An October 3, 2023 opinion piece by Barbara Moran at the WBUR (Boston) website has the headline “Many scientists don’t want to tell the truth about climate change. Here’s why.” Since human-caused climate change has become a topic of debate, climate scientists have routinely misstated facts and suppressed the truth.
The WBUR article centers, in particular, around the purported 1.5°C “warming limit” climate alarmists within the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and in the mainstream media and climate activist community have claimed since 2010 posed an amount of warming that would bring catastrophic, irreversible consequences. The first U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change document to mention a limit to global warming of 1.5°C was the Cancun Agreement, adopted at the sixteenth COP (COP16) in 2010.
Now, in 2023, there’s a new worry. According to the WBUR article, “[i]n March, the United Nations released a massive climate change report. The biggest takeaway: Global warming will soon pass the oft-mentioned target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
Previously the big worry was that at 1.5 degrees, “tipping points” in the climate will occur. As Climate at a Glance: Tipping Points, shows there is no evidence that any such tipping points exist. Now the worry is that scientists might publicly admit the 1.5 degree Celsius rise is locked in, resulting people to giving up hope and ceasing to fight for scientists’ favored restrictions on fossil fuels.
The article says:
After this report came out, something weird happened. Unlike the blunt Dr. Thorne, most climate scientists (and journalists) didn’t change how they publicly spoke about 1.5 C. Admitting defeat could risk “demotivation” said Pascal Lamy, the commissioner of the Climate Overshoot Commission. Scientists kept saying things like: “We need to act now to stay below 1.5” or “it’s getting harder, but still technically possible.”
Climate scientists, in an effort to stave off despair, aren’t telling the truth about our warming planet. In reality, we’re incredibly close to the point of no return: when rising seas drown island nations and almost all coral reefs die. I’m here to tell climate scientists — and my fellow climate journalists — to knock it off.
Climate scientists lying about 1.5°C so we won’t lose hope? It seems that way. Yet there is no evidence thus far that passing 1.5°C means disaster. We’ve previously taken this topic to task on Climate Realism, here and here, and demonstrated, as seen in Figure 1. below, that in Europe, home of the longest surface temperature record, warming has already met and exceeded 1.5°C. In fact, a 2.0°C rise has been recorded.
Figure 1. Berkeley Earth average European temperature since 1750. Source: https://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/europe
Despite a 2.0°C rise in temperature, Europe is still there. No disaster has occurred. No “tipping points” have happened. Yet climate scientists seem totally unaware of this fact, or simply choose to ignore it and not report it. Also, as showed repeatedly on Climate Realism, there is no evidence climate change is causing an increase in the negative impacts on coral reefs or small island nations that Moran is nattering on about.
Although the article didn’t consider this possibility, perhaps, the new worry is that when 1.5 degrees is surpassed and catastrophe does not occur, people will have even less faith in scientists’ alarming climate claims than polls show they already do.
If they lie about this 1.5°C limit being breached, what else are they hiding or lying about? If history is any indication, it seems almost everything.
As far back as 1989, climate scientists were already acknowledging they might have to suppress the truth and exaggerate the dangers of climate change to push climate action. In October 1989, the late Stephen Scheider, Ph.D., admitted to Discover Magazine:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. To avert the risk [of potentially disastrous climate change] t we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.
And then there is the infamous “hockey stick graph” by Dr. Michael Mann, which has been shown to be nothing more than an artifact of splicing two dissimilar datasets together to hide the decline in tree-ring derived temperatures, aka “Mikes Nature Trick.”
During the ClimateGate scandal Dr Phil Jones wrote an email to Mann, which said:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth, a colleague] and I will keep them out somehow—even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”
Of course, James Hansen, Ph.D., former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, predicted New York City’s West Side Highway would be underwater in 20 years from sea-level rise, and then when it didn’t come true claimed he really said 40 years.
Or, how about the claims of an ice-free Arctic due to climate change. Several claims were made by climate scientists, but none have come true.
In fact, there is an entire set of claims and predictions about climate from climate scientists that have never come true. As proof of this one can view a searchable plethora Failed Climate Predictions, here.
More recently climate scientist Patrick T. Brown, admitted to not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the causes of catastrophic wildfires in California. Brown reported in an article he wrote for the Free Press that a scientific paper he was the lead author of left out non-climate related factors which were significant factors driving the rapid growth in California wildfires in recent years. Brown wrote:
I just got published in Nature because I stuck to a narrative I knew the editors would like. That’s not the way science should work.
The paper I just published—“Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California”—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell.
This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change.
With these sorts of scientific shenanigans going on, lies of omission, and not owning up to failed predictions, is it any wonder that most citizens put climate change worry dead last on the list of concerns?
Science is supposed to be about finding and publishing the truth. Instead, it seems that climate science publishes what it believes is good for the so-called “sake of the planet” rather than scientific truth. For science to be useful, it must be held to a standard of truth, otherwise it becomes unbelievable and undermines the expansion of knowledge and progress. We all deserve better.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Barbara Moran seems to struggle with the science, so . . .
She writes: “So, I called Kristina Dahl, the principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.”
She should have called Anthony Watts. That would have been a hellufalot more instructive.
wbur COGNOSCENTI – rather impressed with themselves!
Journalism used to be a profession with standards (they broke them occasionally but they knew where they were), where you traveled to the story, researched it thoroughly and interviewed both sides before writing. Now it can be done simply and quickly, sitting behind a desk after phoning a couple of people. Slapdash crap is filling internet news outlets to the brim and, frankly, it stinks!
Before ‘journalism’ became an academic offering, reporters mostly arose from blue-collar backgrounds. They were highly suspicious, if not disdainful, of politicians and the wealthy, and in fact we’re highly incentivized to knock society’s crooks and hypocrites down a peg or two. Today, of course, our journalists not only went to school with our self-styled ‘elites’, but consider themselves to be equal partners in ruling over the rest of society. In short, they have no incentive to oppose climate alarmism or any other progressive narrative.
Ah, no!
You need to watch a 1940 movie “His Girl Friday” starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. Pay attention to what the entire troupe of ‘reporters’ report back to their editors in addition to Grant and Russel’s versions of news making.
Then you need to read, there is plenty of stuff about William Randolph Hearst and his views on news.
For a refresher, you also need to pay attention to Ben Franklin’s publishing of news. Only Ben was smart enough to disguise exactly who he was reporting fake news about.
From https://reporter.rit.edu/features/war-propaganda-and-misinformation-evolution-fake-news
“In the 1860s, we see the emergence of ‘story papers’ and ‘dime novels,'” Worden said. “This [was] possible due to developments in printing technology and use of wood pulp paper, which is cheaper than cloth.”
The Civil War is considered the first technologically-documented war.
“The telegraph, which was used heavily by the press during the Civil War, had a long-lasting effect on journalism. Since telegraph operators charged by the word to transmit stories over the wire, reporters tried to prioritize facts and write more succinctly,”
The finessing of weather and climate observations and information in order to push a social agenda was on stark display in one of Michael Mann’s “Climategate” emails, where he referred to his and fellow travelers’ “scientific” efforts as –
“The Cause”
That definitely describes ideology rather then science.
I’m confused, but then, I am only originally a Country boy. Could someone explain what the difference is between these pseudo-scientists do anything for money and regular hookers? Selling science, oh my!
With regular hookers, you actually get some real value for the money you paid…
Thanks, NotChickenLittle. That made me smile.
