poster child for the thing he was complaining about — and you apparently don’t even realize it! It is a sad state of affairs when those defending AGW don’t understand how the Scientific Method works.
Now, if I were to respond in the same manner, I might ask you what there is in your CV that makes you qualified to criticize Dr. Ball?
Clyde,
Personally, I love Galileo. His works are well worth reading today. He was a deeply faithful Catholic throughout his life and struggled to reconcile what was believed in those days with what his own eyes told him. He even questioned and assiduously scrutinized whether his own observations were perhaps a figment of his often failing eyesight. Some of his famous quotes reflect his mind and are useful thoughts to consider from time to time:
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.”
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
And one of my personal favorites,
“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”
Feynman often voiced similar views.
Clyde,
I did respond to the arguments, in a post below.
I did not engage in ad hominem. I offered an honest opinion of his background based on his own CV. He is not engaged in research, and apparently hasn’t done the kind of research that would allow him to to claim expertise about most climate science, nor do his posts convince me that he has it. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way I feel about it.
I don’t need anything in my CV to criticize Dr. Ball because so many of the ideas he expresses (and the way he does so) don’t warrant it. I have read many of his posts, and I believe he spreads propaganda more than actually engages in scientific debate. It’s assumptions and unsubstantiated opinions, for the most part, and not very insightful ones. See my post below addressing his questions for further explanation.
Again, that’s my perception. I point that out because I want others to look at his posts as I do, and then judge for themselves.
Propaganda is everywhere, and it’s often a challenge to see, especially when it confirms what we want to believe. For that reason I try to avoid sites that support my ideas.
Kristi has an unhealthy fascination with academic credentialism.
She actually seems to believe that unless you have the correct letters after your name, you are incapable of examining evidence and reaching your own conclusions.
Of course, few if any of the “scientists” that she insists we all listen to have these credentials either. However that doesn’t matter to her, because she agrees with them, which makes them correct.
MarkW has an unhealthy fascination with me, and fantasizes about what I think and believe.
“5. Why is Tim Ball who has almost no qualification being presented as an expert in this field when his “work” contradicts that of scientists…”
By that logic, only a tailor would have grounds to say “ICPP”.
(Roger, I will insert my comment here so it won’t get lost in the reply ordering going on with this post.)
Doug, I hope you realize that Tim Ball has a PhD in Climatology. Read his CV when you get a chance. It would make more sense for me to call Doug Coombes’ qualifications on this topic into question. In case I missed it, what are your qualifications in science?
Windsong
Dough rants as though he is some kind of expert in science, but disavows being a scientist. I would guess ‘wannabe’ would be the best description.
He’s now claiming to be a citizen scientist.
I would say at least 90% of the posters here could easily make the same claim.
He does seem to get a rise out of us.
“Because it is humans who are rapidly driving up the atmospheric concentration “
WRONG
Carbon dioxide is a persistent gas that will stay in the atmosphere for centuries after we emit it.
WRONG!… and CO2 has zero effect on temperature or pressure.
“it allows a continuous refinement of the research”
WRONG.. it builds on previously ERRONEOUS research and data tampering.
“That’s not real science “
We can agree that "climate science™" is NOT real science.
It DOES NOT prescribe to the scientific method.
Still waiting for you to produce empirical scientific evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 warms the global climate.
WAITING for your non-science nonsense. !
fred250,
‘Still waiting for you to produce empirical scientific evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 warms the global climate.”
What sort of evidence would convince you?
Any that proves “enhanced atmospheric CO2 warms the global climate” to a catastrophic end. ; )
kristi, perhaps you could point to some enhanced warming of the global climate.
The warming we have seen so far is still less than the Mideival Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Minoan Warm Period and the Holocene Climate Optimum. Heck, today’s temperatures are still cooler than 90% of the last 10,000 years.
Why would anyone like Tim Ball, who rejects the basic physics of the earth’s natural ‘greenhouse’ effect be taken seriously, about anything?
Quaestio,
“who rejects the basic physics of the earth’s natural ‘greenhouse’ effect…”
Like the basic physics in the Gore/Nye “Climate 101” video from 40 seconds to about 76 seconds?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/gore-and-bill-nye-fail-at-doing-a-simple-co2-experiment/
You, kristi silber, and Doug Coombes are useful object lessons for the rest of us. No matter what we say or do, if we don’t agree with you, then we are up for the chop. Lesson learned. Carry on.
(what is hilarious is that we have at least three people here using ad homs against Tim Ball, while ignoring his request to discuss the listed questions) MOD
MOD obviously hasn’t read all my comments, nor does he understand my point.
Expressing an opinion about someone’s level of expertise based on his own CV and his comments is not the same as attacking him. How many others have expressed their opinions about me without comment from a MOD?
