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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Another article some time ago had a list of about 50 questions that were quite problematic for proponents of the AGW hypothesis, certainly CAGW. Does anyone know how to locate it or remember where it appeared? I’m sorry I have no more details, but I have been trying to find it.
Is this the list you are looking for? It’s from the comments to an article in WUWT on or shortly before the date noted. Sorry I didn’t save a link to the article.
Alan Tomalty says:
May 6, 2018 at 1:35 am
The fossil fuel industry doesn’t fund any skeptic now. The industry has capitulated to the alarmists. Kristi with all the tampered with data sets and all the evidence stacked up against CAGW, I am astonished by your groupthink.
The inconvenient questions that the IPCC can’t answer.
1) Why did sea level rise faster in early 2Oth century than now and even now is not accelerating?
2) Why do only rural land temperature data sets show no warming?
3) Why did climate scientists in the climate-gate emails worry about no warming trends? They are supposed to be unbiased either way.
4) Why do some local temperature land-based datasets show no warming Ex: Augusta Georgia for last 83 years? There must be 1000’s of other places like this.
5) Why do 10 of the 13 weather stations in Antarctica show no warming in last 60 years? The 3 that do are near undersea volcanic ridges.
6) Why does the lower troposphere satellite data of UAH show very little warming and in fact showed cooling from 1978 to 1997?
7) Why is there only a 21% increase in net atmosphere CO2 ppm since 1980 but yet mankind increased fossil fuel emissions CO2 by 75%?
8) Why did National Academy of Sciences in 1975 show warming in the 30’s and 40’s and NASA in 1998 and 2008 not show nearly as much warming for those time periods?
9) Why has no one been able to disprove Lord Monckton’s finding of the basic flaw in the climate sensitivity equations after doubling CO2?
10) Why has there never been even 1 accurate prediction by a climate model. Even if one climate model is less wrong than another one it is still wrong.
11) Why do most climate scientists not understand the difference between accuracy and precision?
12) Why have many scientists resigned from the IPCC in protest?
13) Why do many politicians, media and climate scientists continue to lie about CO2 causing extreme weather events? Every data set in the world shows there are no more extreme weather events than there ever were
14) Why do climate scientists call skeptics deniers as if we were denying the holocaust?
!5) Why did Michael Mann refuse to hand over his data when he sued Tim Ball for defamation and why did Mann subsequently drop the suit?
16) Why have every climate scientist that has ever debated the science of global warming lost every debate that has ever occurred?
17) Why does every climate scientist now absolutely refuse to debate anymore?
18) Why do careers get ruined when scientists dare to doubt global warming in public?
19) Why do most of the scientists that retire come out against global warming?
20) Why is it next to impossible to obtain a PhD in Atmospheric science if one has doubts about global warming?
21) Why is it very, very difficult to get funding for any study that casts doubt on global warming?
22) Why has the earth greened by 18% in the last 30 years?
23) Why do climate scientists want to starve plants by limiting their access to CO2? Optimum levels are 1200 ppm not 410ppm.
24) Why do most climate scientists refuse to release their data to skeptics?
25) Why should the rest of the world ruin their economies when China and India have refused to stop increasing their emissions of CO2 till 2030?
26) Why have the alarmist scientists like Michael Mann called Dr. Judith Curry an anti-scientist?
27) Why does the IPCC not admit that under their own calculations a business as usual policy would have the CO2 levels hit 590ppm in 2100 which is exactly twice the CO2 level since 1850.?
28) Why do the climate modelers not admit that the error factor for clouds makes their models worthless?
29) Why did NASA show no increase in atmospheric water vapor for 20 years before James Hansen shut the project down in 2009?
30) Why did Ben Santer change the text to result in an opposite conclusion in the IPCC report of 1996 and did this without consulting the scientists that had made the original report?
31) Why does the IPCC say with 90% confidence that anthropogenic CO2 is causing warming when they have no evidence to back this up except computer model predictions which are coded to produce results that CO2 causes warming?
