Restoring Scientific Debate on Climate

Guest essay by Jim Steele

The political genius of Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to unify the country during America’s most divisive time has been attributed to assembling a “team of rivals”. Likewise, scientific research is published so rivals and supporters of a hypothesis can independently and critically examine it. The great benefits of a team of rivals is also the basis for convening red team/blue team debates.

In 2017, Dr Steve Koonin, a physicist who served as Obama’s Undersecretary for Science in the US Department of Energy, urged convening red-team blue-team debates for climate science in his article A ‘Red Team’ Exercise Would Strengthen Climate Science.  “The national-security community pioneered the “Red Team” methodology to test assumptions and analyses, identify risks, and reduce—or at least understand—uncertainties. The process is now considered a best practice in high-consequence situations”.

Unfortunately, the public climate science debate has been framed as “deniers” versus “alarmists”, or “honest saintly scientists” versus “corrupt perpetrators of a hoax”.  The media pushes exaggerated claims of a crisis while some scientists misleadingly shield their hypotheses claiming the “science is settled”.  But science is a process and never settled. However, all sides do agree carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and concentrations have increased. All sides agree the climate is changing. That science is indeed settled. But complex climate dynamics are not driven solely by CO2 and many unsettled questions remain.  Scientists still debate whether climate has a higher or lower sensitivity to rising CO2. Answering that question depends on the unsettled science regards competing contributions from natural variability and landscape changes. And because rising CO2 and warmth benefits photosynthesizing plants, scientists debate the beneficial contributions of rising CO2.

Climate models could not replicate recent warming when only natural climate change was considered. But models could simulate recent warming since 1970s after adding CO2. That was the only evidence that supported the notion that increasing CO2 caused observed warming. However, there’s a flaw in such reasoning. Models limited to just natural climate dynamics failed to explain recent changes simply because our understanding is still incomplete. For example the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a major driver of natural climate change was only recently characterized in 1997, but has been shown to account for 100 years of changing climate along the coasts of the north eastern Pacific.

Urban Heat Island profile Image from Lawrence Berkeley Labs

Abundant peer-reviewed research shows changes in landscapes dampen or amplify warming. Regional modeling studies determined landscape changes could generate extreme temperatures similar to a doubling of CO2 concentrations.  Urban heat islands and deforestation undeniably amplify temperatures and alter regional climates. Such landscape effects best explain why 38% of US weather stations display cooling trends, and why the best tree ring science suggests natural habitat temperatures haven’t exceeded the warm spike of the 1930s and 40s. The misleading downplaying of such important landscape changes in climate models led to the resignation of climate scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Unable to model the 1940s warming spike, climate scientist Tom Wigley, emailed colleagues suggesting “It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip”. Subsequently the “40s warm blip” was removed from many data sets arousing widespread distrust. Public red team/blue team debates examining such data adjustments could clarify the reasons for those adjustments.

In 2016, climate scientist Michael Mann co-authored a paper titled Science and the Public: Debate, Denial, and Skepticism correctly arguing, “science is debate” and “public debate and skepticism are essential to a functioning democracy.” But schizophrenically, Mann opposed red team/blue team debates as a “disinformation campaign aimed at confusing the public and policymakers”.

Mistrust for Michael Mann and his colleagues in the “high CO2 sensitivity and catastrophic climate change” school of thought increased as they campaigned to denigrate skeptics as “deniers” or “contrarians” who can’t publish in peer-reviewed journals. Simultaneously however, Mann worked to suppress skeptical publications. Two Harvard astrophysicists, Dr Soon and Dr Baliunas, published a peer-reviewed paper synthesizing 240 scientific papers and suggested recent temperatures are similar to the Medieval Warm Period. With his hypotheses threatened by such research,  Mann railed “the peer-review process at Climate Research [the journal] has been hijacked by a few skeptics.” 

Trying to suppress skeptical science publications he emailed colleagues, “I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” They then discussed how to rid any editors tolerant of skeptical arguments to prevent further skeptical publications. 

Undeniably, some climate scientists have been covertly marginalizing honest skeptical scientists. Trust the science, but only when it agrees with their hypotheses. They have argued don’t debate skeptics because “debate actually gives alternative views credibility”. But the scientific process demands thoroughly examining alternative explanations. It is the rigorous vetting by rivals that makes science trustworthy but such biased gatekeeping erodes public trust. Hopefully developing transparent public red team/blue team debates can restore our trust and more accurately guide public policies.


Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism

Published in the Pacifica Tribune September 30, 2020

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ScienceABC123
October 3, 2020 6:24 pm

If you have to “fudge” the data to make it match your understanding, then you’re wrong.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  ScienceABC123
October 3, 2020 9:16 pm

And a fraud.

Greg
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
October 4, 2020 2:18 am

“I think we have to stop considering Climate Research as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.” They then discussed how to rid any editors tolerant of skeptical arguments to prevent further skeptical publications.

What has only recently become known as cancel culture was revealed as being rife in climatology by the ClimateGate emails.

Scissor
October 3, 2020 6:26 pm

“All sides agree the climate is changing. That science is indeed settled.”

Climate changes, always has, but…

Reply to  Scissor
October 3, 2020 7:23 pm

“All sides agree the climate is changing”
Only if all sides agree what ”climate” is. Is a repeating wave a change?

Scissor
Reply to  Mike
October 3, 2020 8:02 pm

Yeah and I’m not convinced that it’s that much warmer today than it was in the 1930’s and certainly warming out of the LIA to that point was natural, as was probably most of the cooling from then until the late 1970’s.

fred250
Reply to  Mike
October 5, 2020 6:01 pm

As I keep asking the AGW trolls ….

“In what ways has the global climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be SCIENTIFICALLY proven to be of human causation?”

Odd that they never even attempt to answer. !

Independent George
Reply to  Scissor
October 3, 2020 10:32 pm

In other words, completely normal and doing exactly what it should be doing.

Chris Wright
Reply to  Scissor
October 4, 2020 3:15 am

I think Jim made a little mistake there. This was the preceding sentence:
“But science is a process and never settled.”
Saying ” That science is indeed settled.” does rather contradict his previous sentence. It would be better – and still make perfect sense – if this sentence were removed.
Chris

Rich Davis
Reply to  Chris Wright
October 4, 2020 11:03 am

I agree. I think that it’s most likely true that higher CO2 (driven by higher temperature and human fossil fuel burning) generates some extra warming at least under most circumstances. I also think that fossil fuel burning at a rate twice as high as the rate of increase in CO2 concentration is the most likely cause of CO2 concentration increasing.

But the science is not settled. I can’t rule out the possibility that negative feedback mostly compensates for any additional warming due to CO2’s radiative effects under some circumstances or even results in net cooling. I also can’t prove that CO2 from fossil fuel burning is not mostly sequestered by the local biosphere while CO2 increase in the bulk atmosphere is driven mostly by ocean temperature. I would be very surprised to see proof of those alternative explanations, but cannot conclude that they are impossible.

We can reasonably say that something is “settled” if the observations over a long period are never at odds with the predictions of our theory. Even then, we just mean that our current theory is going to consistently predict an answer that is not meaningfully different from reality. Newton’s laws of motion are not exactly correct in every circumstance, but we can rely on them for all practical purposes.

Looking at climate observations, how can we possibly talk about “settled science”? Which model explains the Little Ice Age, or the timing and magnitude of the succession of warm periods?

Earthling2
October 3, 2020 6:37 pm

Can you imagine if a cabal of senior geologists/academics in the 1960’s had argued against plate tectonic theory being able to be debated and discussed in peer reviewed journals or not allowed to be debated on campus? Of course it would have been accepted sooner or later, just as the Catholic Church had to finally accept that the good Earth was not the centre of the solar system.