Regards,
Bob
The pay is better for pseudo-scientists. Otherwise, no difference.
Oh, there’s one other. The pimps selling your services pay YOU – not the other way around.
Why? Follow the money. Follow the opprobrium and “cancel culture” against those who don’t toe the party line…
I’m still pissed that Scott Adams got canceled.
If you don’t know, Scott has a webpage that we contribute to. The censors are gone and it is similar to a forum on the state of the world.
Nice job Anthony. I think we need to claim we are already 2 degrees Celsius hotter than the early eighteen hundreds. We need to repeat it over and over. We need to repeat over and over that the 1.5 and 2.0 numbers are made up and are completely meaningless just like the rest of the CAGW narrative.
Here in Wokeachusetts I need to run my home furnace about 9 months/year. A few degrees warmer is most appreciated!
The chart of 2C compares to minimum all time instead of average.
I think most people assume average-as-baseline.
I don’t want to be another source of propaganda, even if it’s for “the right side”.
Unfortunately scientists, academics, and politicians have been scared with cancellation if they don’t toe the narrative. Outright firings, loss of grants, position changes, and career obliteration by the AGW cabal are common. There needs to be a boycott, similar to those against the beer company, that lets people know we won’t put up with it. Courts won’t work because they own them as well. It’s the best option we have. A silent but effective boycott will remove the monetary incentive that allows them to continue with the witch hunts.
How do we boycott the climate religion?
Yes, “progressives” (leftists) live in a constant state of anxiety bordering on abject fear.
However, they are not actually afraid of the mostly-imagined calamities that they ‘believe’ are about to devastate humanity.
Rather, they live in constant fear that they might inadvertently say or do something that goes against the current “progressive” narrative, and so immediately become an outcast to leftism. Canceled. A social leper.
This is the worst-imaginable fate for “progressives”, and a very real and abiding fear, because they know and have seen how the left so quickly turns upon dissenters in their ranks.
The UN has the loudest voice in the world. They are to blame for the misinformation.
That climate science has been almost completely politicized is well established, so it should not surprise us. It is worth studying however, and of course countering, which we do a lot of here.
There is an interesting aspect here. Kuhn pointed out the central role the accepted paradigm plays in guiding scientific thought in a research community. He never considered the case where that paradigm is political, which is what we have today. Much follows from this.
But polls consistently show that roughly half of Americans are skeptics, so all things considered we are doing pretty well and should keep it up. Science is taking a hit but it deserves to.
And the ones that haven’t done that have kept their mouths shut when activists and excitable journalists make exagerated claims. Me yelling at the radio, “Show me a climate scientist who ever said that!” has startled the cats and our dog more than once.
If you pay them, climate ‘scientists’ will exaggerate and lie all day long, as long as it’s for “the cause”. Real scientists, that vanishing breed, tend to stick to the truth as much as possible and rarely get caught out – very disappointing for the clickbait msm.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/10/09/sunak-faces-backlash-over-proposed-solar-panel-restrictions/
Why are climate hysteric alarmists, lefty campaigners & activists allowed to drive policies that adversely affect the masses, policies the masses do not support, nor need or want?
Sterilising prime agricultural land with idiotic solar farms, instead of growing crops, is yet another example of citizen harm, whilst a handful get richer
Solar farms in Northern Europe are as efficient as an ashtray on a motorbike – only someone making money in it, would keep doing it
Personally, I can’t wait for the rolling power outages & rationing – it’s the only way these idiots in charge will reconnect with reality
I hope, in that endeavour, this winter is a 2010 event
I sometimes catch myself yearning for that too. But the consequent deindustrialization would be irreversible. It would be Pyrrhic victory.
10-4 on the ashtray :<)
“Why are climate hysteric alarmists, lefty campaigners & activists allowed to drive policies that adversely affect the masses, policies the masses do not support, nor need or want?”
Castrated politicians?
Or politicians that had no cojones in the first place?
Yes. Their balls are removed by their party before they are put on offer. It is a condition of party endorsement. That the voters find this acceptable is to their shame and detriment.
It’s not a left wing or right wing thing ... it’s an ill-educated stupidity thing.
In the UK both sides & the middle are all singing from the same song-sheet & few will go against ‘the consensus’ for fear of being ostracized.
+100
Rolling power outages & rationing would be good for nobody.
Short term pain for long term gain !!
Nobody will fight back until they are personally hurt, so the sooner we get Rolling power outages & rationing plus deaths from cold/starvation, the sooner this nonsense will be stopped.
All very reasonable, perhaps even a necessary evil. Until the point where you have to nominate who will live and who, exactly, is to die under your ‘short-term pain’.
History shows the ‘elites’ survive & the poor/unprepared don’t
When the movement is based on guilt and feelings, truths outside the following don’t matter.
Everyone is guilty.
No one will ever do enough.
It’s almost never too late.
Guilt relief can be bought.
Go read the article at Wbur.org and you find this paragraph:
Climate experts talk a lot about “cathedral thinking.” It’s the idea of working towards long term goals — like a medieval cathedral. These goals require vision, shared commitment, and decades, even centuries, of planning. The planners and builders don’t live to see the end product, but future generations reap the rewards.
This is not the least bit about science it’s about messaging and the cathedral analogy makes it clear they are taking cues from religious institutions. It’s time the people in the climate science community to leave the pews and go out and engage people who do the hard jobs that make the economy work. Perhaps even more important they need to engage the infidels who have come to alternate conclusion about this science in debate to sort out who makes the most sense. They should worry less about given alternate views a platform than to be seen as a evangelists on a pulpit.
The previous generations developed flight and radio and semiconductors. This generation?
AI stands out.
Dumb of them to come up with a term like “cathedral thinking”. Cathedrals are nice to look at and exemplify the very finest craftsmanship- but, they’re a tremendous waste of resources which could have been put to better use for the population at large.
If climate ‘scientists’ told the truth, three things would quickly happen:
So why would they try?
But a publication like this helps skeptics, by exposing the self reinforcing climate scam for what it is, from the inside. Like Climategate.
Unfortunately most media, academia, politicians and the science world seem to have forgotten about Climategate. They’ll easily miss “the self reinforcing climate scam” going on here.
They didn’t forget. They ignored it as any religious fanatic would ignore perceived heresy.
And that list of groups are part of the “confluence of interests” that fuel the climate alarmism complex.
Sadly, they have taken control of all the levers of power so that only a catastrophic grid collapse would dislodge them.
This is a non-sequitur, Europe is not the whole planet, the 1.5 limit is in reference to the global mean temperature. Further, no scientist has ever said that at 1.5 degrees, the world will promptly cease to exist. The claim is that at or around 1.5 degrees, a bunch of things we don’t want to happen will be more or less “locked in,” that is, actions to reduce emissions won’t necessarily prevent those things from occurring in the future. 1.5 degrees is not a limit, its a target.
What is the purpose in writing intentionally misleading drivel like this, Anthony?
Global mean temperature- that is funny
The GAT is a meaningless number that tells nothing about “the climate”.
Whatever your opinion of the usefulness of the global mean is, it is what scientists are referring to when they talk about 1.5 degrees, they are not suggesting that any place on earth that sees 1.5 degrees will experience adverse impacts. And, again, it is a target, if we miss the target no one expects the world to end, some of the things we wanted to avoid happening are just more likely to happen.