32) How can we believe climate forecasts when 4 day weather forecasts are very iffy?.
33) Why do all climate models show the tropical troposphere hotspot when no hotspot has actually been found in nature?
34) Why does the extreme range of the climate models increase as the number of runs increases on the same simulation?
35) Why is the normal greenhouse effect not observed for SST?
36) Why is SST net warming increase close to 0?
37) Why is the ocean ph level steady over the lifetime of the measurements?
38) what results has anyone ever seen from global warming if it exists? I have been waiting for it for 40 years and haven’t seen it yet?
39) If there were times in the past when CO2 was 20 times higher than today why wasn’t there runaway global warming then?
40) Why was there a pause in the satellite data warming in the early 2000’s?
41) Why did CO2 rise after WW2 and temperatures fall?
42) For the last 10000 years over half of those years showed more warming than today Why?
43) Why does the IPCC refuse to put an exact % on the AGW and the natural GW?
44) Why do the alarmists still say that there is a 97% consensus when everyone knows that figure was made up?
45) The latest polls show that 33% do not believe in global warming and that figure is increasing poll by poll ? why?
46) If CO2 is supposed to cause more evaporation how can there ever be more droughts with CO2 forcing?
47) Why are there 4 times the number of polar bears as in 1960?
48) Why did the oceans never become acidic even with CO2 levels 15-20 times higher than today?
49) Why does Antarctica sea ice extent show no decrease in 25 years?
50) Why do alarmists resent skeptics getting funding from fossil fuel companies (when alarmists get billions from the government and leftist think tanks) and skeptics get next to nothing from governments for climate research?
51) If in the spring the Bloomberg carbon clock is only growing .00000001 every 6 seconds and therefore at that rate in 1 year it is only increasing .05ppm and then in the fall and winter it increases at a rate of only 2ppm per year; then why do we have to worry about carbon increases?
52) Why aren’t the alarmists concerned with actual human lives. In England every winter there are old people who succumb to the cold because they can’t afford the increased heating bills caused by green subsidies.
53) Why did Phil Jones, a climate-gate conspirator, admit in 2010 that there was no statistically meaningful difference in 4 different period temperature data that used both atmospheric temperature and sea surface temperature?
54) Why does the IPCC still say that the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is100 years when over 80 studies have concluded it is more like 5 years?
ResistGroupthink:
Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for your help. RGK
Oh, yeah, I remember this list.
Groupthink! That’s funny. What group? WUWT is more my group than any other.
The problem with this list is the same as that with Dr. Ball’s – it contains assumptions and conclusions without support. It doesn’t make sense to ask why something is true when it isn’t, but it’s a very good way to get around the question of truth and convey the idea that it’s true. It also leaves it up to the answerer to provide support for contradicting the assumption, and that makes it a real hassle. I could go through and say, “But that’s wrong!” and it wouldn’t carry any more weight than the question. That’s why I ignored them the first time around….and do so again.
Yep. It’s a list of statements and accusations dressed up as questions.
This is the article from which the questions posed by Alan Tomalty were copied:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/05/05/the-biggest-deception-in-the-human-caused-global-warming-deception/
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.
What funding? For writing a post here? I appreciate your time but I don’t think that you get paid for this. Remember the tip jar.
Satellites and Cern experiments are of course paid by the governments. More grants for skeptics, please.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to test the hypothesis that human CO2 caused global warming.”
It was actually formed to prove the hypothesis. And thereby to destroy the Western capitalist system.
I have a different take on Ball’s points from Doug Coombes.
1. Expedience.
2. Is Ball really saying that the IPCC reports don’t address water vapor?
3. The climate models are works in progress. There are uncertainties and unknowns, and the IPCC doesn’t hide this. Climate models, even though not perfect, aid our understanding of the way climate works. They have been shown to be skillful at simulating climate trends, and are not designed to simulate climate states at any given point in time. The main problem seems to be that people don’t take into account the likelihood and confidence ratings when comparing output with observation, and tend to expect too much.