>>
MOD obviously hasn’t read all my comments, nor does he understand my point.
<<
Who would want to?
Jim
Quaestio, when you have to lie about what others have said, that’s proof that even you know you can’t defeat his arguments.
Dr. Ball has never denied that CO2 is a green house gas. What he does say is that nobody has demonstrated that CO2 controls the climate or that CO2 is going to cause problems, much less catastrophes.
Doug Coombes:
“1. Why was the definition of climate change used as the basis for the IPCC research limited to only human causes?”
Because it is humans who are rapidly driving up the atmospheric concentration of the most important persistent greenhouse gas.
—
You apparently need to look at natural rises of CO2 levels with all prior planetary warming phases and try to get your brain to process it. Humans were not the cause of any of those warmings and yet they occurred. Edag! There must be a natural process in play! And with CO2 rises lagging the warming, the rise coming after the warming has already occurred. Do you think you can process that too Doug, or is that a bit too much for one day?
But presuming you are equal to it, how can the CO2 rise be the ‘driver’ of the earlier warming? Why in the climate record does cooling occur just after CO2 peaks? That doesn’t give you even the slight pause in the gullible adoption of your position? Does CO2 use a Tardis? Is it magical?
But despite the obvious prior natural patterns that humans and their ‘carbon’ clearly had nothing to do with, and is therefore entirely a natural feature of the planet’s variability, according to you, humans did all of it, this time around?
You claim that the CO2, which was clearly not the ‘driver’ of past warming (but was a later global system response to it) is now the ‘driver’ (for totally unexplained reasons) and as humans are emitting CO2 then humans must be responsible for a planetary warming.
Because you say so, right?
That’s proper sciencey, Doug.
Forest fires started naturally in the past, so that means humans can’t start forest fires now.
Yeah, that’s proper logickal.
Can’t stay on topic? Got to try and steer away from facts with unrelated bunk? Why don’t you try addressing the points made? Or did you just give up and decided to have a little troll instead?
Reading comprehension was never your strong point, was it Q?
Most of the CO2 that we see is due to the temperature recovery from the Little Ice Age (LIA) with a lag of 300 years . Coincidentally, a much smaller amount is being added by humans. It’s an accident that warmists, the IPCC and their much-amplified propaganda machine have taken advantage of.
As usual Doug, the best you can do is recite trite sayings with no bearing in reality, or the question involved.
1) You are assuming your answer. You have assumed that first humans are the major source of CO2 and that CO2 is the primary driver of climate, even before research into that question has begun. A real scientist would be able to tell you why that is not the way to do science. To bad you don’t know any real scientists.
2. Doug now contradicts all the scientists he claims to believe in. They claim (and Doug did earlier today) that more CO2 means more water vapor, and that is what causes most of the alleged warming. Now Doug is proclaiming that water vapor has no impact at all. Apparently directly contradicting himself doesn’t embarrass Doug. PS: Water vapor influences the climate in many ways. By removing heat from the surface, by enhancing convection, by influencing the creation of clouds. More facts that Doug doesn’t let get in the way of a good rant.
3. Where’s the evidence that they have used the incorrect early runs to correct and fine tune models? Instead they still defend even the earliest runs as being completely accurate.
4. Once again, Doug assumes facts not in evidence. Just because Saudi Arabia is a member of the UN is not evidence that they have any influence over the IPCC process.
5. When the data doesn’t support him, once again Doug just makes it up.
Doug Coombes
By your logic, helium is not a gas because it escapes at the top of the atmosphere. You have admitted to not being a scientist. Why do you persist in trying to educate the rest of us about science by sharing your ignorance?
Absolutely silly. Over and over again I have seen vacuous claims of intense funding of “climate denial” organizations listing donations from whatever source to various organizations.
Simply looking at the list of organizations the Brulle article reviewed by Scientific American in the post
https://stephenstewart.ca/images/InstitutionalizingDelay.pdf
one can see the list of organizations alleged to be the counter-climate movement. What you will see is no organization with “climate” in its title and in fact few that even list climate as a major thrust area. Instead what one sees is a list of generally politically conservative organizations such as the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the Manhattan Institute, and many other policy oriented institutes. Virtually all of them devote relatively small fractions of their research budget to energy policy, instead focusing on strategic foreign policy, issues related to tax, health care, economics etc. Climate is a relatively small part of the bulk of their work. Yet this idiotic article somehow claims that all of the funds to these organizations is devoted to funding some “climate change countermovement,” which is ridiculous, narcissistic fantasy. They have much more important things to worry about than a ragged, bearded alarmist in robe and sandals with sign claiming that the end is nigh (repent!), for example China in the South Pacific, Russian in the Crimea and Caribbean, antibiotic resistance and our health care, fiscal stability, cyber security, etc. The fact is those organizations are simply politically conservative organizations that develop policy statements on a wide variety of issues. Their “crime” has nothing to do with climate countermoving but simply that they happen to be on the opposite side of a general political spectrum than the author of that article. It is fine to disagree with someone politically, but it is just crazy to imagine, in clinically paranoid fashion, that they are conspiring against you on something you read in Catcher in the Rye.
