Climate Skeptics on Kevin Myres Last night

nesf

Hazlittle wrote: »

Thats all the comment I gave. then some mongo posted a graph. I asked questions on the graph and other mongos started whinging at me.

Separate to the debate but referring to other posters as mongos will get you banned from this forum. Please use more respectful terms.

Brussels Sprout

Hazlittle wrote: »

then some mongo posted a graph.

Classy

Focalbhach

Hazlittle wrote: »

I havent cursed at people or name called anyone.

... and on the very next post...

Hazlittle wrote: »

This is why people on the fence prefer the deniers. Utter fanatical rubbish. I watched a tv debate and one side was clearly better at debating. Thats all the comment I gave. then some mongo posted a graph. I asked questions on the graph and other mongos started whinging at me.

You want me to change my lifestyle and the deniers dont. So you better present sounded arguments than the nonsense you come out with.

I havent bloody argued against climate change you silly people. I ahve just been saying that these deniers are better debaters.

An example of one of your many wildly contradictory/disingenuous positions.

sponsoredwalk

Yeah that's fair, except for the insults that is... I would be tempted to demand evidence from people proposing climate change but there is plenty @ a moments notice via google.

Basically to set the debate straight, I think it would be constructive to ask anyone proposing climate change to post some interesting links, particularly videos & video debates , to educate us as I, and others, really know very little, if the have anything offhand.

Also, it'd be better to have someone post something that they particularly found interesting as opposed to reading any old thing where you're not sure of the source & the validity of the comments etc...

edit:

Leto wrote: »

... and on the very next post...



An example of one of your many wildly contradictory/disingenuous positions.

amacca

Hazlittle wrote: »

Tthen some mongo posted a graph. I asked questions on the graph and other mongos started whinging at me.

How very dare you, I shall report you to our glorious leader forthwith!

supremenovice

Does anyone else think that Environmentalism is the new religion?
Get a devout Muslim to try and convert a devout Catholic to Islam.
No matter what report, book, evidence you show him, he/she will not believe it and will not convert.
Same thing with people who do not believe that climate change is caused by human activity.
They dont believe because it doesnt suit them to believe it. No matter what report or who endorses the report is put in front of them - they will say its inconclusive. We could be all walking around in 40c temperature on Christmas Day and they will say its a freak natrural occurance.
Probably because it will upset their lifestyle in some way through paying ecotaxes or having to get eco friendly cars or something.

Scofflaw

Hazlittle wrote: »

I havent bloody argued against climate change you silly people. I ahve just been saying that these deniers are better debaters.

What is it you want to know about climate change, though? What the consequences are for you personally? You're not being terribly clear here - something which doesn't lend much weight to your opinion on the quality of debate.

regards,
Scofflaw

fontanalis

supremenovice wrote: »

Does anyone else think that Environmentalism is the new religion?
Get a devout Muslim to try and convert a devout Catholic to Islam.
No matter what report, book, evidence you show him, he/she will not believe it and will not convert.
Same thing with people who do not believe that climate change is caused by human activity.
They dont believe because it doesnt suit them to believe it. No matter what report or who endorses the report is put in front of them - they will say its inconclusive. We could be all walking around in 40c temperature on Christmas Day and they will say its a freak natrural occurance.
Probably because it will upset their lifestyle in some way through paying cotaxes or having to get eco friendly cars or something.

So weather = climate?

Brussels Sprout

fontanalis wrote: »

So weather = climate?

Wow that's nitty! Fine, how 40C for all of December for 20 years in a row

Focalbhach

supremenovice wrote: »

Does anyone else think that Environmentalism is the new religion?
Get a devout Muslim to try and convert a devout Catholic to Islam.
No matter what report, book, evidence you show him, he/she will not believe it and will not convert.

I think I'd like to see that too! Bit of a sidetrack, but it does highlight where the "climate change = religion" suggestions fall down.

Hazlittle

Scofflaw wrote: »

What is it you want to know about climate change, though? What the consequences are for you personally? You're not being terribly clear here - something which doesn't lend much weight to your opinion on the quality of debate.

regards,
Scofflaw

The debate is about the TV show. I'm debating against climate change, I am asking questions.

Consequences that we know right now is all the ridiculous animal welfare protections, wasting my money on dumb projects like that bike thing in Dublin. Funding green energy. €12million on a website about lowering energy. Carbon tax. Spending a cent on this stupid ideology gets me annoyed as I dont like being tax to fund peoples insane projects. I dont being under the dumb of the church either or any of this touchy feelly help the poor crap. Its a just another thing to annoy me.