4. This is a leading question. What “bureaucratic” members of the WMO? Who should have chosen the participants? Who should have been chosen? The implication is that there was not a broad spectrum of qualified contributors, but Ball has not demonstrated that.
5. This is an opinion, and one that is meant to lead people to think it is the case. Again, Ball has not demonstrated its truth.
6. Is he kidding?
7. Not sure what is meant by this question. Perhaps he means some kind of cost/benefit analysis should have been included in the SPM? It seems this goes beyond the purview of the report, not to mention it is extremely difficult and largely speculative. Besides, it’s not clear that there will be overall benefits. Even the global greening could be counteracted in some regions by changes in climate. It’s unclear how effects of extremes of cold and heat on human mortality will play out, since moderate cold accounts for the majority of excess death. He has a point, though. The IPCC reports do tend to promote alarmism…or apathy, since the goals are not practical.
…
Why did they switch to providing scenarios or projections after 1990?
– Presumably because they wanted people to see what would happen following different levels of mitigation!
Why did they ignore all the legitimate critiques of the early Reports?
– Opinion
Why did they finally establish a method of feedbacks and critiques?
Why did most of these never make it into the Reports?
– Again – demonstrate it! Maybe some of those critiques weren’t sound science.
Why did approximately 30,000 attend the recent climate conference in Poland?
– Ummm, because it’s an important issue?
Why were a majority of them environmental activists with no qualifications in climatology?
– Provide statistics.
Why were industry and business so poorly represented from the start?
– Where? And why should they be, when it’s about science? It would create conflicts of interest if industry were allowed to have input.
Why does that continue at the recent climate conference?
– Maybe industry should attend! It’s their choice, it’s not like they were banned from coming. I’d be willing to be there WERE representatives from industry there.
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?
– Wrong!
Why are similar computer models unable to forecast weather much beyond 72 hours?
– They aren’t “similar models.” Does Ball not know the difference between climate and weather forecasting models? This discredits his claims to expertise.
Why were all the IPCC projections from 1995 to the present incorrect?
– What does “incorrect” mean? They didn’t exactly predict temperature for November in San Francisco in 2003? Is Ball not aware that there are natural stochastic variations in climate that the models are not designed to simulate (although I recall reading that one model did anticipate an El Nino, but that could have been a fluke)?
Why has most of the global temperature record been altered?
– In order to account for bias and change in recording methods
Why did all these alterations only change the record in one direction?
– They didn’t. Boy, Ball needs to keep up with the literature.
Why did those adjustments only lower early temperatures? (OY!)
Why do major agencies that calculate the annual average global temperature get different results?
– Different method of data processing, different datasets.
Why did skeptics become deniers?
– You tell me.
Where is the evidence that climate change deniers deny climate change?
– That’s not the question. Why do “deniers” dismiss the evidence?
Why, in fact, do all the deniers claim that climate change occurs?
– Because they aren’t stupid?
Why do the media never ask Al Gore about his climatology qualifications?
– Because they know he has none.
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?
– Many, many nations have acted – maybe most, I don’t know. Some nations are struggling with other issues, like war, corruption and collapsing economies.
Why did the Kyoto Protocol fail?
– Probably a combination of factors. I imagine a significant one is that the U.S. refused to sign, so other countries thought they didn’t want to bear a burden if we didn’t do our fair share. This is a problem with the Paris Agreement, too. We abdicate our leadership and responsibility, refusing to cooperate with the rest of the world. It’s shameful.
What replaced the Kyoto Protocol?
– ?
Why is China entitled to and now demanding $2 billion from the IPCC through the Paris Climate Agreement?
– Citation, please.
………………………………….
Many of these questions beg verification of the claims they make. Others are simply opinions. In general, they seem designed to convey claims that are unsubstantiated. It’s a really beautiful method of propaganda, actually – because the claims are disguised as questions, they seem to require no evidence. It’s taken as a given that the hidden claims are true.