It gets even sillier when you start to look at the actual dollars involved and what they funded. But frankly, it is not worth much time.
‘but we can alert the community of honest scientists to such behavior and formally discredit these people.’
Wow! Not their ideas, but these people.
I have one basic Question:
What empirical result would falsify the theory of Anthroprogenic Global Warming?
If a theory isn’t testable then it is religion and not science.
RichardP,
While I might agree with the general notion of scrutinizing scientific claims, I have argued before that climate science does not share the attribute of the basic sciences (physics, chemistry, biology) that its primary source of validity is comparison with controlled experiments. Instead, I have argued that climate science is more akin to cosmology, or astrophysics such as stellar evolution theory, in that it must seek validity through some more cumulative process. I commented on this notion at length in a previous thread, on Nov 27 at 4:53 PM in this comment stream
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/25/claim-particle-physics-is-stagnating-because-of-groupthink/#comments
The gist of that comment was that demanding climate science establish its validity via some kind of crucial, deciding empirical test is not appropriate and almost ranks as a straw man. The other part of my earlier comment addressed the claim that climate science is “just basic physics” in which I argued that this claim also is without substance on a variety of grounds.
A major difficulty of climate science (compared to astrophysics) is that the so-called predictions seem to be changeable in an ad-hoc fashion to suit observations that disagree with previous predictions. This is much like Feynman’s inclusion of the psychologist’s re-definition of “enough love” in a particularly famous excerpt from his Cornell lectures.
fah,
“A major difficulty of climate science (compared to astrophysics) is that the so-called predictions seem to be changeable in an ad-hoc fashion to suit observations that disagree with previous predictions. ”
You seem to think that the “predictions” are simply a matter of decision. This ignores the fact that with more data and with advancement in the understanding of climate, the models change. In fact, what you say suggests that the models are getting better.
The only way to clarify unfortunately is to repeat my previous post. It was narrowly focused on two notions that I believe muddy the water when evaluating different kinds of scientific work. Here is a copy/paste of the previous post. (As far as models getting better or worse, I leave that to people who work in that science to evaluate. I only tried to address what “better” means in basic versus complex sciences and to try to avoid wasting intellectual energy on unfruitful conversations.) In the remainder, the pronoun “you” refers to Philip Mulholland, with whom the conversation was entertained at that time.
Unfortunately, conversations about climate science have a pall over them of connection to various political action advocacy positions. This seems to lead to a good bit of impugning of motives and focusing more on winning of some kind of contest than of improving understanding. It is too bad, but it is what it is for now. Two notions often arise that really should not be unclear. Call the two main “camps” in the conversation Side A, and Side B. Side A is sometimes called the camp of skeptics, deniers, non-alarmists, or whatever, and Side B can contain people sometimes called alarmists, mainstream consensus, or whatever.
Side A often claims that anthropogenic CO2 dominated global warming (let’s call this ACDGW) is not “valid” because it has not been demonstrated in a controlled experiment, and that therefore, ACDGW is not scientifically justified (at least not yet). Side B often claims that the “science” of ACDGW is just “basic physics” and that therefore it is as established as basic physics and anyone who disputes that statement is, well, a scientific simpleton.
It is helpful to be clear when discussing either A or B’s claims about what “science” is or is not. The word “science” sometimes means different things to different people. Focusing on just the physical and life sciences (and mostly physics) it is helpful to distinguish between two general classes of “science.” One could be called basic science and would include physics, chemistry, and biology. Another could be called complex or interdisciplinary science. (But don’t get riled up yet, wait for some explanation, neither is “better” or “worse” than the other).
The central characteristic of basic sciences in this view is that they proceed by (of course constantly making observations) but fundamentally 1) propose a theory of how something works (not why, just how) 2) formulate the theory in non-arbitrary mathematical terms that can predict the outcomes of controlled experiments isolating the “something” and 3) perform controlled experiments and compare the non-arbitrary, previously well defined, predictions of the theory with the experimental outcome. If the prediction and the outcome are close enough, then the theory is, for now, assumed to not be wrong. Other theories, that predict outcomes that can be ruled out by the error bounds of repeated experiments, preferably using multiple phenomena and methods, are assumed to be wrong.