My cant we just be let alone to live our own lives?

Leto wrote: »

I think I'd like to see that too! Bit of a sidetrack, but it does highlight where the "climate change = religion" suggestions fall down.

I dont see any reason debate on this or on that TV show. Muslims think they have evidence too. Interesting report to try guess which will cause more deaths fundamentalist Islam or environmentalism.

Hazlittle

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

This in itself is amazing. The fact that there is such a large amount of climate change skeptics out there shows how little respect a lot of people have for science and scientists.

I just don't get the general distrust of science. Our world today is so dramatically different to that of 100 years ago purely down to advances in science. People seem very happy to trust the science behind air travel, pharmaceuticals and cardiac surgery. And now with science and technology at it's most advanced stage (fully 40 years after man walked on the moon), using the most advanced techniques, we are told there is a problem. And suddenly, because they don't like the solution to the problem, science isn't so great after all.

Yep cause a random keyboard warrior quoting a statistic without a link to a report is fantastic science to go by.

nesf wrote: »

Separate to the debate but referring to other posters as mongos will get you banned from this forum. Please use more respectful terms.

So I get cursed and abused but I cant use an inoffensive slang that can be used during the daytime? Yep rather impartial moderation there.

Leto wrote: »

... and on the very next post...



An example of one of your many wildly contradictory/disingenuous positions.

I havent given any position other than I though the deniers gave a stronger arguement and I dont like being told what to do or how to think.

Galway K9

i might be naieve here but i think it doesnt matter if it exists or not and its effects as the planet is designed to adapt to change and its environment and its species.

Focalbhach

Galway K9 wrote: »

i might be naieve here but i think it doesnt matter if it exists or not and its effects as the planet is designed to adapt to change and its environment and its species.

I think, with respect, that is a bit naive. The environment isn't "designed to adapt to species" and won't do us any favours. The planet will carry on for a long time - how long we're along for the ride, and to what degree of success, is another matter.

Hazlittle

Leto wrote: »

I think, with respect, that is a bit naive. The environment isn't "designed to adapt to species" and won't do us any favours. The planet will carry on for a long time - how long we're along for the ride, and to what degree of success, is another matter.

Right climate change has so much invisible yet undeniable evidence but evolution is false? Sound logic.

Galway K9

good thing i covered myself but please let me corrcet my phrasing.


"Planet is designed to adapt to change" and the species that live in it will adapt to those changes.

thanks for feedback though

sceptre

Hazlittle wrote: »

Right climate change has so much invisible yet undeniable evidence but evolution is false? Sound logic.

Unfortunately for species survival, a quick climate change (and by quick, I mean anything from instantaneous to, say, a thousand or ten thousand years) frequently doesn't allow many species sufficient time to adapt. There are previous examples where this is the case - the extinction of the dinosaurs is the usual poster child example.

Apart from that, what you've objected to isn't what Leto actually said.

amacca

Galway K9 wrote: »

i might be naieve here but i think it doesnt matter if it exists or not and its effects as the planet is designed to adapt to change and its environment and its species.

I think it does...if it exists (and by it I presume you mean warming brought about by increase in co2 concentrations) then there might not be much left for us as a species to adapt to in the long term.

Venus has a greenhouse effect wouldn't like my species to have to adapt to even a fraction of the below..........it certainly wouldn't be humanity as we know it jim...if indeed we would survive at all...wikipedia but I believe its more or less accurate


"Classified as a terrestrial planet, it is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" because they are similar in size, gravity, and bulk composition. Venus is covered with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light. Venus has the densest atmosphere of all the terrestrial planets, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide, as it has no carbon cycle to lock carbon back into rocks and surface features, nor organic life to absorb it in biomass. A younger Venus is believed to have possessed Earth-like oceans, but these totally evaporated as the temperature rose........................

the CO2-rich atmosphere, along with thick clouds of sulfur dioxide, generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the Solar System, creating surface temperatures of over 460 °C (860 °F) This makes the Venusian surface hotter than Mercury's which has a minimum surface temperature of −220 °C and maximum surface temperature of 420 °C, even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance. The surface of Venus is often said to resemble Hell."

Focalbhach

Hazlittle wrote: »

Right climate change has so much invisible yet undeniable evidence but evolution is false? Sound logic.