Nice word salad—doubling-down on the lies.
Yeah, he is lying so badly and stupidly since the IPCC specifically talks about it long ago and science papers have been published by scientists pushing the 1.5C tipping crap.
As near as I can tell, when a particular region crosses the 1.5C magic line, it must then poll all the other regions to determine if they have also crossed the magic line.
Then, and only then, is that region permitted to treat 1.5C as a tipping point.
No, you’re struggling to keep up. You should be more proactive about asking questions when you get confused so that people can help you. 1.5 degrees is not a physical tipping point or some kind of kill switch – that is the argument I’m making. It is a target, that we are aiming to keep global temperature below (not European temperature).
Who are “we”, IPCC-breath?
You are struggling to see reality.
1.5ºC is a made-up, meaningless number.
It is a science fiction.. just like everything else you worship.
Yeah, it is just a number they pulled out of their asses because it has strong pseudoscience odor to it.
“1.5 degrees is not a physical tipping point or some kind of kill switch . . . .”
I just saw a video with Biden stating that climate change is a greater threat than nuclear war. He mentioned 1.5 degrees. So who told him it was 1.5 degrees, and why does he think it’s worse than nuclear war? I would think nuclear war is a kill switch.
I think people understand the trouble with applying the mean as a concept. Comparing to a minimum is even worse.
The 1.5ºC is a made-up number, of absolutely ZERO scientific meaning or worth.
It makes sense that mindless zealots like AlanJ would worship such fakery.
Your “target” is meaningless!
“some of the things we wanted to avoid happening are just more likely to happen.”
Such as ??
You are following a meme that is faked by non-scientists getting their message from constantly rubbing their crystal balls.
And as Tonto reputedly quipped –
what do you mean ‘we’, whiteman?
So the 1.5 affect only kicks in when the entire planet breaks the limit?
Really?
How does the S. Pacific know what the temperature of N. America is?
Averages, the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Yes, the planet only exceeds 1.5 degrees of warming when the planet exceeds 1.5 degrees of warming, not before. Let me know if you need further clarification.
The temperature has exceeded 1.5 hotter than 100 ya several times during the last 8000 years withoput tipping, so what is diffent this time, Alan?
Examples please.
Mr. J; Please, please help clarify this- If one region goes up 1.6 deg, then it cools .1; and all other regions are at 1.5 deg, have we missed the target?
1.5ºC is a scientifically meaningless number plucked from the nether regions of a gormless zealot
Let us know if you need further clarification. !
and it’s impossible to get an accurate number even if the concept is carefully defined
never mind what the GAT was in the past- like 150 years ago
The one benefit to the scientific focus on gw might be a period (present) for which thorough data exists – if researchers can stop adjusting, hiding and deleting data it might be valuable some day.Probablt temperature sensors on Internet-connected personal devices will be less tampered-with and more accessible, but noaa et. al.data could help.
“no scientist has ever said that at 1.5 degrees, the world will promptly cease to exist”
Maybe not, but they do imply it- so that’s what many people think and fear. Why else would Saint Greta tell us to panic- and Al Gore and Gutierrez tell us about the boiling oceans and planet?
Therefore, it’s NOT drivel. What’s drivel is the idiocy of those calling for panic and net zero policies.
They do not imply it. Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, and António Guterres are not scientists, they are activists and politicians, so even if they were making such a claim, it would not constitute a scientific prediction of an impending apocalypse at 1.5 degrees. In fact, the official statement on 1.5 degrees from the IPCC is:
Not, “a warming of 1.5 degrees means disaster.”
Yes, it’s drivel. Intended to mislead. Europe is not the whole earth, and the 1.5 target is one for the global mean temperature, not the European mean temperature, and an immediate apocalypse is not the predicted outcome of 1.5 degrees in the first place.
Nice, get the activists to tell your lies and get the population panicked. Then sit back and declare that nobody can blame them because they weren’t the telling the lies.
If you benefit from the lies and refuse to do anything to stop the lies, then you bear as much responsibility for the lies as anyone else.
I wonder if you and others replying to me have any thoughts on this at all and are purposefully ignoring it, or if you just don’t care whether articles on this website contain misleading statements or not. The inability or refusal to actually respond to the arguments I’m making is quite telling either way.
We do care about YOUR constantly misleading and anti-science garbage comments.
You are not making any arguments… just WHINGING like a 2-year-old. !
Tell us, , mindless zealot, where does 1.5C warming have meaning?
And don’t say “globally” because that is even more nonsense that you usually come up with.
Or are you continuing to say it is totally meaningless.. (as we all know)
You must know that it is pure invention… so why keep trying to sidestep the issue.
Nice of you to completely ignore the point that I was making, in order to raise a point I have addressed elsewhere.
Mr. J: When you make an argument, please let us know.
“the official statement on 1.5 degrees from the IPCC”
Is arrant nonsense, it is not based on anything remotely scientific.
The number was pulled out of the nether regions of one of the climate glitterati…
… and should be returned whence it came.
“Climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5°C than at present”
There is absolutely ZERO scientific evidence for that statement.
In fact, it is highly likely that “climate risk”, (whatever the **** that is), will be greatly REDUCED.
Climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5°C than at present, but lower than at 2°C (high confidence).
IPCC……
”Trends in intensity and frequency of some climate and weather extremes have been detected over time spans during which about 0.5°C of global warming occurred (medium confidence). This assessment is based on several lines of evidence, including attribution studies for changes in extremes since 1950”.
95% of the IPCC claims are categorized as ”medium confidence” which means 50/50
Mr. J: If his purpose in writing the article was to draw out a silly comment from the house numpty, it worked. The article cites the first IPCC report to mention the 1.5 deg. “limit”, there’s no room to be misled, though you made a real effort. What you don’t make any effort toward is the article itself, aren’t you concerned that you and your fellow scientists are not raising enough alarm? Ms. Moran is blaming you for not hitting the panic button, are you gonna take that?
Again, 1.5 is not a physical limit – negative impacts will be experienced from the 1 degree already observed, negative impacts will be experienced at 1.4, or 1.6, or 1.7, or any other fractional part. The 1.5 degrees is a target, it’s not the point after which we cannot do anything. Nobody has said, “the exact moment the world hits 1.5 degrees you are going to observe all negative impacts manifest simultaneously.”
But the more salient point here is that Anthony is falsely suggesting that scientists have claimed that a warming of 1.5 degrees anywhere in the world should produce the same outcomes as a global warming of 1.5 degrees.
And it’s all very interesting to me, because everyone on this website proclaims themselves to be a skeptic of the highest order, who demands truth and honesty in all things, yet we don’t all apply that same standard to our host, it seems.
What are these mythical negative impacts that you whine about?
There is no increase in bad weather. There is no increase in either droughts or floods.
Basically there is nothing happening that hasn’t happened hundreds of times before, back when climate was cooler.
“Basically there is nothing happening that hasn’t happened hundreds of times before, back when climate was cooler.”
And when climate was warmer !!
Does the IPCC pay you to shill for them?
1.5ºC is a MADE-UP-NUMBER.
It has zero scientific relevance or meaning.
The planet has been significant more that 1.5ºC warmer than now for nearly all the development of human civilisation. !
Guess what.. we are still here. !!
What AlanJ is saying is that being 1.5C warmer than pre-industrial times…
… is totally irrelevant and unimportant.
We can all agree on that.