Dr. Ball does have quite a few publications under his belt, some peer reviewed, some not, but they are relatively narrow in scope and he hasn’t published his own research for years now. His CV lists 3 publications since 1992, the latest of which is “Slaying the Sky Dragon:Death of the Greenhouse Gas
Theory.” Earlier publications include several in “Manitoba Social Science Teachers Journal,” a few in “Beaver” and “Prairie Garden”…well, you get the picture. Not exactly top-tier journals. And from what I can tell, very little of this has to do with Hard Science – it’s mostly from written records of early Canada, especially the Hudson Bay area. In other words, it’s on the social science/history side of geography. (This actually looks interesting: “The Migration of Geese as an Indicator of Climate Change in the Southern Hudson Bay
Region Between 1715 and 1851” – especially considering many migration patterns have shifted in the last few decades.)
While none of this in itself means he lacks credentials to critique climate science, someone’s publishing record is a reasonable indicator of the depth of his experience in the field; furthermore, some of his questions detract from his credibility. I must admit that ever since I read his (mis)interpretations of climategate emails I have been convinced that Dr. Ball cannot objectively evaluate the field of climate science, and every post I’ve read of his since then only confirms this notion. That is not an attack, it’s an observation.
It also seems ironic that he would be complaining about personal attacks. I grabbed this post of his at random: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/04/climategate-is-not-like-watergate-time-for-the-leaker-to-try-again/
While it’s true it doesn’t engage in ad hominem, it does something worse, in my opinion: it weaves a story of corruption, making accusations that are supported only by conjecture. It’s a conspiracy theory. And naturally, the “conspirators” are the same old crowd of CRU scientists. How boring.
This has been pummeled to death. And why? Because there is no other scandal, no wrongdoing among any other scientists, so this one group must suffice to provide the justification for spreading the image of the whole of climate science as corrupt. Can’t you all see this?
Have a little self-respect, Dr. Ball. Don’t you have other skills besides spreading propaganda?
Silber
You said, “The main problem seems to be that people don’t take into account the likelihood and confidence ratings when comparing output with observation, and tend to expect too much.”
Just where are those confidence intervals that you refer to? Hansen didn’t offer any! I have yet to see any besides a 95% envelope for the ensembles of CMIP5, where the mean is obviously running too warm, and the lower bound is barely reasonable.
Clyde, I didn’t say confidence intervals, I said ratings. Often the IPCC reports give two estimates when they discuss a projection: the likelihood, which is based on probabilities that are calculated by the agreement among models, and the confidence placed in that result, which is from what I understand based mostly on “expert opinion” that takes into account the various lines of evidence, including how skillful the models are in simulating that particular variable.
“Medium likelihood, high confidence.”
“High likelihood, low confidence.”
Both measures should be taken into consideration when interpreting the IPCC reports.
“His definition of ‘honest’ and ‘credible’ scientists is those who agree with him.”
Nice. Assume you know what others think. That gives you lots of credibility. (As if the CRU scientists never disagreed!)
“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. ”
Support your accusations or don’t make them, Dr. Ball. Your opinion is no more valuable or interesting than my opinion that roast beef tastes best cooked medium rare.
And who ever claimed that the IPCC was formed to test the hypothesis of AGW? Even Exxon and Shell scientists supported it a decade before the first IPCC report. The physical theory has been around for over a century, and it has never been disproved.
Verifiable hypothesis should be a good start. All evil happens because of fossil fuels does not count. Disproving a religion is impossible 🙂
The IPCC only exist because of AGW, take that away and its purpose its very reason for being is GONE. So its motivation to support AGW is very clear indeed and that certainly explains what it choices to out into its report and what it leaves out.
So in what way do you think they are motivated to slove this ‘problem’ ?
And in their own terms they do not do any scienc, their main focus is political.