The central difference between basic sciences and complex sciences is that (usually) in a complex science the definition of the problem rules out performing controlled experiments. Astrophysics and cosmology are good examples of this kind of science. Climate science is another. The approach of these sciences is to observe the system (or systems) under study, compare the phenomena that appear to be involved with phenomena from the basic sciences for which there is experimental evidence, and construct a theory that mathematically explains observed behavior and predicts future behavior in terms of results of experiments that can be performed, albeit not on the complete system. A key distinction is that what the theory does is explain current and past observations and predict future observations, but the observations are necessarily not controlled experiments. By definition of the system under study, a controlled experiment is not possible. Nevertheless, a theory is judged better or worse than another theory if it agrees the most with observations, both present/past and future. Because a single or a few definitive controlled experiments are not available to rule out incorrect theories, it can take longer to find a definitive complex theory. For example, in cosmology, working theories have gone from steady-state, to open big bang, to open inflationary big bang, to closed big bang with dark matter, etc. etc. Various alternatives, such as cosmologies in which the “constants” of the universe are functions of the universe itself and change as the universe evolves in time, have taken quite some time to rule out observationally (almost but not quite). In astrophysics, the original notion that a black hole was simply a mathematical oddity, a solution of Einstein’s equations, for an isolated mass in an empty universe, and that it did not represent anything that would occur in reality. That view evolved over the past 60 years or so such that black hole existence currently agrees more with observations than other explanations for a variety of astronomical systems. Another good example is the theory of stellar evolution. Based on the initial mass of a star at formation (assuming a pristine formation) the theory predicts how the star will evolve in time, what its luminosity and spectral output will be, whether and how long it will be a so-called main sequence star, how and when it will depart from the main sequence and become a giant or dwarf, or whether it will follow another path perhaps to an explosive event and collapse to a neutron star or black hole. All of these predictions are based on observations of many stellar objects and computer models that incorporate as much as we know about underlying physics (even basic physics) from experiments performed in labs or other facilities. None of the predictions are experimentally confirmed by a controlled experiment on a forming and evolving star.
In this view, climate science is much more a complex science than a basic science. As such, the insistence that climate science “prove” its theory by experimental demonstration misunderstands this difference within the practice of “science”. From this perspective the insistence (usually by Side A) on experimental proof should not be constantly raised since it is essentially a straw man. Climate science need no more test its theories with experiments (to be considered “valid” in some sense) than should cosmology. It is unlikely (we hope) that we will have the opportunity to interact with a black hole, but the theories describing them are nevertheless constantly tested against observations, as in the recent observations of gravitational waves from what was most likely a collision of black holes.
You point out that Side B often claims that climate science, in particular ACDGW, is just “basic physics,” and hence anyone who disputes its tenets is a scientific simpleton, akin to disputing the validity of Newtonian mechanics and gravity in regimes in which it applies, or relativistic theories when needed. This claim is wrong on several accounts, but mostly it has to do with what the meaning of “is” is (to quote a famous former president). The apparent intended use of “is” in “is basic physics” means to state that ACDGW = basic physics and therefore any quality of validity of basic physics is also held by ACDGW. This equality is false on a number of levels.
First, trivially, if ACDGW = basic physics, then ACDGW would be taught within physics departments as a required course alongside mechanics, stat mech, QM, EM, maybe fluid mech, solid state physics, plasma physics, particle physics, and relativity for undergraduates with more advanced courses in all of these plus perhaps other specialized courses in field theory, math methods, etc. To my knowledge, ACGW or even the broader climate science, is not taught within physics departments but instead finds its home in other departments named things like meteorology and atmospheric science, or earth science, or something else typically with “science” appended and perhaps including oceanic or environmental in the title. On this count, climate science is not basic physics in the way the subjects mentioned above are basic physics and the equality lacks merit.
Second, the equality does not hold since basic physics is a basic science as described above and depends on comparison with controlled experiments for testing its theories. ACDGW can not and does not do so (which is no shame, it is just its nature) and therefore is not equal to basic physics. Period.