Any rational mind would understand that this slight warming is, in fact, a GOOD THING !!
“negative impacts will be experienced from the 1 degree already observed”
Stop regurgitating anti-science NONSENSE. !
The warming since the LIA has been absolutely beneficial.
Mr. J: Your attack on Mr. Watt’s reputation for honesty is vile and contemptible. There is nothing dishonest in reporting what the IPCC said about 1.5 deg, what they actually said, and using a rhetorical flourish like “the world didn’t end where 1.5 deg. has already happened.” Your comments are way out of line, and the fact that our host lets you go on shows just how thick his skin is. I will address your future comments with the contempt you have earned.
I think it is right and appropriate to call out misinformation where I see it, and since I believe Anthony is intelligent I don’t believe his fallacy is one made from ignorance – he must know the thing he is saying is untrue. Anthony is free to come in and defend his statement if he believes my assessment is inaccurate, you can also try to point out why you think it is inaccurate, but instead content yourself with calling falsehoods “rhetorical flourish.”
Mr. J: It is wrong to question Mr. Watts’ integrity based on his comment in the article that one region has crossed the target, without any negative consequence. It is not false, period, full stop. You continue to act like Mr. Watt is misleading, but if he said one region is above 1.5, that isn’t false. Since you cannot tell what is false from what is true, you don’t get that I already have pointed to your “inaccuracy”. You are content to be mendacious, noted.
It is absolutely reasonable to call out the fallacy being made. Anthony is saying that since 1.5 degrees didn’t produce a disaster for Europe, it is a lie that it will produce adverse consequences when the globe reaches this threshold.
The statement is fallacious for the two reasons I’ve repeated ad nauseam in this thread. Since Anthony is well informed enough to recognize this fallacy right away, my conclusion is that he is making it purposefully. If it is indeed mere ignorance driving him to make the fallacy, a simple edit to his post should easily clear the matter up.
If Anthony Watts and WUWT are so wrong as you allege, how in the world did the site ever manage to hit 500 million views?
I didn’t realize that reader engagement was a direct measurement of a website’s factual veracity. The NYT website claims to have had 2 billion readers last year, CNN claims to have had about 1.5 billion, so you must believe the information they publish is even more robust than Anthony’s, eh?
I never claimed it was—you ducked the question, again, what a surprise.
Ah, so you agree with me that it’s perfectly possible to have a high number of readers and still be publishing information that is not truthful. Great, glad we’re aligned. That was easy.
You still are arguing about something that is totally meaningless.
That is the way with gormless brain-washed zealots. !
The whole 1.5ºC is a scientific fallacy from the very start.
… but it is all you have, so you just can’t stop ignorant whinging and whining about it.
AnalJ has just admitted that somewhere warming a scientifically meaningless 1.5C, .
..is, well… meaningless, and won’t produce disaster anywhere.
Continues his IGNORANCE of the fact that the 1.5C is a made-up scientifically meaningless number.
Poor mite.. needs his ADHD script adjusted.
Mr. J: Smug and sanctimonious is SUCH a good font for you! You perceive a fallacy and prattle on ad nauseum, but your premise fails- no fallacy was “made”. It’s reasonable to cite the IPCC directly for a global prediction at 1.5, note the fact of a region’s data at 2.0, and ask why nosign of “tipping point”. You contrive it to be a fallacy, when it is factual, so you are libeling our host. Repeatedly. He is not saying what you say he’s saying, you are “making” a fallacy. Beneath contempt.
You think your approach is new? We see this sort of slight-of-hand from Mr. Stokes, have for years, but he has better manners, you lack.
It is moronic to argue about fake anti-science and meaningless numbers.
The fallacy is that 1.5ºC has any scinntific meaning whatsoever….
.. yet you keep going on and on and on about it as though it does.
That really is petty, whinging, and very idiotically stupid of you.
Anthony does not need to defend anything, any more than he would need to defend a comment about, say, the Big Bad Wolf.
“call out misinformation where I see it”
That’s odd, we don’t see you calling out your own posts.!
Perhaps you don’t see that they are always based on misinformation.
How very brain-washed and ignorant of you.
Attack?
More like an ADHD 5-year-old throwing a tantrum.
Quite funny to watch…
… but you feel sad for the parents. !
“What is the purpose in writing intentionally misleading drivel like your comment”, AlanJ ?
The 1.5C farce is a “straight-from-the-nether regions” number.
“a bunch of things we don’t want to happen will be more or less “locked in,””
Arrant NONSENSE…. meaningless garbage…..
… so it make sense you would get all het up about it.
Well, AlanJ, I think you have given us a fine example of ‘drivel’ with your own post. You start with the assumption that Co2 “emissions” are some kind of pollution. They are not. You then seem to argue that there is some kind of tipping point inherent in a temperature increase of 1.5 celsius. There is no evidence that such a tipping point exists at any increase in temperature.
Oddly enough, elsewhere today, Alan has argued that the 1.5C number was never issued by real scientists, therefor it is a meaningless number.
Mr. W: When you are dishonest in all things like Mr. J., it’s a real challenge to remember all the preceding lies.
And tell us AlanJ…
… why didn’t you pick up on the fact that what Anthony calculated is 2ºC in a fantasy, agenda-driven fabrication, derived mainly from heavily urbanised sites.
Why isn’t that what you commented about ??
That way you could have shown just how irrelevant and meaningless the whole 1.5ºC nonsense is.
Noted the couple of dumb and ignorant red-thumb dolts that cannot answer or counter any of what I have said.
The facts hurt you, don’t they 🙂
So Sad 😉
Its the only tool they have.
The word scientist isn’t in the quote you posted; how come you made a strawman argument while you ignored what Anthony actually wrote:
You are a terrible liar since the IPCC and a number of scientists did talk about the 1.5C as a major tipping point.
You and others haven’t been paying attention to what I’ve actually said in this thread, so it’s not surprising to see you grossly misinterpret it here. I’ve not said that nobody talks about 1.5 degrees, I’ve said that it isn’t a physical limit in the climate system, and scientists aren’t saying that it is, it’s a target that scientists think is a good idea prevent warming beyond. The earth isn’t expected to hit 1.5 degrees and instantly evaporate, and the goal is always to limit as much warming as we can – if 1.5 degrees is surpassed it is still good to limit warming below 1.6, and so on.
But, more importantly, the claim is that 1.5 degrees globally is the target, not 1.5 degrees of European warming. This is the larger part of the fallacy Anthony is making. But everyone in this thread is blithely ignoring it.
Do try to keep up, or, if you’re struggling, stop to ask questions. Always happy to help clarify.
Why?
Are you driving a battery car yet?
What is the optimum CO2 concentration in the atmosphere?
Mr. J: It’s hard to keep up when you race on to the next lie. Here, we (meaning “we”) had no difficulty grasping your point. The article clearly established the “global” nature of it, several posters attacked the “average global temp” approach, so we are keeping up just fine as we note your arrogant tone. Others deconstructed your notion that a large region has nothing to do with the globe. We fully comprehend that you have been fooled by the idea that 1.5 deg. is a number determined by “science”, but I am enjoying you flop around like a fish out of water over it.
Ah, so you’re being intentionally obtuse, understood.
No one has done this, they’ve pointedly ignored my argument or expressed incoherent ideas about the concept, flailing in helpless attempts to justify Anthony’s fallacy.