What is the difference between plate tectonics and and the even more complex subject matter of atmospheric physics? The longer this cartel goes on about the science being settled and there is nothing left to discuss, the harder the entire field of climate science will implode some day. And that day may be soon, when observations don’t match models, which never were a substitute for hard data. The real issue is the sensitivity of all human activity, including CO2 emissions, but just not CO2 itself that is causing all of the warming. We can’t even explain natural variation very well yet, so how would we know as compared to what the climate would have been had humans not advanced and populated the planet.

A climate theory consensus that allows no discussion or debate is antithetical to science itself, and should be the first clue for politicians, journalists and other academics to open their eyes and encourage a healthy robust debate. This is the only way we will advance as a knowledgable civilization. And I might add, that a slight warming is a great insurance policy of any major cooling event that comes out of left field. Which it always does, sooner or later.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Earthling2
October 3, 2020 9:17 pm

“What is the difference between plate tectonics and and the even more complex subject matter of atmospheric physics?”

Plate Tectonics as a concept can’t be used to control people.

LdB
Reply to  Earthling2
October 3, 2020 9:31 pm

This is not new for science, Classical physics died in 1919 with GR and the final nail put in it’s coffin in 1925 with the Pauli exclusion principle. Yet 100 years on in many schools even today they still do not explain that what they are teaching is an approximation because it is conceptually simpler.

Reply to  Earthling2
October 3, 2020 9:57 pm

The Marxist solution to reality SEEMINGLY not matching ideology is political re-education of dissidents – or a bullet.

commieBob
October 3, 2020 6:40 pm

It always gives me great glee to point out that Dr. Michael Mann is a self-confessed fraud. The reasoning for this is as follows.

Mann sued Dr. Tim Ball for saying something like:

Mann belongs in state pen, not at Penn State.

Mann then dragged out the proceedings so long that the Judge pitched out the case because of inexcusable delays on Mann’s part. In particular, Mann never appeared in court so that he could be cross-examined.

Mann’s problem is adverse inference.

The adverse inference is based upon the presumption that the party who controls the evidence would have produced it, if it had been supportive.

By not presenting evidence that he did not belong in state pen, Mann basically admitted that Ball was right. We can therefore reasonably infer that Mann does indeed belong in state pen. If there is actual case law to the contrary, I’m dying to hear it.

Observer
Reply to  commieBob
October 4, 2020 10:56 pm

My understanding is that the judge ruled that that particular phrase was just a bit of felicitous wordplay and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

But “Lone Pine” Mann clearly is a crook.

John McDonnell
October 3, 2020 6:43 pm

Excellent article

October 3, 2020 6:59 pm

“do agree carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas”

Wow, how meaningful: CO2 is an IR absorbing gas.

A sponge is a water absorbing solid. Some scientists believe that sponges make a spill wetter due to backmoisture and others are not insane.

How can you have a debate with people who are exceptionally dumb or pathological liars?

Is that mean? Well, too bad; some people are just scum and they need to be called out.

Look at how much money scum has received. And you want to play fair?

A ~250 year old experiment failed to show the bottom layer reach temperatures beyond what the sun provided, and yet scum still believes in a greenhouse effect.

What is wrong with these people? I don’t get it.

Reply to  Zoe Phin
October 3, 2020 7:45 pm

Zoe

Could you please explain why the average temperature of the Earth is about 15 degrees Celsius?

If there is no greenhouse effect and no back-radiation, what are the physical processes that produce the Earth’s current temperature distribution?

fred250
Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 3, 2020 8:11 pm

Retention of energy due to atmospheric mass.

That is the REAL so-called “greenhouse effect”.

Anyone that doesn’t realise that the atmosphere holds energy in relation to its molecular density and incoming/outgoing energy, really needs to brush up on their basis of REALITY.

Reply to  fred250
October 3, 2020 9:12 pm

fred250

Do you believe that the average temperature of the Earth has increased by about 1 degree Celsius over the last 100 years?

If so, is it because the atmosphere is retaining more energy because it is becoming more massive? (your theory would suggest this explanation)

LdB
Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 3, 2020 9:48 pm

I don’t agree with his theory but your description of massive is also wrong … 1K degree on 287K is hardly a massive change. So neither argument flies for me at the moment.

fred250
Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 3, 2020 10:48 pm

Sheldon, do you beleive that the coldest period in 10,000 years was only 150-200 years ago.

Do you believe that was “normal” ?

Do you have any empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?

In what ways has the “global” climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be SCIENTIFICALLY proven to be of human causation?

fred250
Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 3, 2020 10:51 pm

It is retaining more heat because more heat is being put in.

comment image

Do try to keep up with simple principles if you can.

Do you have any empirical scientific evidence for warming by atmospheric CO2?

In what ways has the global climate changed in the last 50 years , that can be SCIENTIFICALLY proven to be of human causation?

Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 4, 2020 6:49 am

Shelton –> Cloud and water vapor dude. Fewer clouds, more energy to the troposphere. Why fewer clouds? How about 70’s cooling?

Tom Abbott
Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 8:36 am

“Do you believe that the average temperature of the Earth has increased by about 1 degree Celsius over the last 100 years?”

Let me butt in here and say, No, I do not think the average temperature of the Earth has increased at all in the last 100 years. It was just as warm in the 1930’s as it is today. Globally. Do I need to get out the charts?

Look at the unmodified portion of the chart included with this article. It shows that it was just as warm in the 1930’s as it is today.

And there are regional temperature charts from around the globe that show the very same temperature profile: It was just as warm in the Early Twentieth Century as it is today.

There has been no increase in the last 100 years, there has actually been a decrease in temperatures going by unmodified charts from all over the world.

CO2 is not overheating the world. Not even close.

fred250
Reply to  Tom Abbott
October 4, 2020 1:41 pm

Yep, pretty much the same as around the 1940’s once UHI effects are not prevalent

comment image

Most of any slight warming is from UHI and “adjustments”

MarkW
Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 3, 2020 8:17 pm

Zoe reminds me a lot of Michael Mann.

Lots of handwaving.
Lots of appeals to science that she clearly does not understand.
Lots of insults towards anyone who disagrees with her.

Lee Scott
Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 3, 2020 9:06 pm

Earth’s surface temperature is primarily determined by two things – the temperature at the top of the atmosphere and the barometric pressure below that. If you accept the idea that incoming and outgoing radiation are in balance at the top of the atmosphere, then the simple adiabatic lapse rate will tell you what the average temperature is at the surface below. The higher the pressure, the hotter the temperature. GHGs will slow the rate of cooling by radiation, but that’s all they do. They don’t make the surface warmer that it would otherwise be.

fred250
Reply to  Lee Scott
October 3, 2020 11:14 pm

“GHGs will slow the rate of cooling by radiation, “

There is no evidence that CO₂ does that..

Only H₂O has the ability to alter the cooling rate.

Lee Scott
Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 8:13 am

Other than H2O’s latent heat absorption as it changes phase from ice to liquid to gas, and then its release as that reverses, how is H2O different from CO2 in its response to absorbed IR? Water vapor is so much more prevalent in the atmosphere than CO2, which is just a trace gas. 3-4% vs .04%. That is the main difference. But your main point is correct. Increasing total GHGs from 4.04% of the air to 4.08% will have an unmeasurable effect.

The dominant method by which heat is removed from the surface is not radiation at any rate. It is conduction and convection. Radiation doesn’t begin to be a significant factor until high up un the atmosphere, above the troposphere.