Third, ACDGW is not equal to basic physics because some of its fundamental concepts and quantities are peculiar to ACDGW and are not within physics at all. Things like “forcings” and “feedbacks” are much more at home in computer science or perhaps applied numerical techniques and engineering science than in basic physics. To my knowledge forcings and feedbacks are not part of the standard basic physics curriculum. One of the key quantities of interest seems to be the global spatial (and somewhat time) average of local temperature readings. It is often called an average global temperature, or various distinct subsets of it, but in the view of basic physics, the quantity is (as most of Side A is aware) not a temperature at all. In basic physics a global temperature would be (an intensive property of the global system) the differential of the global energy with respect to the global entropy (two extensive properties of the global system). But the global system is a big thing. Even just the global surface is a big thing, extending over land and ocean surfaces with widely varying properties, coupled to immense non-equilibrium thermodynamic systems such as oceans, and geology and atmospheres, including many mechanical sinks and sources and phase changes and on and on. To get a global temperature using basic physics one would need to specify the global energy and entropy and then find the differential of that somehow. It’s not too hard to show, under a variety of simplifying assumptions, that the average of the temperatures of a collection of systems is poorly (often chaotically) related to the temperature obtained from the summed system properties (energy and entropy). But it is even worse, since the sub systems, and likely the whole system, are not in equilibrium and the notion and definition of temperature as described above assumes equilibrium. All of this should not be viewed as a criticism of ACDGW for being wrong or bad for spending so much time with an average of global temperatures. It may be the right kind of thing to follow. But it definitely is not basic physics.
The more correct statement side B could make is that ACDGW “uses” basic physics. But that does not translate the property of validity that goes along with equality to basic physics. Validity needs to be found another way, whatever is best for a complex science. Lots of theories “use” basic physics but are not determined to be valid. All of the various cosmological theories have “used” basic physics, but as some of them made predictions that became harder and harder to contort to fit observations, they were thought to be less and less valid. (At least until they are resurrected by new observations or clever modifications.) Astrology “uses” basic physics to get the positions of the planets and stars and whatever else is part of it, but its predictions are either wrong or so vague as to be impossible to non-arbitrarily confirm the theory.
Summarizing:
1. The fact that ACDGW is not confirmed by controlled experiment does not mean that it is an invalid theory, any more than the current theory of stellar evolution is invalid on that basis. Its validity needs to be judged by the standards of the kind of science it is.
2. ACDGW uses basic physics but it does not equal basic physics. The validity of basic physics says nothing about the validity of ACDGW, which must be judged by the standards of the kind of science it is.
Finally, the issue of validity of a theory comes up. In a basic science, one could view validity as the property that the theories are not shown to be wrong by any of many experiments so far performed. In a complex science, I am not expert, but my guess is that validity would be a result of how many observations show the theory not to be wrong, including future observations. The only difficulty apparent to me is that in the absence of control over the experiment (or observation), it can be difficult to rule out alternative explanations of observations. This process should not be viewed as a flaw in the science, but simply essential to its nature.
fah
I generally agree with your assessment about the nature of the ‘sciences.’ However, I see climate computer models as being complex hypotheses that are surrogate experiments for systems that are not amenable to the controlled physical experiments of the “basic sciences.” To that end, if they had useful predictive outputs, then one could tentatively accept that the models are a close approximation of how the climate system works. Unfortunately, all except the Russian models appear to be running hot, and that may well be because the models aren’t purely physical in nature, but have parameters that have to be guessed at and are little different from what engineers derisively (realistically?) call “fudge factors.” Typically, if an engineer had a model that was not agreeing with physical experiments, and (s)he could not find the problem, they would probably insert ‘stub’ code to get the model to perform more realistically until the problem could be resolved.
Those working in climatology modeling stubbornly stick to their current models, perhaps because if the public and politicians can be persuaded that they are right, it will serve the agenda of the political motivation of demonizing CO2.
The real problem, as I see it, is that the proper role of something like a climate model is to provide insights on how an intractably complex system works, by varying the parameters, and come up with a model that has predictive skill. Unfortunately, the models are being sold as having the desired predictive skill when they don’t! So, we have a situation where those who believe in AGW pointing to models as proving something that they don’t prove, while the skeptics often dismiss them completely.
As Tim Ball suggests, we need to stop the ad hominem attacks and start talking with each other and answering the inconvenient questions.
the central difference it seems to me in your statement is that complex = theory and observation whereas ‘simple’ = theory and experiment and then observation
Have I got it correctly?
And (currently) there are things we can’t experiment like, climate science, cosmology and I assume you mean astronomy rather than astrology? which are ‘complex’
Whereas we can ‘do’ experiments on eg atoms, electrons, pieces of biology and so they are ‘simple’
A while ago we couldn’t do experiments on atoms, eg 1880’s and so at that time, that ‘basic’ science was ‘complex’
Currently we can’t easily do experiments on quarks, so they are still ‘complex’ (?)
And that difference means that we can know whether our hypothesis is correct more quickly ?
Have I got it right?
So which classification would the gravity waves experiment be in? A while ago we didn’t have the technology to assess them, so it was ‘complex’ and now we think we’ve observed them so it’s now ‘basic’ – or because there are no effective controls – ie we can’t simulate colliding black holes – is it still ‘complex’?
Craig M at 1:34 AM
I fear we are already exceeding the general expectations for blog comments, but….