...

Hmmm. Is that what I said?

Galway K9 wrote: »

good thing i covered myself but please let me corrcet my phrasing.

"Planet is designed to adapt to change" and the species that live in it will adapt to those changes.

thanks for feedback though

No problem

I might be mis-reading your post, but I feel you may be under the impression that climate change won't have any major ecological impact. What I was trying to say in the last post is that you're correct in saying that the planet will carry on regardless of human-driven climate change, wherever it may go from here. Temperatures will rise and fall, weather patterns will change, ecosystems will be destroyed and created. However, I don't think it's correct to say that all life will necessarily adapt to those changes. Some species will decline or become extinct in the absence of their natural habitat, and presumably new ones will evolve to fill a new environmental niche. The continuation of the planet and the continuation of current life on the planet are very different things.

Galway K9

rite...as i said naieve

Focalbhach

Galway K9 wrote: »

rite...as i said naieve

No harm in throwing it out there and asking the question!

Hazlittle

sceptre wrote: »

Unfortunately for species survival, a quick climate change (and by quick, I mean anything from instantaneous to, say, a thousand or ten thousand years) frequently doesn't allow many species sufficient time to adapt. There are previous examples where this is the case - the extinction of the dinosaurs is the usual poster child example.

Apart from that, what you've objected to isn't what Leto actually said.

But how do we know it wont be really slow over thousands of years or really quick? Like the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor. Not something we can prepare for.

Galway K9

Hazlittle i was just thinking the exact same thing.

Valmont

I can't argue with the science of climate change for many reasons and I absolutely accept the scientific consensus mentioned by Taconnol and the other moderators of the environmental and sustainability forum. However, I do reject it as a brand new reason for the government to tax the shite out of everyone. Tell me, is the 31 BILLION euro tax intake not enough to formulate some green strategies or to shuffle around some resources and make the necessary changes? How much money or control is enough? Where do they stop? I'm guessing nothing they get will be enough and the green lobby will push for tighter control and greater government expansion to combat the climate change issue. Much like any other problem the government tries to fix.

*accusations of wacky, reality denying libertarianism forthcoming*

sceptre

Hazlittle wrote: »

But how do we know it wont be really slow over thousands of years or really quick? Like the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor. Not something we can prepare for.

It's not as though the asteroid hit on day 0, causing them all to be dead by day 2 (or even day 365) - the actual extinction may (the jury's still out, despite the acceptance of the Chicxulub impact as the primary cause) have taken tens of thousands of years as biodiversity decreased. There's some evidence from Montana that some of the larger non-avian dinosaurs may have hung on for about another forty thousand years, decreasing in numbers from the primary K-T event (that's the Chicxulub impact).

The Ordovician extinction took about ten million years. The Triassic–Jurassic extinction took about 100,000. The Permian–Triassic extinction took a few million years. They're three of the big five.

The "what if there's a meteor" is a non-sequitur, as primary climate change theory doesn't imply a "The Day After Tomorrow"-style worldwide scenario. No, we can't prepare for a planet-killer meteorite impact. But it's not relevant to the climate discussion so I suggest putting that scenario away.

How long will it take? Well, we're arguably experiencing the initial effects already so one could reasonably say it's already started. The biggest issue though, is not what it'll do to the planet (as people have said, the planet will go on with one ecosystem or another and doesn't give a monkey's fiddle whether we're the dominant species, a present species or not here at all) or to the "world population" (in other words, whether we're actually here or not). The prescient issue is what it does to the life for large groups of people on the planet. Rises in malaria, malnutrition, natural disasters (don't be misinterpreting how I use the word "natural" there please), sea-level rise, oxygen depletion, regional stress brought about by a dip in food and water availability (yes, that's local wars - they typically start over resources except where one leader is just plain nuts, which is comparatively rare), species extinction, other diseases, permanent drought in the Meningitis Belt...

That's long before considering the notion of a vicious circle of permanent climate change or a cyclic extinction risk for the current dominant species (ie us). That's actually the extreme wedge of the argument - the above issues are far closer to our existence than the ones I've mentioned in this paragraph.