The target is 1.5 degrees for the global mean. Some regions will be well above this, others will be well below. No scientist is claiming that any region reaching a temperature of 1.5 degrees above the preindustrial average will immediately experience disaster (and, as I’ve pointed out, this isn’t even true for the whole globe – no scientist thinks 1.5 degrees means immediate disaster).
But since you already understand this and are just trolling, as you say, there’s little point in continuing to debate this fact with you.
Again, you are still going on and on and on and on about something with has zero scientific meaning.
Why make such a fool of yourself with every post you make.
You are a really pathetic troll. !
The world has much warmer that 1.5C above current levels for much of the development of human civilisations.
NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. !!
Mr. J: You flatter yourself, your tendentious grip on a false position is not “debate.” I demonstrated (along with dozens of others) that you are falsely construing the article. Nobody here will engage your false flag operation, and that draws out this sanctimonious attitude about all commenters. You are losing, enjoy the ride down.
People are avoidant because my point is quite obviously correct and unobjectionable, so they have no rebuttal. Instead they dither on about tangentially related topics and try to steer the conversation down every possible rabbit trail. It’s the constant pattern in WUWT comment threads.
Your point is totally pointless.
You must know that.
It is just a petty little attention-seeking idiocy.
That is the only pattern with your posts.
“People are avoidant” you say, even though hundreds reply to you. Your “point” was to contrive a lie that our host lied about what scientists say. You were wrong from the jump, but you say you are right and we won’t address it. And you think that’s a “debate”? If we aren’t engaging your point, as you say, you are debating yourself. And losing!
Anthony was pretty clear about what he was saying:
No scientist has ever said that at 2 degrees of warming Europe will reach a tipping point or cease to exist. That is why scientists are not reporting that Europe has reached a 2 degree tipping point, not because they think that Europe reaching 2 degrees gives lie to the notion that adverse impacts will be experienced at a global warming of 1.5 degrees. Secondarily, no scientist has said that immediately upon reaching 1.5 degrees the planet will cease to exist or suddenly enter a state of abject chaos. The claim is that after 1.5 degrees, many adverse effects will be felt over many decades. So even if Europe were a perfect proxy for the whole globe, the fact that it still exists doesn’t falsify the notion that 1.5 degrees will bring a series of adverse effects over time. The whole thing is a straw man. Anthony knows this full well, he’s not ignorant, so the only conclusion is that he’s willfully trying to fool his readers.
No one in the thread has addressed these points head-on. Everything is an attempt to divert the discussion or to simply ignore them. You’re doing the same even now, trying to make the discussion about how unfairly you think I’m treating Anthony instead of engaging with the substance of my argument. It’s very typical of how the contrarians on this site always operate.
Thank you for the quote, which shows you have been lying throughout the comment string. Or maybe you can point to the words quoted where Mr. Watts says “climate scientists say regions will show tipping points”? Go ahead, make my day. No scientist said it, including the scientist who hosts this site. Many have debunked this very point, and yet you persevere in your libel.
Anthony is claiming that scientists are avoiding the fact that Europe has warmed 2 degrees because it makes a lie of their claim that 1.5 degrees for the globe presents a disaster. Agree or disagree? If the latter, please explain what it is that you think Anthony is trying to say by referencing the two degrees of warming in Europe.
They are NOT SCIENTISTS..
They are using an invented number that has absolutely zero scientific meaning or relevance.
That is what activists do.
This thread certain brought out the ADHD idiocy of your AGW cult, didn’t it.
And you just keep on adding to that idiocy.
It is hilarious to watch your pathetic attempts to make a point out of invented non-science.
But it is all you have left… you poor gormless sod. !
What a childish and PETTY little zealot you are.
You KNOW the 1.5ºC is a scientifically meaningless number…
.. yet you are still on your mindless quest to challenge someone else’s interpretation.
Do you know just how moronically stupid you are making yourself look !!
Rich coming from you who keeps IGNORING the quoted passages that I posted what the IPCC and scientists are saying.
You are just another small couch pseudoscientist who impresses no one here because you run on lies and dodging over and over.
Mr. tommy: Small couch? Not even an ottoman, though he seems to enjoy giving us a footrest.
You are fighting a losing battle dude. People are not stupid. When people are moving south because of WINTER temperatures, they become sceptics rather quickly. I can move 150 miles south and experience spring an entire month early and experience winter starting a month later. Why would I believe 1.5 degrees rise would cause a problem? Everyone knows this and more and more people simply see more expensive electricity and banning of ICE cars as the elite wanting to collect more and more money from the poor.
Must have struck a nerve. Down votes without a response indicate that a response is not possible.
Yep. A lot easier than coming up with a new lie to paper over the previous lies.
Climate science is a narrative of impending planetary doom caused by human progress and flourishing.
Centrally checked
I think you have put it very well in one sentence, strativarius. I call it ‘progress vertigo.’ If you want to know how progress actually works, you might get a copy of my book,”Acceleration.” Enviromentalists masquerade as “scientists” but they are really the modern version of Luddites. They want to smash the machines.”Big oil” is an easy target.
Of course, aside from the fact that a 1.5 deg C “global temperature increase since 1850” will produce no effects whatsoever, there’s also the little problem that nobody can say what the “global temperature” was in 1850. Very few temperature monitoring stations existed in 1850, only in well settled “civilized” areas, and of course the temperature measurements were nowhere near accurate or precise enough to measure with any confidence a temperature rise of 1.5 deg C in 173 years – or 0.0087 degrees per year.
It’s all sillyness driven by a religious ideology that depends only upon whackadoodle nearly always wrong computer models that suffer the age old problem of computers – GIGO – garbage in, garbage out.
Figure 1 here (via Berzerkly) is just another bogus hockey stick, supposedly for all of “Europe”; Pat Frank has demonstrated that the historic thermometers used prior to 1900 were not fit this purpose. Claiming these data have measurement uncertainties less than 0.5°C is a lie. And this is what they use to claim their dreaded 2°C temperature “rise”.
“thermometers used prior to 1900 were not fit this purpose.”
And most surface thermometers since 1900 are so corrupted by local urban, airport etc effects…
… that they also are totally unfit for climate purposes.
AlanJ is living in fantasy land with Alice and White Rabbit if you can take integer recordings of temperature, average them and claim to know precise values less than an integer. Significant digits do matter!
I challenge anyone to show lab instructions from any accredited university or college that allows one to create precision where it doesn’t exist in the original measurements.
Please state the number of significant figures in the following result:
(0+1)/2 = 0.5
Another case of Average on the Brain.
Sad…
You increased the number of significant figures from one each to two.
Incorrect, the result has one significant figure. Leading zeros to the left of the decimal point are not significant. 000000.5 and 0.5 both have one significant digit. 0.50 would incorrectly display two significant digits, but that is not the result I’ve written down.
In this case you’re wrong. Lets try (1+2)/2 = 1.5, or (1+4)/2 = 2.5.
You picked an obvious ambiguous case. When you average, you start getting into trouble.
Or let’s try: 1. – 1. = 0.
Is the answer zero significant figures?
I specifically picked a case where averaging two integers produces a fractional result with the same number of significant digits as the integers, since the existence of such a scenario is explicitly what Jim is denying, evidence by his statement above:
It’s important to note here also that temperature readings are not made as whole integers, but as decimal numbers with whole and fractional parts. This notion that precision is “being created” where it didn’t exist in the original measurements is all exceedingly silly.