The choice of words such as “basic” or “complex” is a bit awkward, carries several unnecessary associations and is somewhat non-standardized. The essential characteristic I am trying to capture with the notion of “basic” science is the intrinsic ability to do controlled experiments and the expectation of the science that to be “valid” a theory must be confirmed in a controlled experiment. This means we have the ability to construct a simplified system whose total characteristics we know (or at least think we know) and whose sources of error we think we understand completely and which isolates the specific phenomenon we want to measure. Inherent in that construct is that we can repeat the experiment using the same apparatus or using another apparatus that also isolates the phenomenon we want to measure but may use other means to observe it, still with all known error sources controlled. So the ability to construct and replicate controlled experiments to test the theory is what is (perhaps poorly) characterized by the word “basic”.
In contrast, what I mean by “complex” could also be called intrinsically observational, meaning we do not have the ability (perhaps in principle as well as in fact) to construct the object of the theory in order to confirm it. So an alternative to basic and complex might be “subject to controlled, replicable experiment” and “intrinsically not subject to controlled, replicable experiment.” The expectation of the latter kind of discipline is that validity of theories must be assessed in the absence of controlled experiments. Neither of the two is “more scientific” than the other, they are just different.
The notions are meant to apply to the primary paradigm under which the discipline operates, meaning that is the standard by which theories are judged by practitioners of the discipline. Galileo is largely responsible for developing the paradigm in physics, primarily classical mechanics, by performing controlled experiments, and expressing theories of behavior that could be tested by repeated controlled experiment. (He also pushed observational astronomy ahead significantly.)
It is correct that some theories within a discipline characterized by the controlled, replicable experiment paradigm may not yet be amenable to experiment. Typically in such cases, practitioners of the discipline consider such theories to be tentative and unconfirmed, but nevertheless useful to entertain. I am most familiar with physics so I will restrict the discussion here to that, although biology has seen a tremendous surge transitioning theories from unconfirmed experimentally to confirmed, largely due to increased ability to manipulate large molecules. (Physicists still share a good-natured joust with biologists from time to time. )
Physics has moved in the past 4 or 5 centuries from a purely observational discipline to the (theory —–> controlled experiment) paradigm. As our ability to manipulate ever larger and smaller (physically as well as energetically) systems, we have been able to subject most of physics to controlled experiment. First was classical mechanics and classical electrodynamics since they were first to be able to be manipulated. Newton’s and Maxwell’s (and others) syntheses have been subjected to the paradigm successfully for many years. Quantum mechanics was the result of our ability to manipulate smaller objects and the inescapable conclusions (from controlled experiments) on the role of probability and the propagation and summation of probability amplitudes. Finally, as Feynman would say, the theoretical synthesis of quantum electrodynamics (QED) can currently explain virtually everything we experience in daily life (material properties and the like) except for gravity and nuclear forces (the latter being not routinely experienced in daily life.) It is also useful to distinguish between the notion of “explain” versus “understand.” QED is basically a set of rules for propagation and addition of probability amplitudes involving photons and other particles. On first glance, as well as second and third glances, the rules seem crazy and don’t make intuitive sense. But they work, meaning in the paradigm of physics now, they predict outcomes that are confirmed in controlled experiments. Feynman (who was a major contributor to QED) repeatedly said the it is OK if you don’t understand QED and think the rules are crazy, in fact, he said HE didn’t understand it. The crazy rules simply agree with controlled experiment.
Particle physics is a good example of this transition. Nuclear and subatomic particle physics progressed to experiment when we began to first observe, then manipulate radioactive decay products (e.g. beta and alpha and neutrons) and use them in controlled experiments. Rutherford’s famous experiment first demonstrated the demarcation of charge within atoms and led to experiments on the constituent particles. As our ability to accelerate particles to larger energies (using ever larger facilities) we could experimentally and repeatably probe more and more of the plethora of so-called elementary particles. The theory more or less progressed and continued to explain and predict more outcomes. Many have been confirmed and many have not yet. You may want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_particle_discoveries for a list of experimental confirmations of various elementary particles. Some are yet to be observed in controlled experiment. You may want to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_particles for a list of observed versus yet-to-be observed particles. However, the fact that they have not been observed does not mean that they are outside the physics paradigm. As of now, they are theoretical predictions that have not been ruled out by experiment, yet, but the discipline in which they are found requires that they eventually be subject to controlled experiment. The important distinction is not that they are not part of the “basic” or “subject to controlled experiment” paradigm since the predicted outcomes have not been yet experimentally observed (e.g. some Higgs bosons, gravitons, various super-symmetric partner particles, etc.), the expectation of the paradigm is that they will be and need to be confirmed to be “validated” within the theoretical construct of physics.