Meteors, meh. It doesn't particularly matter if it takes a year or ten thousand years while everyone's still on this planet with nowhere else to go. Global warming/climate change science is still in its relative infancy - the term "global warming" is pretty much the same age as I am (that'd be 35 years). Study into the greenhouse effect is rather older though - it's been going on for over 100 years by now. I honestly suggest reading the science - as you say, you haven't read any and there's plenty of peer-reviewed information available that happens to be an easy read. If you're going to discuss it on the Internet (and at a guess I suspect you are), you may as well know the basics. Stay away from the meteor stuff, it's rather Chicken Licken and there's nothing you or anyone else can currently do about a global killer. I'm not a scientist, nor am I a climatologist but chunks of this stuff are an easy read. Most of the rest takes a little effort but not a whole lot. The bit left after that, well I'm not going to do post-PhD stuff in climatology to understand it and criticise it properly at their level, I've other things to be doing (but that doesn't make it anywhere near unintelligible).

Pittens

I'm not sure what you mean if you mean literally what you say - obviously you can't use different scales/units, or mix your axes, or use a scatter plot on a rose diagram, which is what "different methods of graphing" would suggest.

I don't think anyone has done that - presumably, you mean you can't merge together estimates of CO2 from different sources? It's entirely standard to do so, though.

he may be referring to Mann's graph which used a proxy for temperatures ( i.e. tree rings ) back for more than a millenium and temperature records since 1960. All very well and good but the two measures diverged in the last twenty years with the tree-rings showing less warmth than the measurements.

And that is problematic, of course, since the honest thing to do would be to either show the tree-rings throughout the graph, or recalibrate the tree rings to the modern temepratures. Both of which would have reduced the modern hockey stick graph he presented.

Thats not the only bad science of the pro camp. The recent hottest year on record has come half way through the year for a reason - the Earth is cooling rapidly as La Nina is gathering pace, and even then only Hansen's and the GISS records show 2010 to be the hottest half-year. They added in assumed data for instruments they did not have back in 1998 - I think we can guess the bias there.

And then there is Hansen's recent claim that the decadal increase is still 0.1-0.15 a decade.

He gets this by trending since 1980 and dividing by each decade, rather than just measuring the trend in the last decade alone, or since 1998 - still the hottest full year.

That measurement would give him an increase of 0.03 per decade for the last decade. Not much to write home about.

The claim that 97% of scientists agree with anthropological warming is probably not true - it is porbably 97% of climatologists, and they would.

The Stephan Bolzmann law is clear enough, as is the rise in temperatures. What I dispute. along with other scientists ( Like Freeman Dyson), is the alarmism. And the misuse of statistics. And the shouting down of protestors.


Global warming has moved from being a scientific debate - were it just that there would be no discussion whatsoever on whether the models were wrong for this decade, they clearly are - to a religious debate. Or an eratz religious debate. The very existance of the term denialist tells us that.

Scofflaw

Valmont wrote: »

I can't argue with the science of climate change for many reasons and I absolutely accept the scientific consensus mentioned by Taconnol and the other moderators of the environmental and sustainability forum. However, I do reject it as a brand new reason for the government to tax the shite out of everyone. Tell me, is the 31 BILLION euro tax intake not enough to formulate some green strategies or to shuffle around some resources and make the necessary changes? How much money or control is enough? Where do they stop? I'm guessing nothing they get will be enough and the green lobby will push for tighter control and greater government expansion to combat the climate change issue. Much like any other problem the government tries to fix.

*accusations of wacky, reality denying libertarianism forthcoming*

Actually, the question I would ask there is "what new green taxes?". We've had a small hike in fuel excise, which has been rather grandiosely described as a "carbon tax" - but it's exactly in line with the standard excise rises in an Irish budget, which was missing. Nor is the yield from that excise rise ring-fenced for anything environmental, so calling it a "green tax" is frankly an exercise in marketing. There may also be a licence fee for septic tanks - but that's the result of an ECJ judgement against us, and it's hardly deniable that we have certain water quality issues.

Secondly, how much additional regulation has resulted from climate change? A couple of energy efficiency measures? What else, if anything? How does that compare to the amount of regulation resulting from, say, terrorism or child abuse? To what extent does the regulation in each of those categories cut into your personal freedoms?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Pittens wrote: »

he may be referring to Mann's graph which used a proxy for temperatures ( i.e. tree rings ) back for more than a millenium and temperature records since 1960. All very well and good but the two measures diverged in the last twenty years with the tree-rings showing less warmth than the measurements.

And that is problematic, of course, since the honest thing to do would be to either show the tree-rings throughout the graph, or recalibrate the tree rings to the modern temepratures. Both of which would have reduced the modern hockey stick graph he presented.