“This notion that precision is “being created” where it didn’t exist in the original measurements is all exceedingly silly.”
It is being created, and it’s incorrect scientific/engineering calculation.
If you take measurements of 1 degree and 2 degrees, to nearest integer.
… the correct answer for the average is “somewhere between 1 and 2 degrees”…
but you DO NOT know where between 1 and 2 degrees.
You cannot randomly say it is 1.5.
That is implying an accuracy that didn’t exist in the original measurements.
AnalJ. I’m really sorry if the basic concept is beyond your intelligence to understand.!
Your original equation would be flagged as mixed mode arithmetic in FORTRAN. You’re adding two integers, dividing by an integer, and expecting a float answer. In this case (0+1)/2 = 0, in FORTRAN.
Let’s rewrite it: (0.+1.)/2. = 0.5
So according to you understanding, the first term has zero significance? I think not.
(1.0+0.0)/2.0 = 0.50, so two significant digits, but I do appreciate your eagerness to chime in.
You incorrectly increased the significant figures. 1. is not the same as 1.0. It’s very sloppy in fact.
the value 1. has one significant figure, so the result of (1. + 0.)/2. is 0.5, with one significant figure.
You picked an obvious ambiguous case. Again (which you deliberately ignored), (1. + 2.)/2. = 1.5 increases the number of significant figures from one to two. In the general case, that would be true. In your example, the leading zero IS significant. However, the standard rule is that you use the significance of your least significant term. Using your silly rule, it’s one significance plus zero significance divided by one significance should equal zero significance. So (1. + 0.)/2. = 0., by your silly rule.
You are incorrect, the number of significant figures does not increase. In your example the result is 2, not 1.5, with one significant figure. In my example, the result is 0.5, with one significant figure. The leading zero before the decimal point is not significant.
I liked they way you rounded my result (which was the correct thing to do) and failed to see that your result should be rounded too. What is interesting is that you somehow think your specific example can be generalized to all examples of averaging. That is silly and wrong thinking.
Averaging raises some problems with the rules of significance. The number you divide by actually has infinite precision. When you average two numbers, you don’t divide by 2.1 or 1.9–it’s exactly 2. But sums raise problems too. If I averaged 120, 50, and 1, I get 57. By the strict rules of precision, 57 carries too many significant figures. So adding numbers doesn’t strictly follow the significant figure rules. And in this case leading zeroes are considered significant, Otherwise, you couldn’t add 120, 50, and 1 to get 171.
My result should not be rounded, because it contains only a single significant digit. The average of a series will have the same number of significant digits as the value with the smallest number of significant digits in the sum, so none of the answers above change whatsoever, and there are no “problems.” You can view an average as the denominator having an infinite number of significant digits.
If you average 120, 1, and 50, you get 60, with one significant digit, not 57, with two significant digits.
The rules for straight addition and subtraction differ slightly, in that you retain only the precision of the value with the lowest precision. In the example of 120, 1, and 50, all numbers have the same precision, so the result is 171 with three significant digits. If you were instead adding 120.1, 1, and 50, you would omit the 0.1 and obtain the same result.
Again, you are making stuff up. I’ll make it easy. If I traveled 1.0 meters, then 10.0 meters, and finally 100.0 meters–how far did I travel?
You traveled 111.0 meters, to 4 significant digits. Your average travel-leg was (1.0+10.0+100.0)/3 = 40 meters, to one significant digit.
Sorry, above should be 37 meters, to two significant digits.
“. . . above should be 37 meters . . . .”
Actually, as all the numbers are to the nearest decimeter, the average should be too: 37.0 meters.
You surprised me. I thought you were going to say 110 to two significant digits. I didn’t ask for an average, but why didn’t you take it to the max available precision? Your climate scientist friends would have gone on to the hundredths place.
Odd that you would have expected me to deviate from the position I’ve maintained for this entire discussion, but I’m glad we’re in agreement. Perhaps you can share with Mr. Gorman above our newfound consensus on the topic of significant figures.
“. . . but I’m glad we’re in agreement.”
Since when? I agree with Mr. Gorman–you’re traveling through Wonderland.
Let’s go with the correct sequence. In a sum, you round to the least precise significant digit. The average just takes the precision of that sum. Adding more precision is bad physics and engineering. Your bird-walk off into significant-figures-land is just a distraction.
It’s great that nowhere are we adding more precision, then, isn’t it.
The topic of significant figures was raised by Mr. Gorman, I’m afraid.
You’re confusing significant figures with precision. What are you getting paid for stating this nonsense? I’d like to jump on that bandwagon, but I’d have to dump my integrity.
If you average 120, 1, and 50, you get 60, with one significant digit, not 57, with two significant digits.
Wow, that is about the worst understanding of averaging I’ve ever seen.
In my example, the result is 0.5, with one significant figure. The leading zero before the decimal point is not significant.
Maybe this will help? http://www.kentchemistry.com/links/Measurements/calcswithsigfigs.htm
“Your calculated value cannot be more precise than the least precise quantity used in the calculation. The least precise quantity has the fewest digits to the right of the decimal point. Your calculated value will have the same number of digits to the right of the decimal point as that of the least precise quantity.”
Your example adds numbers to the right of the decimal point. Therefore it is wrong.
Your quoted passage is for addition and subtraction, for division and multiplication the rule is (from your article):
Not sure if you intended this as a self-own or not, but impressive either way.
“Significant figures (also known as significant digits or sig figs) are specific digits within a number that carry both reliability and necessity in conveying a particular quantity.“
Seems the 0 in a measurement of 0.5 meets both criteria.
Or are you saying that the zero is irrelevant,
You really have a lot to learn, don’t you AlanJ. !
5.5 cm and 0.055 meters are the same measurement.
So 1.1 measured to 1 decimal place, is 2 significant figures, but 0.9 would be only 1 one sig fig…
.. even though they were measured on the same piece of equipment, to the same precision.
😉
Awesome job, bud, you’re getting the hang of it. You’ll understand sig figs in no time.
“You’ll understand sig figs in no time.”
You won’t .. You are not capable of doing so. !
Thanks for following your non sequiter all the way down.
Mr. J: Staying with the deserved contempt approach, your response asks about significant figures, but that was not Mr. Gorman’s point. His point is, if your measurement is accurate to 1 deg., then your temp one day is zero; next day, temp is one. You average them to a digit that exceed the precision of the measured values. For crying out loud, I’m not a maths guy but I see it. You are now officially a waste of space in the comment board.
Jim is explicitly talking about significant digits, as he proclaims “Significant digits do matter!” in his comment above. Perhaps you did not read it carefully enough.
Now you are lying, again. Significant digit rules take measurement uncertainty into account.
Mr. J: Jim’s first sentence is the point you try to distract from. This distraction technique is easy to recognize after a few flights on Air Stokes.
Why do you think Jim said, “significant digits do matter!” in the context of his comment?
Mr. J: Why do you pretend there are no words other than those?
Why do you pretend those words aren’t there? They are there, and I responded to them, and now you’re upset that I didn’t respond to other words because you’d rather have a conversation about those.
I don’t pretend, I read. Jim’s comment speaks for itself, and in the full reading, he’s saying “significant digits” in the context of you pretending averages are more precise than the data averaged, a common mistake among community college adjuncts who post math nonsense. Your long digression into other meanings of significant digits notwithstanding, Jim’s full statement makes perfect sense, and your focus on one part is misleading. But you know this. You basically admitted here that you won’t discuss any other words, didn’t you?