We could examine as well the history of special and general relativity transitioning from something offered in math departments, not physics departments, well into the 50s and 60s to a well-accepted, largely experimentally confirmed theory, but this is only a comment on a blog.
Now turn to the other paradigm, which I called “complex” but could also be called “intrinsically not subject to controlled, replicable experiment.” I think cosmology, stellar evolution, and climate science are illustrative. All three are intrinsically outside our ability to control experimentally. Cosmology and climate science are even more constrained (than stellar evolution) in that we only have one object of study. We simply don’t have another universe to compare to ours and we don’t have another earth-like climate (water dominated, temperate, etc.) to compare to ours. At least with stellar evolution we have a large number of similar systems to observe and that helps, but it remains intrinsically outside controlled experimental observation. The main reason for making the distinction is not to argue that one is “better” or “worse” than the other, or that one is “true science” and the other is not, they are simply different paradigms. In this view, it is unreasonable to expect climate science to be judged valid or invalid by the paradigm of controlled experiment disciplines. Another path to theoretical validity must be sought. I don’t claim to know the right objective measure of a theory’s validity in such disciplines. It may be useful to examine the experience with stellar evolution and the role of models in that theory to look for standards for amount of observations quantitatively explained by the theory, the quantitative accuracy of such predictions, the dominance of certain phenomena in terms of ability to quantitatively explain such things, etc. Stellar evolution, as I said above, has the advantage that there are a large number of similar systems to provide quantitative checks. Nevertheless, to me such theories as stellar evolution are akin to what is being sought in climate science, but there seem to be significant differences that could be discussed at some time. One aspect of stellar evolution that seems useful to me is the insistence that all quantities of interest be well-defined quantities from physics.
Finally, I did mean to say astrology, not astronomy. That was in the context of an example of a discipline that “uses” physics (i.e. planetary and stellar positions as a function of time) but is not thereby “as valid” as physics. The main point is that to use concepts from a discipline that derives validity from controlled experiment in a discipline that does not derive validity in that way does not confer “validity” of a theory in the latter discipline.
And finally finally, all this is meant to be conceptual stimulus to thought, not a pedantic insistence on the way the world must be. My main point is that I think the notion of how to “validate” theories in climate science is a worthwhile thing to think about. For heaven’s sake stopping calling each other names about it and seriously think about it in some objective fashion. I see a great deal of discussion of the validity of aspects of climate science devolve to “is—is not…..is!—–is not!….is, you creep!——is not, you scum! etc.
Craig M at 1:34 AM again
I just noticed I did not address your question about black holes and gravitational waves. Sorry. In the context of my earlier attempt to provide stimulus to thought, I would view the existence of gravitational waves as a prediction of the theory of general relativity that has been confirmed by measurement. This is in the sense that detectors designed to rule out any other source (i.e. potential sources of error) for certain kinds of perturbations did indeed sense such perturbations and the orientation and magnitude of such detections agreed with predictions, means that the prediction of the existence of gravitational waves is still not wrong. Further support for this detection is the alignment and simultaneity of the detections supports apparent sources of such detections with astrophysical objects previously predicted to be potential sources of gravitational waves. All of this detection is well within the typical controlled experiment paradigm of physics. The buzz is some people will get a Nobel for this in the future.
The association of the waves detected with black holes is unfortunately not within the controlled experiment paradigm. There are a lot of arguments suggesting that is a “valid” association, e.g. source located at/near where black holes were previously identified, time signature of the signal agreeing with model calculations, simultaneity and co-location of the source with a gamma burst (photons), etc. Interestingly enough, the detection gives some constraint on a long standing theoretical question – namely do all zero rest mass fields travel with the (same) speed of light (photons), in particular do gravitational waves (maybe gravitons) travel at the same speed of light. The joint detection of the gamma burst with the gravitational waves and the bounds on the arrival time differences have reduced the possible difference in velocities to very tight bounds. So far, the theory that they all travel at the same speed is not wrong. But, alas, the black hole association would not be something confirmed by controlled experiment, in the view I presented here.
With that, I will leave you to it.
Clyde,
You say that the models don’t have predictive skill. What are you looking for exactly? Every climate modeler realizes that they aren’t perfect; they are works in progress. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t skillful, or that they aren’t getting better, particularly at the regional scale. I don’t know who you think is “selling” them to the public by saying they have more predictive power than they do – I guess it’s the IPCC. I disagree with their recent tactics, but I also think the media gets caught up in it, and people draw conclusions without having read the actual documents. There’s a big focus on renewables, for instance, and little on improved efficiency, carbon recapture, and conservation. People also tend to ignore likelihoods and confidence ratings, as I discussed in another post to you.