MarkW
Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 10:30 am

WHen the atmosphere is humid, it cools a lot more slowly than it does when the atmosphere is dry.
That is evidence that green house gases can slow the rate of cooling by radiation.

fred250
Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 12:17 pm

1. Because it hold latent heat… and

2. Itss specific energy is also very different from that of dry air.

Therefore the amount of H2O in the atmosphere changes the lapse rate significantly

Formulas for lapse rate even take this into account.

CO2’s specific energy is very close to dry air, and there is so little of it.

It actually increases the lapse rate by a tiny immeasurable amount.

MarkW
Reply to  fred250
October 5, 2020 1:53 pm

Latent heat doesn’t matter until it cools enough for water vapor to start condensing.
Even without condensing, humid air cools more slowly.
Humid air is also less dense than dry air.

fred250
Reply to  fred250
October 5, 2020 4:07 pm

“Latent heat doesn’t matter until it cools enough”

Its a huge transfer of energy, upwards. !

Reply to  fred250
October 8, 2020 7:52 am

MarkW wrote “WHen the atmosphere is humid, it cools a lot more slowly than it does when the atmosphere is dry.
That is evidence that green house gases can slow the rate of cooling by radiation.”

I used to think that too, but I considered this effect very carefully, and concluded that the effect you are observing has a much simpler explanation related to heat capacity. Water has a much higher heat capacity than dry air does, so it cools (and warms) a lot more slowly for a given energy transfer rate. Does that eliminate the need for radiation effects that no one has been able to observe? (especially radiation from cooler/lower-energy molecules to warmer/higher-energy ones, which does not exist)

Reply to  Lee Scott
October 4, 2020 10:30 am

Lee,
“The higher the pressure, the hotter the temperature.”

It’s the other way around. Remove the temperature, and all that gas becomes solid and falls to the ground. It still exerts pressure, but there is no temperature. (No = Zero)

The lapse rate is called “lapse” for a reason. It goes from hot to cold.

John Shotsky
Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 4, 2020 10:18 am

The reason the earth is at its current temperature is because the sun is continuously heating it. Radiative cooling at night cools only to a certain temperature before the sun returns. We are on a rotisserie. The air temperature CAN’T cool down to the black body temperature because energy from the sun prevents it. Heating from the sun is fast. Cooling at night is slow, via radiation only. During the day, heat rises, warming the upper boundary layer. That heat has to be lost at night – and how does that warmed air reach the surface to be radiated? Via conduction and a small amount of radiation, half of which goes toward space. That’s why the surface becomes colder than the air above it at night. Any weather balloon data, from decades ago show that exact action.

Reply to  Sheldon Walker
October 4, 2020 10:25 am

Sheldon,
I have a whole blog explaining this.

The answer is simple: Earth is not a dead rock wholly dependent on solar energy.

Solar Energy In = Energy Out doesn’t tell you the kinetic energy already present in the target, now does it?

Here’s Venus:
http://phzoe.com/2019/12/25/why-is-venus-so-hot/

fred250
Reply to  Zoe Phin
October 3, 2020 8:08 pm

“Wow, how meaningful: CO2 is an IR absorbing gas.”

Thank you, Zoe !!

CO2 in the atmosphere acts nothing like a “greenhouse”does, except to aid in plant growth.

Its mechanism in enhancing plant growth has NOTHING to do with warming.

Calling CO2 a “greenhouse gas” is an intentional MIS-NAMING which too many people fall for and continue to use.

Greg
Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 2:25 am

CO2 in the atmosphere acts nothing like a “greenhouse”does, except to aid in plant growth.

That’s a great explanation.

Of course CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that’s why green house owners buy it and feed it into their greenhouses !!

fred250
Reply to  Greg
October 5, 2020 4:09 pm

“that’s why green house owners buy it and feed it into their greenhouses !!”

NO, they don’t buy it because of it mythical heating properties

The buy it because it is one of the three main things needed for quality plant growth.

fred250
Reply to  fred250
October 5, 2020 6:06 pm

They use heaters if they want it even warmer tha the greenhouse convection constraint makes it.

And they open vents at the top of the greenhouse if the temperature gets too warm.

(or use fans and side ventilation.)

DrEd
Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 8:08 am

Yes. A greenhouse works because glass is transparent to short wave incoming radiation and opaque to long wave radiation trying to escape. The atmospheric “greenhouse effect” (a misnomer) tries to explain that the mass of the atmosphere radiates energy (as does all matter that is above absolute zero) and that radiation is proportional to the fourth power of the matter’s Kelvin temperature. So the difference in 278K^4 and 279K^4 is about 1.5% for a change in T of 0.36% (Temp in Kelvin)/

Lee Scott
Reply to  DrEd
October 4, 2020 8:27 am

Greenhouses work because they block convection, not because they are blocking radiation. If you could raise the height of the roof to the top of the troposphere, you might be able to compare how a greenhouse blocking IR works vs how the real atmosphere works.

DrEd
Reply to  Lee Scott
October 4, 2020 8:58 am

Greenhouses block convection, true, but they also do block radiation selectively by wavelength. The heat that they “trap” is the heat that would have been lost if the glass were to be transparent in the infrared.
The atmosphere does not “trap” heat as a greenhouse does, and that’s where the analogy fails. CO2 selectively absorbs both incoming and outgoing radiation in the infrared at wavelengths that excite vibrational modes of the CO2 molecule (resonance) and spreads that now kinetic energy to other molecules through collisions. ALL the atmospheric molecules radiate energy in all directions as a function of their temperature (and mass and emissivity, etc.) The NET effect depends on the radiation balance – radiation absorbed and radiation lost by whatever mass. And the NET effect always must be that energy flows from the warmer body to the cooler body. Icebergs radiate. Humans radiate (like a 100W bulb). Oceans radiate.

fred250
Reply to  DrEd
October 4, 2020 12:22 pm

Plastics also work as a “greenhouse” but let most LWR through.

“Glass is opaque to long-wave radiation losses, but polyethylene will allow up to 74 percent of radiation to go right through it unless a barrier is present.”

Sorry, but a greenhouse works by blocking convection.

DrEd
Reply to  fred250
October 5, 2020 5:18 pm

Both effects are at work. Blocked convection and the prevention of (at least some) of the outgoing LWR.

commieBob
Reply to  Zoe Phin
October 4, 2020 4:18 pm

A sponge is a water absorbing solid. Some scientists believe that sponges make a spill wetter due to backmoisture and others are not insane.

Speaking from bitter experience, if something spills on the laminate floor, and you toss a sponge on it and promise to finish cleaning it up when you get back home, it doesn’t end well. The floor boards warped exactly where the sponge was. Back moisture is your floor’s worst enemy.

Reply to  commieBob
October 4, 2020 6:38 pm

The sponge didn’t make it wetter. There is no more water because of the sponge.

October 3, 2020 7:15 pm

Ha ha ha ha . That bloke in the white dust coat in the picture really looks like he knows what’s what!

fred250
Reply to  Mike
October 3, 2020 8:14 pm

Any moron can wear a lab coat to a conference….. and look like a total twat !

Can even point at a propaganda sign if they are not too drunk.

niceguy
Reply to  fred250
October 3, 2020 9:25 pm

I don’t remember the pathetic “pro science” French blogosphère/twittosphère (like Hervé Seitz, CNRS) REACTing (ah ah) to these white coat clowns, or to Obama’s consensus claim based on (fake) “polls”. But when Dr Raoult (which I despise BTW) wants to use polls to justify:

– the fact that he has better reach of French population than journalists
– that French people mostly agree with him on “La Méthode”
– that a lot of medical doctors follow his recommandations

he is scorned!

fred250
Reply to  Mike
October 3, 2020 8:19 pm

comment image

And why don’t they have the current temperature marked, as lower than during the previous CO2 peak, showing absolutely that CO2 is NOT the driver of temperature.