As Dr. Ball pointed out, the IPCC accepts that AGW is a fact. Its purpose is to figure out what the consequences are and what needs to take place to avoid the negative consequences. Plenty of people think AGW has not been adequately demonstrated, true. But it seems that many want evidence that is impossible to provide. There is no traditional controlled experiment to measure how increase in anthropogenic CO2 affects one set of Earths vs. another set without emissions from human sources. Experiments have to be run differently, and that’s where climate modeling, reconstructions, attribution analysis, etc. come in. Ideal? No. But scientists have to work with the tools they have. Demanding to see evidence that is impossible to get and ignoring the evidence that is available serves no purpose. Neither does confining one’s choice of evidence to that presented by those who wish to deny or show very limited effect of CO2 unless there is very good reason for doing so. For example, concluding that there has been no tropical tropospheric warming would have to be based on a limited subset of the evidence. This topic has been the focus of many studies using many different methods, and this warming has indeed been found by some of them. What proportion, I don’t know, nor am I qualified to evaluate which ones use the best methods. However, the fact that there are at least several that do find this warming using a wide variety of methods is good indication that we can’t conclude it doesn’t exist, and it’s therefore not reasonable to use it as an excuse to reject other types of evidence or reject the models.
The fact that a wide variety of evidence does support AGW (including temperature and other climate observations that agree with GCMs, models that simulate climate with and without different forcings, paleoclimatology, solar and aerosol data, biotic changes, etc.) is a much better indication than looking at any one type of evidence. While it’s not true controlled experimental hypothesis testing, that’s no reason to dismiss it.
Those who demand evidence to be convinced need to 1) explain why the evidence provided is not enough, and 2) offer a REALISTIC way of providing evidence, one that doesn’t focus on aspects of climate science that are currently being studied and debated and improved. For such evidence people will simply have to wait, but in the mean time rejecting AGW because “there is no evidence” is simply being either willfully blind or uninformed.
The IPCC accepts AGW; it is not “motivated” to support it for that very reason – it doesn’t need to. Sure, there are studies saying it’s not true, but when those studies have been widely discredited (not because of their results, but because of the methods), there is not reason to discuss them. It does discuss some studies that are at odds with most others. They discuss the weaknesses in the ECS estimates by Lindzen, for example. Perhaps the next WG1 will also discuss some of the other low estimates, but I imagine some they will ignore simply because they are bad research. It’s not the job of the IPCC to explain why it doesn’t use bad research, but to select the research that is done well.
Evaluating research takes expertise. Laymen like I am can only fully understand parts of it. Without public trust in the scientific community as a whole, it becomes worthless. This is why I get so angry at those who spread the unsubstantiated idea that it can’t be trusted. This includes endlessly focusing on climategate, decades-old hockey sticks, Michael Mann et al, and the flawed criticisms by McX2, when the purpose is to convey the idea that climate science as a whole is corrupt. It’s insidious, and to me itself a sign of corrupted thinking among those who do so.
I’m guessing that kristi once again stopped reading before she got to the actual data.
MarkW,
Guess all you want! That shows what you will use as evidence to draw your vacuous conclusions.
I must admit that I am mystified by the notion that a gas (CO2) which smothers flames can start a fire.
Fires require oxygen to burn, and an ignition source such as a kitchen match (the head is covered in BRIMSTONE!!!!) being struck by, or drawn against , something that will abrade the BRIMSTONE and spark a flame (ignition). In the case of that recent CA fire, I believe the ignition source of the fire was determined to be electric power lines** – hardly anything to do with a “warming” scenario.
**I have seen only one reference to power lines as the causative factor for that fire. Waiting to find out if that is correct.
So if some Alarmist or Warmunist or Greenbean can possibly explain to me how a GAS (carbon dioxide) that smothers and kills flames, and also comes out of their mouths, can START a fire, which defies common sense and physics, I will be more than happy to entertain this strange kind of chemistry as an addition to my list of magical occurrences.
I will also discuss this oddity of backward chemistry and implausible physics with the next dragon I see.
Did you guys know that dragons exhale fire?
Thanks for looking into “when the word skeptic first appeared” in the public debate about who to listen to and why in regards to bits of information on the effect of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
Governor Brown recently confirmed his viewpoint that skeptics and deniers should not be listened to-
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2018/10/07/ipccreport/
“This IPCC report makes unmistakably clear that the world must radically change. It must decarbonize and establish a totally renewable basis for all economic activity. The big powers – the United States, China, India and the European Union – must show the way. We can do it but only if the deniers, the skeptics and the comfortable wake up to what the scientists are telling us.”