Thats not the only bad science of the pro camp. The recent hottest year on record has come half way through the year for a reason - the Earth is cooling rapidly as La Nina is gathering pace, and even then only Hansen's and the GISS records show 2010 to be the hottest half-year. They added in assumed data for instruments they did not have back in 1998 - I think we can guess the bias there.

And then there is Hansen's recent claim that the decadal increase is still 0.1-0.15 a decade.

He gets this by trending since 1980 and dividing by each decade, rather than just measuring the trend in the last decade alone, or since 1998 - still the hottest full year.

That measurement would give him an increase of 0.03 per decade for the last decade. Not much to write home about.

The claim that 97% of scientists agree with anthropological warming is probably not true - it is porbably 97% of climatologists, and they would.

The Stephan Bolzmann law is clear enough, as is the rise in temperatures. What I dispute. along with other scientists ( Like Freeman Dyson), is the alarmism. And the misuse of statistics. And the shouting down of protestors.


Global warming has moved from being a scientific debate - were it just that there would be no discussion whatsoever on whether the models were wrong for this decade, they clearly are - to a religious debate. Or an eratz religious debate. The very existance of the term denialist tells us that.

Not really - the term 'denialism' follows on from its use in other cases where the evidence all points in one direction (tobacco, asbestos, etc), and has to be very carefully cherrypicked (as you've done above) in order to create the appearance of reasonable doubt.

Denialism is a set of tactics for when there's not really any question any longer about what's actually happening, so a smokescreen needs to be created in order to continue delaying any action on the issue. It's now a very standard response by an industry whose profits are threatened by the discovery that their product is in some way dangerous.

Here's how you do it: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/04/18/michael-specter-talks-denialism/

Not, to be fair, that Pittens needs any education in this regard - the 1998 thing, for example, is a classic cherry-pick: http://www.grist.org/article/global-warming-stopped-in-1998/

cordially,
Scofflaw

Pittens

Not, to be fair, that Pittens needs any education in this regard - the 1998 thing, for example, is a classic cherry-pick: http://www.grist.org/article/global-...opped-in-1998/

Actually that whole argument, the one you linked too, is a cherry pick. The graphs are misleading.

I pick 1998 as it was the warmest year on record. I could have picked 2000. The difference is slight, there is a slight, statistically insignificant warming from the latter, a slight statistically insignificant cooling trending from the former.

I specifically mentioned that there is no warming in the last decade, but trends from previous decades are being used to extrapolate the already baked in trend.

What I got was a link to this kind of argument that I said was wrong:

As mentioned above, you could choose to examine the last 30 years -- that is when both surface and tropospheric readings have been available. We have experienced warming of approximately .2 degrees C/decade during this time. It would take a couple of decades trending down before we could say the recent warming ended in 1998.

Actually clearly the warming is not 0.2 per decade anymore, Hanson now says 0.15 precisely because there was no warming this decade.

Trending from 1980 would show an average growth per decade in the Irish economy of X% per decade, or X/10 % per year. using that to argue that there is no recession would be a fairly unique use of statistics.

So let me repeat, and this is statistics 101.

The trend from 2000 is flat. I am not denying any previous warming, therefore previous trends are a red herring. Since economies tend to grow rather than contract all long term trend lines will go up even in recessions, even in depressions. The longer term the smoothed trend the more it hides local fluctuations. The Earth has been warming since 1880, and faster in the second part of the last century.

Nevertheless the trend from 2000 is flat. This is not in line with model projections.

The real statistically chicanery here is the denial of that fact.

And, as an empiricist, if the warming resumes, I will agree that is has resumed. However in the last decade it stopped.

Scofflaw

Which leads us to the interesting question - on what timescale will you accept that warming has "resumed"?

amused,
Scofflaw

nesf

Pittens wrote: »

And, as an empiricist, if the warming resumes, I will agree that is has resumed. However in the last decade it stopped.

As an empiricist you surely appreciate that growth upwards need not be constant and only a prolonged period of relative stillness or decline indicates a change in direction (and when we're talking about climate we're talking about decades as being a relatively short period). There is also the problem of scale. Depending on the scale one chooses the growth or decline of a quantity can appear to vary greatly.

Brussels Sprout

Hazlittle wrote: »

Like the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteor. Not something we can prepare for.