All they are really showing is that PLANT LIFE on this carbon based planet of ours has had a reprieve from starvation rations.

Reply to  Mike
October 3, 2020 8:21 pm

Mike October 3, 2020 at 7:15 pm

Here’s one of his better quotes:

<I?The odds are that what we can expect as a result of global warming is to see more
of this pattern of extreme cold. – – – Dr. John Holdren, The White House – 1/8/2014

niceguy
October 3, 2020 8:10 pm

The “settled consensus” of “climate science” is as consensual and settled as the 9-11 truthers have internal consensus! [Those agree the gov lied and essentially did it, but they can’t convince each others of anything more SPECIFIC (not even no-plane-pentagon).]

Humans are causing climate change is as non specific as “gov did it”.

The signs of climate change are … changing. No snow ever, less snow, more snow… more rain, no rain, less rain… Etc.

October 3, 2020 8:12 pm

Having a Climate Theory consensus which will allow no discussion or debate is the opposite of what science is supposed to represent. However Politicians, Journalists and many Academics see absolutely no problem with this, as this is exactly the system that they themselves prefer and are used to.

October 3, 2020 8:17 pm

Here’s a list that is probably incomplete for the Red & Blue teams to commiserate about:

Thermal expansion causes world-wide sea level rise
Climate change will diminish our food supply
More CO2 causes food to be less nutritious
When glaciers disappear the rivers run dry
Water down moulins lubricates glacier flow
Deep warm water melts glaciers from below
A warming world is a looming catastrophe
Antarctica and Greenland are melting
Forest fire frequency is increasing
Multi-meter sea level rise by 2100
Predicting more extreme tornadoes
Methane is more powerful than CO2
2nd hand smoke causes cancer
Polar bear extinction

Bryan A
Reply to  Steve Case
October 4, 2020 8:04 am

Here’s a list that is probably incomplete for the Red & Blue teams to commiserate about:

Thermal expansion causes world-wide sea level rise
at measurements of MM/Century
Climate change will diminish our food supply
except that CO2 fertilization is dramatically increasing production levels
More CO2 causes food to be less nutritious
at such a small percentage to be measurably but practically meaningless
When glaciers disappear the rivers run dry
Glaciers have been disappearing since the existence of the Great Laurentide Ice Sheet
Water down moulins lubricates glacier flow
certainly does
Deep warm water melts glaciers from below
natural geologic processes can also create the “Deep Warm Water”
A warming world is a looming catastrophe
<especially in the virtual world of models which constantly overestimate warming and thereby it's effects and in the heads of Climate Catastrophists
Antarctica and Greenland are melting
at rates that will take tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years to vanish. Well into the next Milankovitch cold cycle
Forest fire frequency is increasing
Multi-meter sea level rise by 2100
at rates of 2-3mm per year, 20-30 mms (1-1.3″) per decade at best it will rise 8-10″ in the next 80 yrs
Predicting more extreme tornadoes
and yet there is no increase to date not in total quantity or EF 4-5 count(another failed prediction since 1988)
Methane is more powerful than CO2
and has a significantly shorter residence time in atmosphere before it’s oxidized into CO2 and H2O
2nd hand smoke causes cancer
ABSOLUTELY … so what does that have to do with the Price of Onions in Bangkok?
Polar bear extinction
NOT HAPPENING…Polar Bear numbers have been increasing census on census since the 1960s and more healthy bears counted

WELL 3/13 isn’t a very good start to your argument

fred250
Reply to  Bryan A
October 4, 2020 12:29 pm

CO2 has been the “restricting” growth factor for a long time.

Of course in a cropping situation when you remove the main restriction to growth, you have to make sure that other essential minerals are kept available.

That is what fertilizers are for. REAL farmers know that.

Reply to  Bryan A
October 4, 2020 5:21 pm

Bryan A October 4, 2020 at 8:04 am
Water down moulins lubricates glacier flow
certainly does

Ice skates work because the pressure of the blade on the ice provided by the mass of the skater’s body produces a film of liquid water allowing the skater to slide across the ice. Pressure from hundreds of feet of ice will also produce a film of water allowing the glacier to slide along its way. More water from moulins if it ever get that deep won’t make it slide any faster. Thanks for the reply.

Reply to  Bryan A
October 4, 2020 5:27 pm

Bryan A October 4, 2020 at 8:04 am
2nd hand smoke causes cancer
ABSOLUTELY … so what does that have to do with the Price of Onions in Bangkok?

The list from my files was more comprehensive than just regarding climate Change, I thought I culled out all but climate related. I missed one, sorry ’bout that.

Reply to  Steve Case
October 4, 2020 10:09 am

More CO2 causes food to be less nutritious

This is a gross oversimplification to the point of outright falsehood. Primarily, CO2 enhances plant growth reducing water consumption and thus allowing greening of former desert. How much protein and other nutrients are there in dry sand? How could CO2 reduce their value by making plants grow where there were none before? In various plants enhanced CO2 changes many nutrients in minor ways, some increased, some decreased. As always, a palaeo-climate perspective exposes as utter nonsense the argument that elevated CO2 decreases nutrient quality. How did brontosauruses survive on plants with atmospheric levels of CO2 of 1000-2000? As so often, the merest glance at the deep time perspective causes alarmist doom arguments about CO2 to evaporate as vacuous and meaningless – way beyond merely “false”.

Almuhayawi, M.S., AbdElgawad, H., Al Jaouni, S.K., Selim, S., Hassan, A.H.A. and Khamis, G. 2020. Elevated CO2 improves glucosinolate metabolism and stimulates anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties of broccoli sprouts. Food Chemistry 328: 127102.

http://www.co2science.org/articles/V23/sep/a9.php

JSMill
Reply to  Phil Salmon
October 4, 2020 6:38 pm

I wondered about that manufactured “statistic” myself. First thing I thought:

Did the larger plant mass with increased CO2 have LESS (absolute) vitamin content, OR did it have a lower PERCENTAGE, but still more in absolute terms.

If I put a piece of steak on my fork, it has a certain mass of protein in it, which could be expressed as a percentage of the total mass. Now, add a chunk of potato … protein content would rise a smidge, but the percentage of total mass of that bite would be less. Gadzooks. Stop the presses.

Does anybody have a short answer to this question? Or a link to the paper? Curious

Geoff Sherrington
October 3, 2020 8:21 pm

The bigger part of English-speaking society is in the middle of a revolting revolt against quality and excellence in many aspects of normal life.
My most recent example of this degradation, this race to the worst, can be seen at Quadrant online where author Mark Powell wrote “Endorsing the Slut-industrial Complex” informing us of hard pornography being sung by a group of 10 year olds, as if this indicated progress in society.
Similar degradation is well under way in the sciences, led by climate research people of limited intellect but high disregard for science excellence. Geoff S

LdB
Reply to  Geoff Sherrington
October 3, 2020 9:41 pm

You left out there is some leftwing PC topics that may not be discussed take the case of Alessandro Strumia. Who knew that being a sexist trash talker excluded you from being a good scientist? We can extended to Peter Ridd who had the audacity to criticize another college.

What we have found in all this is these left wing prats are thin skinned pseudoscience types who do not like any descent from the PC agreed message …. for most of us we call that a religion.