It’s very unfortunate that this has become a political debate, rather than a strictly scientific one. It tends to make people even more emotional about it, and the media that cater to different ends of the political spectrum also give different perspectives on the science, so that the public tends to miss half the argument. Each side accuses the other of ignorance, bias and corruption. Propaganda is rampant. It’s not productive to the search for truth. I try to recognize and account for my own biases, but it’s hard. This is where the scientific consensus is important, and having trust in the scientific community as a whole. Sure, there are biases there, too, but I don’t believe that the majority of research done is affected by bias, and it’s certainly not restricted to one side or another.
Engineers have different methods and different ways of looking at models. They aim for “perfection” within certain boundaries set ahead of time. I would imagine it takes time to get these things right, too.
As for parameterization, it is not based on guesswork. There are multiple ways of going about it, from using smaller-scale models to working hypotheses to observational data (and an interesting one that escapes me at the moment, and the link is on another computer).
It makes absolutely no sense to scrap the models we have now rather than keep improving them.
Gee Kristi, unverifiable models are junk, no matter how pretty it looks, it is still junk.
Gee, Sunsettommy, that’s true. Good thing scientists use models that can verified through comparison with observation, changing data and methods to test their sensitivity, and ability to produce realistic emergent properties.
Richard P,
Not a theory, only a hypothesis so far.
“… The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to test the hypothesis that human CO2 caused global warming. Most scientists naturally assumed that the scientific method would apply. This requires that other scientists test the hypothesis, which mostly involves testing the assumptions. …”
—
It requires scientific proponents first honestly attempt to disprove their assumptions and thus the hypothesis. That should have and would have been easy as well as quick and very cheap, if the ludicrously wrong ‘scientific’ reports and aberrant ‘scientific’ conferences were at all interested in a first-principles process of hypothesis testing and disproving then assumptions.
Why did anyone ever think that politics and public money would not totally corrupt and derail the basic first-principles of science processes?
We saw the need for a separation of religion and State, and there is clearly a need for separation of Science from State. These should not be interfering or commenting on each other or meddling in each other, and it apparently needs to be made illegal to end that damaging, wasteful and derailing process.
Or the perversion of basic process and delusion-making that’s parading as ‘97% science’ will have no end, which politicians, bureaucrats, UN and NGOs clearly have no incentive whatsoever to end, under their own steam.
Missing word above:
“aberrant ‘scientific’ conferences were at [NOT] all interested in a first-principles process”
There’s no missing word there Roger.
“We saw the need for a separation of religion and State, and there is clearly a need for separation of Science from State. ”
Yeah, that’s a great idea. Who needs NOAA or NASA of the NIH or the CDC or any non-industry funded agricultural or technological or industrial research? Who needs universities or graduate education? We know enough already, and should really give the rest of the world a chance to reap the economic benefits of scientific progress.
Typical of modern academics.
Kristi actually believes that unless government funds it, there will be no science.
Kristi, why am I not surprised. You seem to mix up State funded Agencies, technology and mere schooling bodies, with the process of actual basic-research and Science advancement.
For your information, they are not the same thing, not even close actually, but it’s telling that you think they are.
Oops:
“aberrant ‘scientific’ conferences were [NOT] at all interested in a first-principles process “
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/15/how-complexity-science-can-quickly-detect-climate-record-anomalies-santa-fe-institute/#comment-2557828
Roger Knights December 15, 2018 at 5:30 pm
“… Although it’s conventional in scientific publications to treat “data” as a plural, it is not incorrect to treat it as a collective singular. This is well-settled in the finicky-grammarians’ world. (E.g., see Fowler’s century-old usage guide.) …”
—
Roger I see what your reading comprehension problem is now from the above comment that you just placed within the ice-core thread. I suggest you quit trying to be a “finicky-grammarian” and just read what was written without the puritanical blinkers and you’d understand common language use and not feel the need to ‘correct it’ to perfection, and thus make a needless mess – cheers.
No, it wasn’t.
It’s terms of reference are quite clear.It was formed to assess the magnitude and effects of man made climate change on the world and human society.
Never to question whether or not it exists.
Salesmen call this the assumptive close. You stop trying to sell the product and start taking about the price.
I think this question should be included.
Why did the IPCC, in 1986, ASSUME that mankind’s activities will cause Climate change that would require “adaptation and mitigation”.
This is a huge assumption based on zero evidence, not a scientific inquiry.
https://www.scribd.com/document/80901309/Principles-Governing-IPCC-Work-English
The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”
Jack
Interesting, when searching for “Principles Governing IPCC Work” on the IPCC website we get this result.
404 Error
The requested page was not found.
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles.pdf
In other words, the IPCC has no guiding principles?