I can sense his frustration in the lack of altruistic actions by the “comfortable”.
Third line, second paragraph “The only question was left academic.” “…. left was academic.” Please proof read, Tim!
Dr Ball? I heap ridicule, derision and scorn on all leftists, regardless of subject. 40 odd years of dealing with their harebrained idiocy shows that is the only response they have earned. As for climate, it changes constantly and always has, humans are not causing it to change and can not stop it from changing. Research on how climate operates is all well and good, using hyped up and non-reproducible “conclusions” to disrupt human energy production, agricultural production, manufacturing and commerce is rankest insanity and I treat it as such.
Coombs,
Water me this.
Water vapor is overwhelmingly the most dominate greenhouse gas.
Your mangling mendacity fails miserably to diminish it’s presence and dominance.
Yours is the most asinine babble ever written about atmospheric water vapor.
“”””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.”””””””
That kind of brain dead, what if junk has zero application to any discussion.
“”””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.””””
That tired theoretical tale omits the hefty reality that the important role of water vapor in Earth’s climate lacks reliable data . And that long-term microwave satellite measurements differ from most climate models.
So your lofty pretence of certainty is ludicrous.
Your biggest whopper is this.
“”””””Water vapor isn’t a persistent GAS in the atmosphere which means it readily precipitates out””””
That right there disqualifies you from any rational discussion.
The idea that because there is precipitation there is somehow less constant or persistent presence is beyond ignorance or stupidity.
It requires a combination of dumb & deceit.
Atmospheric Water Vapor persists a 25,000 ppm
Carbon Dioxide at 400 ppm
But hindering all of climate science is lack of knowledge on the full extent of how water vapor, clouds etc. impact the temperature and climate.
Excerpt from one source:
“There is also a possibility that adding more water vapor to the atmosphere could produce a negative feedback effect. This could happen if more water vapor leads to more cloud formation. Clouds reflect sunlight and reduce the amount of energy that reaches the Earth’s surface to warm it. If the amount of solar warming decreases, then the temperature of the Earth would decrease. In that case, the effect of adding more water vapor would be cooling rather than warming. But cloud cover does mean more condensed water in the atmosphere, making for a stronger greenhouse effect than non-condensed water vapor alone – it is warmer on a cloudy winter day than on a clear one. Thus the possible positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation can cancel one another out and complicate matters. The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research.”
You cannot remove this level of uncertainty and maintain credibility.
If 97+% of botanists believe plants rely on photosynthesis to grow, and the inputs for photosynthesis are sunlight, H2O and CO2. Are you a photosynthesis denier or do you believe that CO2 is necessary for life on earth?
During the satellite era, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased and the amount of plant life on the earth has been estimated to have increased by 11-14% in a refereed paper. In the paper, they estimated that 50% of the increase in plant life was due to the increase in CO2 levels. Do you deny the results of these studies? Do you believe that increasing CO2 levels from 300 ppm to 400 ppm will increase the amount of plant life on the planet?
Commercial greenhouses pump additional CO2 into the air within the greenhouse. Typical levels can be between 1200 – 1500 ppm. They find that such levels of CO2 increase plant growth. Do you deny these results?
If a climate model shows an increase in CO2 levels and shows a decline in the amount of plant life, should that model be thrown out as completely unreasonable? If not, why not?
Lies, the same type ‘Scientist’ that supported tobacco are lying about CO2! You’re an idiot for believing those lies! The RGHE theory is proof that they are lying! The ‘Green House Effect’ is a proven fact by ‘real’ scientist! Google should censor ‘fake’ scientist lies!
All this from a man that spent his life working for the government, his wife, a school teacher since collage 30 years ago walks in lock step with the idea that ‘lies’ should be censored.
Joseph Goebbels would be proud of those at Google that sanctioned their current correct speak censorship. Coming up next, Fahrenheit 451.