Abolition Man
October 3, 2020 8:38 pm

Jim,
Thanks for trying to bring some wisdom and sanity to the debate! Unfortunately, the high priests of the Church of Climastrology, Michael Mann and Man Bear Pig, do not entertain questions regarding the truth of their holy dogma! Like St. Greta the All Seeing, they consider any doubts to be heresy of the highest order!
If we can ever get a red team/blue team debate I have little doubt that the skeptical side will win; I just think the alarmists will never admit to there being another point of view. But we’ll keep trying and hopefully Mother Nature will provide us with the evidence to blow their models out of the water!
I hope everything is well in Pacifica and that the fires south are fading memory! If your down that way give my best to Moss Beach and Half Moon Bay; lots of happy memories of that area!

DavidF
Reply to  Abolition Man
October 3, 2020 10:23 pm

You may be amused. Last week, there was a huge snow storm, covered most of the South Island of New Zealand.
This week, forest fire at Lake Ohau, more or less middle of said island, burnt down the village.
Kind of blows up the heat causes fire argument. Available fuel, on the other hand, can burn at any time.

Still 2 months to summer. There will be fires, but not, I dare say, where they were last summer.

Same as it ever was!

Reply to  Abolition Man
October 4, 2020 3:28 pm

“Climastrology” – Love it!

niceguy
October 3, 2020 9:00 pm

I read the French twittosphère A LOT.

[I mean like thousands of tweets. That’s the virtue of TT, you can read tons of sh*t in a short time, unlike most other social websites and blogs where you waste a lot of time reading tiny amounts of sh*t. (The Web is mostly sh*t, but that’s instructive. The TV series “Scrubs” had a song about sh*t and how you can learn essentially anything from it.)]

In the French TT, a lot of criticism of Dr Didier Raoult (a man that I strongly dislike BTW, he embodies what’s wrong in academia and science publishing) gets criticized A LOT for his white coat in interviews and videos done in his IHU (Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire). Apparently Raoult’s white coat hit a nerve, notably among French scientists.

Well, duh. I guess when you have a white coat you must wear in some rooms, you get used to it and wear it whenever you are in the IHU. (It could be used to impress morons though.)

But we have never seen him in a white coat elsewhere.

Unlike these (so called) “scientists”:

comment image

(hoping images work)

October 3, 2020 9:38 pm

It is quite clear that weather is controlled by the energy in the oceans.

If the surface temperature of oceans falls below 271K then sea ice forms. So the lower bound for ocean surface temperature is quite specific. Once sea ice forms, the ocean surface insulates the water so cooling slows dramatically.

The upper bound on ocean surface temperature is not as specific as the lower bound but it becomes a very steep mountain. The convective available potential energy (CAPE), the fuel for storms, increases to the 4th power of temperature above 277K. Convective instability that enables storms to form occurs above surface temperature of 290K. When ocean surface temperature reaches 302K, the CAPE can be as high as 3000J/kg. The updraft vertical velocity under that potential is 77m/s. That is sufficient to power sever storms that can become cyclone/hurricane as the storm moves from tropics to higher latitudes. The CAPE above ocean surface of 306K is as high as 5300J/kg; consistent with updraft over 100m/s; a very severe storm.

Storms clouds and, particularly those in cyclones/hurricanes, reflect a huge amount of solar energy. They have a strong cooling influence on ocean surface causing temperature to drop by up to 1C in the wake of a cyclone/hurricane. This clip shows the development and track of hurricane Florence starting from Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcYeZMNAbNs
It provides a good indication of the cloud and its reflectivity over the long period from development to eventual rain depression in the mid latitudes over the USA.

Any weather observer knows that storms have a cooling influence. In the tropics, the wet season can have lower temperatures over land than the dry season. In fact, the first monsoons are of the season are welcomed because they take the searing heat away. The intensity of storms over water increase dramatically when surface temperature exceeds 302K. It is not quite like the hard limit of sea ice but it is not far from it. At that temperature, storms will form daily and can become cyclones if there is sufficient ocean surface area above 302K.

If you think that the physics of clouds and tropical storms, as detailed above, is basic atmospheric physics that coupled climate models embody then you would be mistaken. None of the physics involved in the formation of storms and the associated clouds is used in climate models. Clouds are just parameterised inputs. The models do not have the required resolution to develop the instability that results in tropical storms or the development of the convective PE that fuels them.

The formation of sea ice at the cool end of oceans and the formation of tropical storm at the hot end provide the temperature limits for oceans between 271 to 302K. The numeric average is 287K. The global area average for SST is a function of the distribution of water and interconnectedness to distribute heat throughout the oceans but is not much different to the numeric average of the extremes.

Climate models are a joke. Using them as the basis for predicting future climate is pompous foolery.

DrEd
Reply to  RickWill
October 4, 2020 11:49 am

Amen. Thank you. Great post.

October 3, 2020 9:40 pm

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/09/24/the-medical-thought-police-theyre-coming-for-you/#comment-3093605
[excerpts}

CLIMATE POLITICS EXPLAINED – THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT AND THE MACRAE-KENT COROLLARY

BACKGROUND – THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT

First, watch “the Best of Jaywalking” to understand the intellect of the general populace. 🙂

THE DUNNING–KRUGER EFFECT – DEFINED

In Layman’s Terms:

“Stupid people are too stupid to know that they are stupid.”

THE MACRAE-KENT COROLLARY TO THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT

“Intelligent people have no idea how stupid really stupid people actually are.”
___________________________________

Climate skeptics think we can explain the highly-credible scientific disproofs of the failed catastrophic human-made global warming hypothesis to global warming alarmists, but we might as well be talking to a brick wall. Upon careful observation, one realizes that these warmists have an endless-loop script running in their heads, and there is nothing of substance behind their eyes. My friend, the very talented Dr. Kent is always flummoxed by the incredible stupidity he sees around him, and I frequently have to explain to him that the average human is only of average intelligence, and half of them are stupider than that! (h/t George Carlin).

Good people of the climate skeptic camp, you cannot persuade the average warmist that he is just plain wrong – you are relying upon science and logic, and the warmist does not speak your language.

Roger Knights
Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
October 4, 2020 7:32 am

I like the way those airhead LA gals are able to laugh at themselves.

Reply to  ALLAN MACRAE
October 5, 2020 6:07 pm

The video is hilarious.
Here in Michigan my wife tells friends their properties were under an ice glacier 20,000 years ago … then I smack them upside the head with a rolled up Sunday New York Times before they can reply: “97 percent of scientists say … “

October 3, 2020 9:52 pm

Jim, climate models reproduce air temperature since 1970 because they’re tuned to do so. The simulation of the 20th century temperature trend is little more than curve-fitting.

Climate models have no predictive value None. Whatever.

CO2 photo-physics transfers kinetic energy into the atmosphere. Whether this process results in any detectable increase in sensible heat (warming) is utterly unknown. However, the trailing of CO2 behind air temperature through the last seven ice ages says the impact is likely to be close to zero.

Likely CO2 has an effect indistinguishable from zero, because the hydrological cycle includes enormous energy and is hugely adaptable. It can speed up or slow down, modifying energy transmission to space as energy input changes. The total energy in the climate system then remains nearly constant. This is especially true for the tiny perturbation (about 0.04 W/m^2/year) that is CO2 emissions.

It’s not that the science is not settled. It’s that the science of climate change is absent.

The physical theory of the climate is not adequate to calculate the effect of CO2 on air temperature, if any at all. All of the AGW consensus rests on pseudo-science. All of it.

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 4, 2020 8:26 am

Dr. Frank, you are as usual correct. I would back up what you say with the following. If CO2 had the warming capability warmists insist on, then that capability would be noted in specific heat tables, the Shomate equation, and the NIST data sheet for CO2.

If I have 1 kg of CO2 then it will take X amount of energy to raise the temperature 1 C.

If I have 2 kg of CO2 then I will get half the temperature rise using the same input (Q) not a higher temperature even having doubled the amount of CO2.