So you accept this despite the fact that 100% of scientists don't agree that this actually happened. That's convenient.

In all likelihood it did happen but if somebody wanted to deny it then they'd probably have a lot more ammunition to do so then somebody denying man-made climate change.

Hazlittle

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

So you accept this despite the fact that 100% of scientists don't agree that this actually happened. That's convenient.

In all likelihood it did happen but if somebody wanted to deny it then they'd probably have a lot more ammunition to do so then somebody denying man-made climate change.

Jesus christ I havent read up on how the dinosaurs got wiped out sicne I was a little kid.

A poster has presented the same argument I had against the one graph shown. As He says the climate change doesnt seem like a scientific debate its climate change nut cases trying to reaffirm their religion.

djpbarry

Pittens wrote: »

he may be referring to Mann's graph which used a proxy for temperatures ( i.e. tree rings ) back for more than a millenium and temperature records since 1960. All very well and good but the two measures diverged in the last twenty years with the tree-rings showing less warmth than the measurements.

Actually, the reason most proxy reconstructions only extend to about 1980 is because the vast majority of tree-ring, coral, and ice core records available in the public domain do not extend beyond this time point.

Pittens wrote: »

Trending from 1980 would show an average growth per decade in the Irish economy of X% per decade, or X/10 % per year. using that to argue that there is no recession would be a fairly unique use of statistics.

It would. However, a recession is generally defined as a period when GDP falls for at least two quarters. Climate, on the other hand, is generally defined as the weather averaged over a period of 30 years.

Slight difference in scales there.

Scofflaw

Hazlittle wrote: »

Jesus christ I havent read up on how the dinosaurs got wiped out sicne I was a little kid.

A poster has presented the same argument I had against the one graph shown. As He says the climate change doesnt seem like a scientific debate its climate change nut cases trying to reaffirm their religion.

Your 'argument' against the use of direct and indirect measurements in the same graph purely on the basis that they're different sources is meaningless, though. As long as the indirect techniques used can reliably produce a measure of temperature (or whatever), then you're just graphing temperature.

Pittens' argument against the so-called "hockey stick" graph is actually more specific than that - he claims that the earlier part of the graph is based on the single proxy measure of tree rings (which is untrue), and that that proxy measure actually diverges from instrumental records in the last twenty years (which is true top some extent).

Now, it's true that the tree ring record in some high-latitude northern forests does diverge from the instrumental record in the last 40-50 years, and that the cause is not entirely understood.

Unfortunately for Pittens' argument, the tree ring proxy is not the sole measure of temperature used to construct the graph - multiple proxy methods are used, and tree-ring data from before 1960 agrees with the other proxy methods, so this problem (a) appears to be a real change in the way trees respond to temperature in the last 50 years, and (b) doesn't affect the temperature reconstruction in the graph.

There are a lot of detailed issues like that in any long-term reconstruction of climate, and it's perfectly valid to question the methodology used. What's not valid is to ignore the answers, as Pittens does.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Hazlittle

So how come I get abused for questioning the methods?


I little more effort is needed than just presenting a graph.

20Cent

As a rule whatever Myers is saying the opposite is generally true.
Instead of playing the ball (science) climate change deniers attack the man (scientists).

syklops

20Cent wrote: »

As a rule whatever Myers is saying the opposite is generally true.
Instead of playing the ball (science) climate change deniers attack the man (scientists).

The only people attacking anyone on here are the climate change followers. Not the skeptics.

All us skeptics do is question the way the data is gathered and question how it was put together. For this we get called all kinds of abuse.

Scarab80

Hazlittle wrote: »

So how come I get abused for questioning the methods?


I little more effort is needed than just presenting a graph.

Hazlittle, how about you post a convincing argument from the skeptic side that was not answered to your satisfaction on the show in question and see if any of the posters here can rebut it.

Scofflaw

Hazlittle wrote: »

So how come I get abused for questioning the methods?


I little more effort is needed than just presenting a graph.

Yes, like explaining it, as I've done. I advise you to get over your persecution complex - you've spent nearly the entire thread now complaining that you're being insulted and attacked, and virtually none actually discussing the topic.

regards,
Scofflaw

Metalfan

people who believe in man made global warming are just people who need to believe that every little thing we do has some gigantic effect on the world around them. Man made global warming is complete nonsense. The climate has gone through far more dramatic changes in the past (long before the automobile) and will go through more in the future any effects we have are insignificant compared to these flucuations: end of story

djpbarry

Metalfan wrote: »

people who believe in man made global warming are just people who need to believe that every little thing we do has some gigantic effect on the world around them.