The article written above has so many issues and problems from the get-go it is almost impossible to counter them in anything but another article.
Two of the most important:
The author makes many claims above, but utterly fails to support them with evidence–which is obviously required for any claim to be NOT only believable, but essentially, verifiable. (Any claim that appeals to “common sense”–itself a hazy, unscientific term–fueled by the incomplete knowledge demonstrated by many climate science sceptics or (deniers, in the case of those who believe global warming or a GW is fiction, but ignore the preponderance of evidence for it) can be believable, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.)
Second, the author claims “the IPCC accepted the AGW hypothesis from the start. This meant that when evidence appeared that contradicted, they ignored it or created false data. ”
That is an utterly false representation of how science works. Science serious always begin with a reasonable hypotheses. Without one, there is no basis to go forward. But to claim that all evidence and data must be found only to fit the theory, is a total Miss representation of science. Either the author is lying or is too ignorant to understand the process.
Furthermore, to those uneducated in science it might seem like a good argument, but it is unverified and, egregiously, purposely made difficult to verify by failing to list sources. Therefore it’s an empty, unsupported claim.
It’s concerning that the author provides no evidence for the claim. Also that he fails to provide any links to factual sources supporting his claim. Both issues make the claim specious from the get-go.
However, it’s pretty clear that he knows his audience and he will get people unschooled in science and the scientific method to agree with him here.
There is very little if any science or scientific method or analysis going on on this website. The author has Cherry Picked evidence, made claims he has totally failed to support, stated things that are known to be false, and posed questions that are easy to answer IF one is privy to the workings of the ipcc and educated in climate science as a professional with a high level climate science degree. Most people commenting here are not scientists.
Does anyone commenting has a Ph.D in climatology or climate science? If you do, please cite the sources of your research that refutes the entirety of the established, verified and verifiable mainstream global warming science.
That’s what this article is intended to do, but utterly fails because it doesn’t support the claims. What it *does* instead is incite hysterical, illogical and unscientific anger towards legitimate, verifiable scientific processes and towards groups that have not been fully and factually represented, nor have these claims verified.
That’s not scientific, that’s propaganda, which is the misuse of rhetorical techniques to inflame opinions and mislead readers.
Tim Mantyla
And thus you prove the skeptics exact point.
The IPCC never was about “science”, not the “scientific process. That you believe either, and then follow that with your demand that skeptics provide a PhD-approved list of cited articles to refute every claim made by “government-paid, self-selected “scientists” in every journal, newspaper, committee, congressional testimony, TV show, presentation, and magazine article ever used to “confirm” and propagandize CAGW guesses and extrapolations into “law” for government taxes and government economic destruction highlights that very proof.
Hey Kristi,
The “experts” are also not here to defend themselves or their positions.
Doesn’t need to be here. Wherever it is must provide clear answers. Current state of affairs is that offered evidence for AGW is thin.
Those who demand evidence to be convinced need to 1) explain why the evidence provided is not enough
I would add just one: dishonesty. For example on the Skeptical science page I can see list of so called ‘climate myths’. One of them states that changes in the climate in the past is a myth (even if the actual article is more modest). When you see something like that your belief in AGW starts to melt.
and 2) offer a REALISTIC way of providing evidence, one that doesn’t focus on aspects of climate science that are currently being studied and debated and improved.
Easy. Evidence should be presented with the same manner as it is for gravity, thermodynamics or Newtonian mechanics. Giving tangible predictions and begetting plethora of practical applications. As you, people in Academia, sometimes say mocking for example ‘religious superstitions’: seeing is believing. So, show me and I shall believe.
In the meantime, I urge people to disassociate themselves from Climate Research. The residual ‘editorial’ board is looking like a rogues’ gallery of skeptics. Those remaining who are credible scientists should resign.
NO – tongue in cheek!
he really meant “serious”, “decent” scientists should quit so the consensing mob be able to fight all the more rigor,
them and the rest of the gang of deviant skeptics.