I understand that you’re saying, “Jim has his own special meaning of the term ‘significant digits’ and you need to ignore the actual common meaning so that we can focus on the other things Jim is saying that I’m more comfortable disagreeing with you about.” But I am not interested in anything except pointing out the correct application of significant figures to the problem I posed.
Jim isn’t even here himself attempting to defend anything, I don’t think he disagrees with me, yet the thread is full of his peers attempting in vain to contradict the simple and rather obviously correct statement I made. This overeagerness to disagree with the “other side,” no matter what they say, creates a lot of gaffe’s for WUWT’s contrarian set.
“This overeagerness to disagree with the “other side,” no matter what they say . . . .”
No, I disagree when the “other side” says something incorrect.
I’ve not said anything incorrect with regard to the use of significant digits, so are you saying you and I are in agreement?
Yes you have. You cannot add integers, divide by a constant, and get a non-integer result. You are improperly increasing the precision of the result.
You get a quotient and a remainder. The remainder may be zero, or it may be non=zero.
The question, really, is how to express the remainder. Expressing it as a decimal fraction can give spurious precision.
The rule of thumb is that the number of digits expressed in the remainder should be the no more than the order of magnitude of the divisor.
So, 1/7 should be expressed as .1, 10/70 can be expressed as .14, etc.
It becomes more complicated once you get into measurements instead of counts, because uncertainty intervals come into play.
“The rule of thumb is that the number of digits expressed in the remainder should be the no more than the order of magnitude of the divisor.”
That is confusing. The order-of-magnitude usually refers to the exponent of the multiplier in scientific notation. It seems you are actually using the number of significant digits. However, it’s rare to deal with remainders in engineering calculations that I never learned that rule.
Stats, not engineering. There is already enough uncertainty in measurements to cover it.
The rounded order of magnitude of the divisor sets a limit on the reported average. If you have, say a sample of 10 boxes of matches. 9 boxes had 50 matches each and 1 box had 51 matches, the average would be 50.1. If you had a sample of 11 boxes with 10 boxes containing 50 matches each and 1 containing 51 matches, the average is 50.09090909…, which isn’t legitimate. That can still legitimately be reported as 50.1 because of the order of magnitude of the sample size.
Early engineering worked on halving intervals rather than decimal fractions, hence the use of 32nds and 64ths, which has come down to us in fastener dimensions. If you look up a thread chart, the diameter are expressed in both fractional and thousandths terms (e.g, 3/8″, 0.375″)
And what’s more confusing, you’re saying remainder but showing quotients. The 1 and 7 in 1/7 have no decimal points. The standard then is that they are constants and have infinite precision. In that case, you can carry the quotient out to as many digits as you can stand. I would say that you are actually doing this:
(1. X 10^0) / (7. X 10^0) = 1. X 10^-1 and
(1.0 X 10^1) / (7.0 X 10^1) = 1.4 X 10^-1
The first example has one significant digit each, and the second example has two significant digits each.
But that’s not averaging numbers, which is a different pile of altogether.
That’s pretty much the strength of it, just expressed better.
It is if you have sample sizes of 7 or 70.
8/7 is 1 1/7, 80 / 70 is 1 10/70 – don’t reduce to lcd.
So at last, you dispense with the self-righteous pretense and acknowledge that Jim G really said exactly what I said he did. You can absolutely add integers, divide by a constant, and obtain a fractional result with exactly the same precision at the integers, as I showed in the very first example I challenged Jim G to solve:
(1+0)/2 = 0.5. How many significant digits in the result?
1
Gold star. How many significant digits in the original values we are averaging?
If we’re going to play sig fig trivia:
(200 + 20 + 1) / 3
How many sig figs in each number, and why?
Show intermediate step(s).
I’m sorry, but no.
“(1+0)/2 = 0.5. How many significant digits in the result?”
The rule you seem to be stumbling over is that the zero to the left of the decimal is not significant unless it is. The term 0. is significant and has one significant digit. Since you are using an equal sign, then what is true on the left side must be true on the right side. Therefore the correct equation is (1. + 0.)/2 = 0. And you’ll notice I’m using the correct rounding procedure.
You’ve contrived a way to reduce the amount of information, but have not followed the rules for significant digits. Do the math, then reduce the results to the correct number of significant figures. 0. has 1 significant digit, but so does 0.5, and 0.5 is the result of 1/2, so you arrive at a result with a single significant figure and you do not need to go further. If you were rounding the result, you would arrive at 1, but since 0.5 already has a single significant digit, you do not need to round the result.
“You’ve contrived a way to reduce the amount of information . . . .”
Heh. I’ve contrived? You actually have contrived to increase precision improperly. I can see why Mr. Gorman departed the pattern. I don’t see what you plan to gain, but you can’t extend this method to other averages. Most temperatures aren’t pairs of 0. and 1.
Mathematics is the process of taking the specific to the general. You can solve each quadratic equation specifically, but it’s more useful to derive the general quadratic formula that applies to all quadratic equations. Your method won’t generalize to all averages of integer pairs. So I guess it’s that old adage: “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
You have shown a complete lack of understanding of the nature of measurements and significant figures.
Rote learning vs “understanding”.. a difference your tiny mind cannot cope with.
Once again you show your ignorance by referencing numbers divorced from context as a reply to a post about temperatures. Do try to keep up.
And the ADHD has really kicked in now.
AlanJ being totally anal about irrelevancies.
Petty, gormless attempts at distraction.
Hilarious if it were not so sad and pathetic..!
This person has a “master’s in science journalism”
Can anyone say if that actually involves any actual science whatsoever?
Or is it just another phrase meaning “learning how to spread ignorant propaganda”?
Boston- or as I prefer to say, Bahhh-stin- capital of Wokeachusetts. What else could be expected from any media in that city? The entire state is infected with the “climate emergency fever”. Every town and city- every media- all of academia- even most businesses- sing the song of climate doom and how we’ll be saved by net zero, a modern version of “sin zero”. We must be purified of evil carbon pollution.
From the state that gave us Salem, what else should we expect?
The witch trials are back.
“… as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method.”
seems like a non sequitur.
I know it isn’t right to over-generalize. But we seem to be living in an age of lies. It isn’t just lies about a supposed global warming. It is continuous lies we get in advertising and from politicians.
Last week I was watching the ABC Nightly News on television. They reported that Donald Trump gave an Australian billionaire secrets about our nuclear submarines. As I watched the news, I immediately realized it was probably fake news. For one thing they never provided their source for this private conversation. For another thing, they were reporting unconfirmed hear-say as news. Sure enough, CBS News today is very quietly reporting that there is no evidence that the story is true. In other words, the ABC story was simply made up by someone. It was a lie. A real news service would have checked out a serious allegation like that and made sure it was true before broadcasting it.
Just my very rough personal estimate, I think we are at the point now where about 40% of the news is fake news. In other words, news based on fabrication or news so exaggerated it might as well have been made up. Global warming is just the worst current example of the big lie.
Just my very rough personal estimate, I think we are at the point now where about 40% of the news is fake news.
IMHO 40% isn’t enough, probably 60 – 70%.
“Last week I was watching the ABC Nightly News on television.” <- Me: must be an old dude
“They reported that Donald Trump” <- Me: Three years later and they have nothing better to do?