But our actions do have effects, do they not?

Metalfan wrote: »

The climate has gone through far more dramatic changes in the past...

Actually, the rate at which the Earth has warmed over the last number of decades is completely unprecedented in the planet’s recent history (as far as I’m aware).

Scofflaw

Metalfan wrote: »

people who believe in man made global warming are just people who need to believe that every little thing we do has some gigantic effect on the world around them. Man made global warming is complete nonsense. The climate has gone through far more dramatic changes in the past (long before the automobile) and will go through more in the future any effects we have are insignificant compared to these flucuations: end of story

Unfortunately, that's irrelevant - the observed rate and the expected scale and duration of the changes are unprecedented in human history. All our agriculture is based on a climate that has been stable within quite narrow bounds for 10,000 years. If the changes were fast but of short duration or small, that would be OK - if they were large and of long duration, but slow, also OK. Unfortunately, it's all three together, which means that the world's agricultural base will be disrupted.

We do generate a food surplus (famine is mostly a 'distribution' issue), so it's unlikely to be fatal for us in the first world (although factoring in peak oil and the delay in switching away from fossil fuels makes things a little more exciting), but assuming the distribution issues aren't solved then it will be pretty devastating for a lot of the poorer parts of the world (the usual ones, in fact, such a sub-Saharan Africa).

Of course, that assumes that the world manages to take action to limit the rise to 2 degrees, a window that's rapidly closing (and may have already closed). If temperature rises exceed that, as now seems likely, then the outcome will be correspondingly more dramatic.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Pittens

Scofflaw wrote: »

There are a lot of detailed issues like that in any long-term reconstruction of climate, and it's perfectly valid to question the methodology used. What's not valid is to ignore the answers, as Pittens does.

cordially,
Scofflaw

To be fair I didnt get around to answering yet. Work intervened. My main point was on the use of long term trends however. I will answer later on today.

Scofflaw

Pittens wrote: »

To be fair I didnt get around to answering yet. Work intervened. My main point was on the use of long term trends however. I will answer later on today.

I look forward to your justification of the use of chosen short term trend periods in climate measurement with interest.

amused,
Scofflaw

SkepticOne

Scofflaw wrote: »

Unfortunately, that's irrelevant - the observed rate and the expected scale and duration of the changes are unprecedented in human history. All our agriculture is based on a climate that has been stable within quite narrow bounds for 10,000 years. If the changes were fast but of short duration or small, that would be OK - if they were large and of long duration, but slow, also OK. Unfortunately, it's all three together, which means that the world's agricultural base will be disrupted.

This for me is the most worrying aspect of climate change, the fact that the rise of agriculture, urban settlement and the rise of civilisation seems to coincide with an extremely rare period of stable temperature. Modern humans had been in existance for many thousands of years before this but without agriculture. It seems likely that this period of stability was necessary for civilisation to arise in the first place.

Is it fully understood why there was this period of 10,000 years? What creates the stability and is it known what it will take to break out of the pattern?

Scofflaw

SkepticOne wrote: »

This for me is the most worrying aspect of climate change, the fact that the rise of agriculture, urban settlement and the rise of civilisation seems to coincide with an extremely rare period of stable temperature. Modern humans had been in existance for many thousands of years before this but without agriculture. It seems likely that this period of stability was necessary for civilisation to arise in the first place.

Is it fully understood why there was this period of 10,000 years? What creates the stability and is it known what it will take to break out of the pattern?

Climate has a series of 'meta-stable' states - that is, states of climate which the climate can persist in as long as it's not pushed too far by other factors. There are very long-term states which have within them shorter distinctive temporarily stable periods. Our current climate is part of an interglacial period within what is, overall, a period of glacial climate - the climate for the last several million years has been relatively cold - a glacial era, if you like. Every 100,000 years or so within that, we get interglacials of about 15-20,000 years, where the climate is temporarily warmer.

What controls the major era-level climate is basically the distribution of land masses (land warms and cools faster than sea, and larger land masses produce more extreme climate towards their centres). What controls the shift of interglacial and glacial within the current era-level glacial climate is orbital changes and precessional changes - our interglacial climate is, to some extent, simply the stable climate for the particular current orbital configuration within the era-level climate dictated by the pattern of land masses.