Thermodynamics is very clear in that the energy input can be in any “form”. IR does not cause CO2 to cause warming.

Q = Cp * m * dT.

Reply to  mkelly
October 4, 2020 12:40 pm

mkelly,

Specific heat tables are based on the intrinsic property of the substance in question and the concept of sensible heat for a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecular energies/velocities at the temperature(s) under consideration.

The change in the “temperature” (i.e., internal energy and entropy) of a given molecule at a given energy state, either increasing or decreasing, can happen via LWIR photon absorption/emission (BB-type absorption/emission as modified by specific spectral lines characteristic of the substance, resulting in step-changes in effective molecular “temperature”) as well as by molecule-molecule collision-induced energy transfer across a range of ALL available relative-energy differences present in the specific gas being considered, and ALL other gases present if that substance is in a mixture of gases (resulting in smooth, statistically-dependent continuum-changes in effective molecular “temperature”).

IR absorption in an ensemble of CO2 molecules (a “gas”), with thermalization, can indeed result in increasing the CO2 gas temperature (more properly its statistical average internal energy and entropy), and thus enable that same CO2 gas quantity to radiate more energy under either mode given above. Anything intercepting that increased radiation from that quantity of CO2 (and its intermixed gases, if present) would scientifically and correctly be said to be “warmed” by such.

Thermodynamics 102.

BTW, the equation Q = Cp * m * dT applies only to an ideal gas (one having constant Cp), but CO2 is far from being an ideal gas. For example, CO2’s Cp varies by about 10% over the relatively small range of 250 K (-9.4 F) to 325 K (126 F).

John Shotsky
Reply to  Pat Frank
October 4, 2020 10:15 am

People forget a few things about CO2. First, it is said to be well-mixed, but ALL of it is emitted at the surface (except for aircraft), and ALL of it is absorbed at the surface. The atmosphere is also densest at the surface, although that doesn’t mean it isn’t well mixed. It isn’t well mixed because both the source and the sink are earth’s surface.
Another thing that people don’t get is that 95% of the annual emissions of CO2 are completely natural. Man contributes only about 5%. 5% of 400 ppm is 20 ppm. Warmists would insist that the 20 PPM is responsible for ALL OF THE GLOBAL WARMING, because that is the human contributed amount. If humans immediately stopped emitting ANY Co2, nothing would happen. The climate would not change BECAUSE of the CO2 reduction.

Reply to  John Shotsky
October 4, 2020 4:54 pm

John, a few things:

1) CO2 is in fact well-mixed in the troposphere due to (a) LOCALIZED vertical atmospheric convection associated warm air buoyancy compared to cold air, cloud formation, weather front movements and development of thunderstorms and cyclones, and (b) GLOBAL-SCALE atmospheric circulation patterns known as the N&S Hadley cells, N&S mid-latitude cells, and N&S polar cells. With the exception of water vapor, the mixture ratios of the primary constituents of the troposphere (N2, O2, Ar, and CO2)—when summed together with water vapor comprising 99.96% of the troposphere on a volumetric basis—are constant to an average altitude of about 80 km above sea level (ref: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/loic/chemistry.html ). Since the average thickness of the troposphere varies from a low of about 6 km at the poles to a high of about 18 km in the tropics/equator, there is no question that the gases across Earth’s troposphere are well-mixed, albeit the total density of the mixture varying with altitude as a result of pressure and temperature influences.

2) You stated, regarding CO2: “. . . and ALL of it is absorbed at the surface.” This is not correct. When clouds produce precipitation, the condensation droplets start as essentially pure liquid H2O (pH = 7.0), but during their size growth (coalescence) and subsequent descent to Earth’s surface as rain drops they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere resulting in natural, unpolluted rainfall at Earth’s surface actually being a weak carbonic acid, having a typical pH of about 5.6 (ref: http://www.chemistry.wustl.edu/~edudev/LabTutorials/Water/FreshWater/acidrain.html#:~:text=Carbon%20dioxide%2C%20produced%20in%20the,of%20acidity%20in%20unpolluted%20rainwater.&text=Carbon%20dioxide%20reacts%20with%20water,%2D)%20(Equation%202). ) That “acid rain” can chemically react with things, like rocks, well before it can be viewed as being “absorbed by the surface”.

Yes, I agree that people do often forget a few things about CO2 . . . or perhaps they never knew them in the first place . . .

Reply to  Pat Frank
October 4, 2020 12:25 pm

Pat
The total energy in the climate system then remains nearly constant.

Is this fact/observation connected with the principle of least action? And possibly Noether’s law which derives from that principle? I believe that CAGW is in violation of both those laws.

https://ptolemy2.wordpress.com/2020/02/09/the-principle-of-least-action-calls-into-question-atmosphere-warming-by-co2/

BTW I would like to read your paper, is there a non-pay walled link?

October 3, 2020 10:03 pm

Irregardless of what the science of climate change says, the Real problem is that without a massive nuclear power generation build-out, there is no viable emissions-free path to de-carbonized electricity generation in the world’s economies, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd World. The only path that decarbonized, renewable electrical generation delivers is extreme energy poverty across all 3.

Wind and solar are woefully inadequate and always will be due to low density nature of the energy source. Further, as we all know here at WUWT, the manufacture of wind turbines and solar PV equipment make things much worse for mining, extraction, environmental impacts, and shifting those extraction related emissions to the 3rd World, where they are universally worse conditions for everything involved.

And there simply is no solution to avoiding using large amounts of oil and natural gas to sustain world agricultural grains and other food outputs. That includes the farming machine energy, energy for drying grain harvests, for moving them to processing facilities, to move them to food production facilities, abnd so on to human mouth. And then there are the absolutely required fertilizers and pesticides that comes from mostly natural gas-driven petrochemical industry. There simply is no substitute for oil and natural gas in all this food production. Period. None.

So really, whatever the science says or doesn’t say about climate is totally irrelevant until the Greens accept the need to massive nuclear power build-outs across th world. Having the debate is meaningless unless any actions needed on emissions are realistic to the fact of 7 billion humans.
And when the Greens say we need to de-populate the world, then we know them for what they really are… genocidal maniacs that want to see they world burn in a cataclysm to make the wars of the 20th Century look like child’s play.

October 3, 2020 10:05 pm

Irregardless of what the science of climate change says, the Real problem is that without a massive nuclear power generation build-out, there is no viable emissions-free path to de-carbonized electricity generation in the world’s economies, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd World. The only path that decarbonized, renewable electrical generation delivers is extreme energy poverty across all 3.

Wind and solar are woefully inadequate and always will be due to low density nature of the energy source. Further, as we all know here at WUWT, the manufacture of wind turbines and solar PV equipment make things much worse for mining, extraction, environmental impacts, and shifting those extraction related emissions to the 3rd World, where they are universally worse conditions for everything involved.