“secrets about our nuclear submarines” <- Me: More news from the 1980’s, Then a sidebar about what maintaining a nuclear fleet built decades ago should imply about the power source.
“reporting that there is no evidence that the story is true.” Me: if they don’t have it then it must not exist, right? Not “they have no evidence” but rather “there is no evidence”.
“I think we are at the point now where about 40% of the news is fake news.” Me: 40%? How would I ever know? I suppose I ought to pick _some_ number without getting lost overthinking word definitions.
“Global warming is just the worst current example of the big lie.” Me: worst?
Those are just thoughts had while reading, evidence that a human read.
Wasn’t it Dan Rather-not who tried to push the claim that Bush the younger deserted his National Guard post in order to run for office?
He even provided a memo to that affect, allegedly written by Bush’s commanding officer, who conveniently had died recently.
A memo written using a proportional font, when the type of manual typewriters used by the military was incapable of producing such a font. The font itself didn’t exist at the time the memo was allegedly written, it didn’t come into existence till about 20 years later.
Someone took a deep dive into that story about the billionaire. Found that 1) Trump did discuss our nuclear subs with him; 2) the billionaire did pass that on to his contacts in the Oz government; and 3) all of what he passed on was PUBLIC – matched exactly with what the Navy had already released about their capabilities. (Nothing beyond that – and we can be sure that there is quite a bit more. Maximum dive depth, response time, sound canceling, sensors, etc.)
If you’re believing anything a talking head reading a teleprompter says you’re making a mistake.
“And then there is the infamous “hockey stick graph” by Dr. Michael Mann, which has been shown to be nothing more than an artifact of splicing two dissimilar datasets together to hide the decline in tree-ring derived temperatures, aka “Mikes Nature Trick.””
This characterization is incorrect. The original Hockey Stick was made via MBH98, and did not involve splicing modern temps onto proxies, to my knowledge. Instead, it involved, in part, grossly overweighting one specific proxy, which overwhelmed all the others.
It was a different graph of Mann’s that involved splicing different databases together without telling the audience.
Yes. Something Mann said no ethical scientist would ever do. QED.
The Bloomberg green-energy team estimated $US 200 trillion to stop warming by 2050, and other estimates are similar..
There are about 2 billion families in the world. That works out to about $US 100,000 per family.
Ninety percent of the families can’t afford anything extra so that means about $US 1 million per family in the developed world.
Spread over 27 years that is about $US 35,000 per year. Even in the developed world, very few families can afford that additional cost. It is totally infeasible and totally unnecessary.
“Climate Overshoot Commission”? Can this gravy train get any bigger? It’s no wonder none of them will admit that they might be wrong – they’re making too much money out of misleading people!
There will be no shortage of precipitation in California this winter.
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. To avert the risk [of potentially disastrous climate change] t we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest”
Sounds like the only “ethics” this guy is bound by is “The end justifies the means”, all for “The Cause”.
Two degrees rise since the bottom of the little ice age is a good thing. How does it now compare to the height of the medieval warm period? Is it “unprecedented”? Is it “catastrophic”?
It’s not there yet, which was cooler than the RWP which was cooler than the MWP
etc etc
I think you got those the wrong way round.
Yes, MWP was warmer than now..
.. but RWP was warmer than the MWP.
A gradual long-term decline since the Holocene optimum, with RWP and MWP as two of the warmer periods when humankind flourished.
Since the end of the Holocene optimum, there have been 5 warm periods.
Minoan, Egyptian, Roman, Medieval and Modern. In that order.
The max temperature for each warm period has been cooler than the max of the previous, and all were cooler than the Holocene Optimum.
The min temperature between each warm period has also been getting progressively cooler.
I don’t know whether it is a coincidence or not, but the period between the end of the Holocene Optimum and the first warm period was about 1000 years. The period between all of the warm periods, including the Modern one, has been around 1000 years.
Since VACCINES have become a topic of debate, biomed scientists have routinely misstated facts and suppressed the truth.
An OBVIOUS truth.
Yet the WUWT public only accepted that a few years ago.
Which is why we can’t have nice things.
Well..
Mann and his colleagues invented several new mathematical methods,
de-centered Principal component analysis, of which a statistical expert (called into this by Mann!!) Jolliffe says https://climateaudit.org/2008/09/08/ian-jolliffe-comments-at-tamino/ :
“my main concern is that I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used? Does anyone?”
Or about princiupal components ingeneral, R. McKitrick says about them
https://www.geo.utexas.edu/courses/387H/PAPERS/conf05mckitrick.pdf
-“the higher the number of the PC, the less important
is the pattern it explains in the original data”
-” If the inclusion of a single higher-order PC accounting for less
than 8 percent of the variance in a single region changes all the results, it does not prove that the
PC4 is actually the “dominant climate pattern”, instead it shows that the model lacks robustness and the conclusions are unstable. Had this been admitted in 1998 the paper would likely never have been published.”
Actually, since then Mann and others published several articles using PC analysis, but can never quite agree on in which sub-PC the relevant warming information is hidden..
Or about Multivariate regression methods
https://climateaudit.org/2009/10/14/upside-side-down-mann-and-the-peerreviewedliterature/
-Mann used the Tiljander proxies upside down, in their reply to our comment, Mann et al flat out denied that they had used them upside down. Mann:
“The claim that ‘‘upside down’ data were used is bizarre. Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors…”
I am not sure what is worse, the fact that Mann does not know how to screen proxies or that he uses a method here, which according to himself is not able to do the analysis he needs.
BTW this discussion over year is what got me interested in climate science, how can it be that someone who is obviously fake and lies is not removed by the other climate vultures sitting at teh meat pots?
Talk about lying.
NASA makes troubling confirmation following summer 2023: ‘Just look around you and you’ll see what’s happened’ (msn.com)
NO-ONE in the USA would have experienced any warming since at least 2005.
What are the zealots at NASA tripping on. !!
UNCRN still isn’t out yet, but UAH USA48 for September was in 15th place.. a total nothing-burger.
So yes, people of the USA.. look around.. you will see that NOTHING is happening. !
I think the rush to Net Zero/Green Deal is to focus attention on what needs to be done, rather than why it is being done and us it really necessary.
As the tipping point comes and goes without noticeable effect, the game will be up as people see through the hoax. The window of opportunity for deindustrialisation and formation of a World Government will be gone – at least for the time being.
So the trap has to be sprung before the prey gets suspicious and turns away.
Has anyone above read the IPCC ‘s. SR1.5 ? I have. Much of. Don’t bother. Mindless verbiage leading to multiple international coercive pathways that will never happen. Like giving up coal in about eight years from now? Sad.
Well the article linked does not say that:
Notice the key difference could not will. This is usual misprepresentation that Guardian journalists do. Why do it here?
The original, arbitrary, 2 degree C limit , which Phil Jones et al pulled out of their collective butts, was based on “we’ve already seen 1degree, so 1degree more will probably be OK. We don’t really know beyond that”.
Journalists then twist and misreported this be bad things will happen at 2 deg C, instead of we just don’t know. Then when the climate did not warm fast enough, they decided the hysteria may die down, so doubled down on the alarmism and changed it to “1.5 deg C would really nice too”.
None of this has a jot of science backing it up and we already know temps have been higher in the past without the oceans boiling.
I thought the 2 degrees and 1.5 degrees were based on tweaks to Nordhaus’s DICE model, which gave a cost optimum at around 3.5 degrees.