And there simply is no solution to avoiding using large amounts of oil and natural gas to sustain world agricultural grains and other food outputs. That includes the farming machine energy, energy for drying grain harvests, for moving them to processing facilities, to move them to food production facilities, and so on to human mouth. And then there are the absolutely required fertilizers and pesticides that comes from mostly natural gas-driven petrochemical industry. There simply is no substitute for oil and natural gas in all this food production. Period. None.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 3, 2020 10:05 pm

So really, whatever the science says or doesn’t say about climate is totally irrelevant until the Greens accept the need to massive nuclear power build-outs across th world. Having the debate is meaningless unless any actions needed on emissions are realistic to the fact of 7 billion humans.
And when the Greens say we need to de-populate the world, then we know them for what they really are… genocidal maniacs that want to see they world burn in a cataclysm to make the wars of the 20th Century look like child’s play.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 3, 2020 10:07 pm

So really, whatever the science says or doesn’t say about climate is totally irrelevant until the Greens accept the need for a massive nuclear power build-outs across the world.
Having the debate is meaningless unless any actions needed on emissions are realistic to the face of 7 billion humans.
And when the Greens say we need to de-populate the world, then we know them for what they really are…

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 4, 2020 1:45 am

+10 Bang on.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 4, 2020 8:17 am

Getting close, there. Malthusian “concerns” override any attempt at creative reason, in other words the deep belief mankind is an animal herd, to be culled. These Malthusians do not even call themselves “greens”.
This top-down overweening eco-imperialism is not hidden – it’s just the average six-pack Jack does not believe he is on a hit-list.
The same with 100% surveillance – Jack will say I’ve got nothing to hide, I’ve done nothing wrong. As Bill Binney pointed out – Jack does not get to decide if he did nothing wrong, they do.
It’s when Jack gets the idea he is being herded, expect trouble.
Shelley got it right :
At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature.

ColMosby
October 3, 2020 10:07 pm

Abraham Lincoln’s actions were the reason the Southern states seceded – they had every right to do so, a point Lincoln made n his 1848 speech before Congress, recommending that Illinois secede from the Union because of the Mexican War. Lincoln was willing to let the Confederacy go its own way, as long as the Confederate states continued paying the exorbitant taxes levied on them by the Northern majority. He also promised to push thru a Constitutional amendment which would declare slavery legal for eternity. So much for Lincoln, the most dishonest President.

Reply to  ColMosby
October 3, 2020 10:12 pm

Abraham Lincoln’s election, not any actions, were the final straw to drive the Southern state to secede before he was even inaugurated. The South knew that Lincoln and northern Republican-led states would not allow new states to join the Union with slavery.

And you seem to think that Men cannot ever change from the rashness of youth (1848) and become wiser in 12 years (1860). Keeping the Union together at all cost was Licoln’s goal in 1861, not 1848.

Go read some real history books on the US Mr ColMosby.

Herbert
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 4, 2020 2:04 am

Joel,
As a Civil War tragic with a substantial library of books on both the Civil War and Lincoln, may I support your comments on the maturing of Lincoln from 1848 to 1860.
By 1860, Lincoln had as his central aim maintaining the Union, whatever he had said as a junior Whig Congressman in 1848.
In 1860, Lincoln was not prepared to let the Confederacy go its own way if it paid the Union Treasury for the privilege.
I say this notwithstanding the fact that some of my Irish forbears who migrated to the US rather than to Australia fought for the South.
One was the secretary of the Confederate Veterans association in his district in the 1890s.
My great aunts bequeathed to me his obituary.
Fascinating history. They fought and died for a cause even if, as Grant said,“ that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought…”

Tom Abbott
Reply to  Herbert
October 4, 2020 9:05 am

“They fought and died for a cause even if, as Grant said,“ that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought”

Many people in the South were fighting to defend their homes, not slavery.

What would you do if an Army is bearing down on your neck of the woods? Are you going to run away and give all you own up, or are you going to fight to defend your home?

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 4, 2020 9:39 am

Joel,

I very much enjoy and agree with your comments on most, if not all, occasions, but respectfully disagree with you on Lincoln. We all know slavery was / is morally abhorrent, but that’s that’s not what Lincoln was about; he was strictly a politician obsessed with funding the centralization of US political power at the Federal level. I was born and raised in upstate NY, so was steeped in the entire litany about how Lincoln “freed the slaves” and “saved the Union”. Now that I’m older, and have read historical accounts by non-cultists such as Tom DiLorenzo, I am convinced that it was all a bs narrative concocted by the media of the day to salvage the Federal government’s reputation and authority post-Lincoln. I infer from many of your posts that you disdain the heavy hand of government on the scales of economics and science. While I know you didn’t initially invoke Lincoln in this thread, we should all keep in mind that if we don’t consistently condemn Lincoln’s role in the coercive expansion of federal power, we really don’t have much standing to oppose the furtherance of such coercion at the hands of today’s left.

Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 4, 2020 1:00 pm

Lincoln, against extending slavery to the western territories, was assumed to be against slavery in the southern states too.

Note that Lincoln”s Emancipation Proclamation excluded the slaves in the border states that fought with the Union, and was ignored by the Confederate States. So the only slaves it freed were the few who escaped from the ‘Confederate States to the Union States.

Slavery ended in almost all nations in the world in the 1800s. Only ONE nation seemed to require a civil war to end slavery. And that was the U.S.

I see the need for a civil war to be a huge failure. Since Lincoln was president during the Civil War, and so many Americans killed each other, I consider Abe Lincoln to be the worst president in American history, by far.

I repeat, for emphasis, that OTHER nations got rid of heir slavery WITHOUT a horrible civil war, except for Lincoln’s U.S.

Reply to  ColMosby
October 3, 2020 10:38 pm

further ColMosby,
You seem to be “making shit up” as the saying goes on US taxes in the 19th Century.
The US Constitution, Article 1, Section 9., states (same as it stated then)
“No tax or duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.”

Section 10. has this:
“No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.”

So those taxes you seem to think happened, in fact did not. What you’ve apparently read are myths propagated on various internets blogs and sites. Things like “the South paid 80% of the US governments taxes” is utterly and demonstrably wrong. In 1860, most ( > 90%) of the US government’s revenue came from taxes levied on imports on goods through New York harbor, Boston Harbor, Charleston.

If you want to ding Abe Lincoln, the most damning thing he did was the Emancipation proclamation that freed slaves only in the states that were under rebellion.

Abolition Man
Reply to  Joel O'Bryan
October 4, 2020 9:03 am

Joel,
ColMosby sounds like he’s an adherent of the Zinn Communist history of America! I’m surprised ol’ Howie didn’t claim that we had gulags, since Communists/Progressives always accuse their opponents of the actions they themselves are doing! See Hillary Clinton and the Russia Collusion Hoax for reference!
I was wondering if you’ve read the excellent biography of John and Jessie Fremont; “Passion and Principle,” by Sally Denton?
How one goes from presidential candidate and military commander who issued the first emancipation proclamation during the Civil War, to destitute and living off the wife’s wits is a story well worth telling! Throw in what was one of the biggest and richest gold mines in US history and it makes for a story that any Hollywood producer would throw as being too improbable for the audience to accept!
Thanks for the wide range of knowledge you bring to debate! Go nuclear now! CO2 to 1,000ppm!

Steven Mosher
October 3, 2020 10:28 pm

“Such landscape effects best explain why 38% of US weather stations display cooling trends, ”
NO.

1. That is not US stations.
2. We go to pains to explain that this is a SIMPLIFIED analysis that does not take into
account the spatial distribution of stations. It is merely an INDICATOR that
a) there is an phenomena to investigate
b) the variability due to station length

The final analysis showed NO EFFECT

Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 3, 2020 11:29 pm

The data. from weather stations with over 70 years of service found 38% had cooling trends.

Why do you deny your groups own data?

Reply to  Jim Steele
October 4, 2020 7:31 am

Anomalies are the culprit. Using an anomaly hides the ongoing base temperature differences between stations. It is a consequence of concentrating on CO2 and rising temps as an effect of CO2.

fred250
Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 4, 2020 12:00 am

“The final analysis showed NO EFFECT”

And it is total BS. !!

Pretending that UHI has no effect on temperatures is just DENIAL at its worst.

Just shows your mob were clueless as to what was rural and urban.

Bad methodology, almost certainly.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 4, 2020 5:49 am

I have had a weather station collecting five minute data, 24/7/365, since 2002. I can assure you that here in eastern KS there has been a cooling trend in maximum temperatures. This summer we had ZERO days over 100degF and only a couple that hit 95degF. That is a *big* historical drop in maximum temperatures.

And, yes, this is a phenomena to investigate. Yet I see no climate scientists doing so. They all trumpet that an increasing average global temperature means maximum temperatures are going up and we are all going to cook in our own juices.

I would also note that short term trends many times become long term trends. Ignoring short term trends is not a survival strategy.

Newminster
Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 4, 2020 1:34 pm

“there is an phenomena …”?? What was your degree in, again?

Steven Mosher
October 3, 2020 10:34 pm

” Public red team/blue team debates examining such data adjustments could clarify the reasons for those adjustments.”

below this you show a fraudulent chart from heller

1. It shows USCHN. NOBODY USES USHCN
2. It shows adjustments to USHCN USING METHODS NOBODY USES IN GLOBAL DATASETS
3. Heller averages temperature data This mistake has been detailed many times.
A) you cannot average temperatures from stations that have missing time data and SHIFTING
distributions in latitude and longitude over time.
B) you cannot simply average temperatures without AREA WEIGHTING AND AVERAGING.

Next

there have been TWO red team events looking at adjustments.

1. Berkeley earth, including Judith Curry
2. GWPF– the skeptic organization in the UK

GWPF did a call for submissions and provided a list of questions and data requests, promising a red team review by skeptics. Submissions were made……..

CRICKETS

its been about 5 years

YOU HAVE NO RED TEAM.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 3, 2020 11:39 pm

Mosher, well you need to prove your slander of Heller.

I have found his work to be far more trustworthy and I have experienced your dishonest attempts to smear me as well.

My own examination of the USHCN data has shown similar adjustments in data from numerous stations such as http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/75157969_scaled_419x316.png

Reply to  Jim Steele
October 4, 2020 4:27 am

Jim Steele October 3, 2020 at 11:39 pm
You don’t have to look any further than NASA’s Land Ocean Temperature Index
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Every month several hundred changes, all the way back to the 19th century, are made. So far in 2020 here are the number of monthly changes:
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
319 240 313 340 298 404 319 370
Those changes overwhelmingly follow a pattern where temperatures from early years are reduced, and those from more recent years are increased. Here’s what the changes since 2010 look like when plotted out:
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Rich Davis
Reply to  Jim Steele
October 4, 2020 12:27 pm

Libel, not slander. Libel is written, slander is speech.

fred250
Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 3, 2020 11:55 pm

Berkley Earth is a con job, a Blue team, infected with the AGW virus….. you know that.. you are part of it.

USHCN is well-maladjusted.. of course it shouldn’t be used.

Only the original data.. shown in BLUE should be used

Funny that the “ADJUSTMENTS” have a near perfect correlation with CO2 rise, isn’t it…. 😉

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Heller showed that shifting stations have made the calculation warmer. (loss of northern stations)

So the “adjustment ” should be downwards , not up wards

UHI adjustment should be downwards as well, not just ignore by pretending it doesn’t exist (ala BEST)

UHI effects should NOT be smeared all over the place like BEST, and other climate scammer do to match “regional expectations”.

Not even you can seriously justify the massive tampering of data through the AGW scam..

You don’t have the credibility. Your attempts will be LAUGHED at.

Enjoy your next reincarnation

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Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 7:47 am

Fred –> Not sure I agree any more that UHI temps should be changed. If they are real temps they should be used. The only reason for adjusting them is concentrating on CO2 effects only.

The world could be burning up due to UHI and no one would know because of the adjustments to isolate CO2 effects. This also affects model forecast viability.

fred250
Reply to  Jim Gorman
October 4, 2020 12:32 pm

BEST basically pretend they don’t exist, that is the furphy !

fred250
Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 4, 2020 12:17 am

The little snippet below tells it all……

You iterate until the “anomalous trends” (which would be the NON-URBAN zero or negative trend sites) become the same trend as the urban sites.

You even STATE that is what you are doing, but don’t realise how ANTI-science it is.

Should ????? not science.

Its a FARCE. !!

“In the full averaging procedure sites have their weights adjusted via an iterative procedure which compares their time series to the reconstructed Tavg sites that deviate substantially from the local group behavior have their weights reduced for the next iteration
Thus, the influence of sites with anomalous trends, such as urban heat island effects areas unaffected by urban heat island effects, swould be reduced by the averaging procedure even when sites with spurious ,warming cooling are part of the dataset being considered.

fred250
Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 4, 2020 12:30 am

https://realclimatescience.com/2020/10/alterations-to-the-us-temperature-record/

Simple averaging of the “adjusted” data gives a similiar farcical outcome to the NOAA data.

Makes no difference to the manipulation….

Shows up all the DATA CORRUPTION that has been going on.

and which BEST do their best to match.

You could go and try to argue with Tony Heller….. but you are too gutless.

Tom Abbott
Reply to  fred250
October 4, 2020 9:13 am

“You could go and try to argue with Tony Heller”

I would like to see that! Of course, it won’t happen. Heller would be dueling with an unarmed man, and the unarmed man knows it.

LdB
Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 4, 2020 5:58 am

If Steve was even half a actual scientist he would realize you also can’t area weight and average because that by definition removes localization such as terrain and site specific effects. The problem with averages is they are the easiest thing in science to corrupt … take the average females in a population by doing a survey of gender who enter a female toilet. You can not weight out what is badly sample no matter how much you torture the data.

Reply to  LdB
October 4, 2020 11:09 am

Climate is the *entire* temperature profile, not just the average temperature. If I tell someone the average temperature is 50deg no one can tell me what the entire temperature profile looks like and, therefore, can’t tell me what the climate is doing. It’s no different with the “average global temperature”.

Average global temperature is just something easy for so-called climate scientists to use. It is truly meaningless, however.

Reply to  Steven Mosher
October 4, 2020 7:40 am

Mosher –> Global Average Temperature is NOT a real temperature! It is a calculated representation of a conglomeration of data points.

It is no more real than a simple average of absolute temperatures is real. Your disparagement of other ways to calculate a representative number means nothing.

You want to do something useful, figure out a way to calculate a temperature from surface stations that allow a direct calculation of TOA radiation.

October 4, 2020 1:57 am

A well-written article – worth reading.

10 MAJOR DC ‘CONSENSUS’ LIES PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS SHATTERED FOREVER
By J.B. Shurk
OCTOBER 2, 2020
https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/02/10-major-dc-consensus-lies-president-trump-has-shattered-forever/

John Furst
October 4, 2020 5:21 am

A well thought out article by Jim Steele. As a retired Utility engineer, I would suggest a major, perhaps more important, red/ Blue effort focused on “solutions.”
All costs to adapt solar/ wind technologies must be identified and quantified, so a clear policy choice can be made. All the hidden costs of adding intermittant energy, all the regulatory accounting, all the credits and trading costs, etc are missing or unrelatable to a mostly uninformed public.
Include ethanol, land areas, environmental damage, …and then show the unknowns and uncertainties of CO2 caused climate.
Both processes together will indicate whether the current path or adaptation or strong , resilient, productive economies are the better choice.
Thanks Jim

Peter Morris
October 4, 2020 5:32 am

I think what convinced me CO2 was not a control knob was seeing the proxy data from ice cores showing temperature change preceding the CO2 change. That and nearly all the predictions of the “alarmist” side fail over the last 40 years.

CO2 should not be labeled a pollutant, and scientists should absolutely stop telling the public that there’s going to be a runaway tragedy. And they should absolutely stop mentioning Venus when they do so.

John Furst
October 4, 2020 5:36 am

Additionally…all the personal sniping only degrades this extremely useful site. …and the critical need to stop this insane policy!