We're in one of those interglacials now. All other things being equal, we would expect to head back into a glacial period sometime in the next few thousand years (the unveiling of that news in the Seventies caused some of the media hype about 'global cooling'). This is a meta-stable state, and one which should give rise, eventually, to the conditions necessary for its own termination and a return to cold, dry, glacial conditions.

However, although we can have a stab at how much change it would take for the interglacial to end naturally by cooling, we don't really have any idea what the effects of artificially raising the temperature will be - interglacials do not break 'upwards' into warmer climate, so we have no real idea what happens. At most, I suppose, we break out of the whole glacial era, returning the really long-term climate to a non-glacial state. More likely, we simply extend the life of the interglacial by some unknown period, or weaken the next glacial episode.

What we do know is that the world's soils, ecosystems, and human agriculture is all geared to the historically stable climate, and that changes as large as the current observed changes had large impacts (on a far less sophisticated and far more marginal human world, of course), even though they took place much more slowly. We can predict, therefore, large impacts - but assuming we have enough disposable energy, hopefully not insoluble ones for us.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Pittens

I look forward to your justification of the use of chosen short term trend periods in climate measurement with interest.

I thought I gave that justificaiton earlier. In fact, I thought I said the longer term use of trend lines was potentially misleading.

The case for the global warming is simple. Increases in Carbon Dioxide. Stephan Bolzman law. And so on. This is hard to argue with. It shows that - absent other feedbacks - the temperature should increase by 1 degree for a doubling of Co2 and by 0.5 a degree for the next doubling. And so on. Log relationship.

Not much to write home about, but not a reason for complacency either.

The additional warming comes from what the climatologists call forcings, and what the rest of the science calls feedbacks. If the feedbacks are negative then we get less warming, if they are positive we get more.

The temperature has been rising since the mid-19th century. There was a dip mid-century and then it rose again. Most people see the rise until the 1970's as the end of an Ice age, some people think that mechanism is still continuing.

The panic about global warming is in the forcings. Computer models which extrapolate guesses into the next century introduce some kind of feedback, as ( basically) guesses. From 1980 to the late 90's the global temperature as measured was increasing greater than the default case of no feedback and indicated positive feedback. So the models retrofitted that in, and estimated the chances of a 2 degree rise by centuries end, or a 6 degrees rise - apparantly not out of the question according to the IPCC.

Some models used negative feedback - i.e. increased cloud cover - but they seemed to be out of step with reality in the 90's. So they were abandoned or sidelined.

The important thing here is the models were based on the acceration in the 90's in particular - just one decade - an acceleration which has slowed down.

( Prior to the 90's most super computers, all in fact, were less powerful than an iPhone so we didnt have models).

So to get back to basics. What we know is that temperature increases at a logarthmic relationship to Co2 concentraions absent of feedback. This is according to Stefan Bolzmann..

I mentioned that to emphasise that temperature increases - without forcings - are thersfore not backloaded. One should expect more upfront, in fact.

So if you are claiming that the temperature will increase by 2.0 by the end of century one would expect to see a trend of 0.2 or more a decade every decade ; and if you are saying the increase is going to be 6 degrees per century one would expect trending at 0.6 degrees a decade or more every decade. Otherwise explain the discrepancy in a static decade. If it is, as I suspect, negative feedback then there just isnt that much to worry about. Referring to 30 year trends is obstufcating the issue.

Anyway, the next few years will tell. In 2020 the temperature shouldbe 0.4 degrees on average about 2000, which implies an increase of 0.4 per decade in the tens.

Brussels Sprout

Pittens wrote: »

So if you are claiming that the temperature will increase by 2.0 by the end of century one would expect to see a trend of 0.2 or more a decade every decade ; and if you are saying the increase is going to be 6 degrees per century one would expect trending at 0.6 degrees a decade or more every decade. Otherwise explain the discrepancy in a static decade. If it is, as I suspect, negative feedback then there just isnt that much to worry about. Referring to 30 year trends is obstufcating the issue.

This is an interesting point. Do you have a link to a decent source for observed temperatures in the last decade? I'm tempted to say that any short term anomaly could be down to variance but I'd like to have a detailed look at the data for the last few years.

Scofflaw

Something of a mass of rather superficial inaccuracies:

1. Models are continually updated - they're not tested only against 1990s data.

2. As you say, increases in temperature with CO2 aren't limited to the direct effect of CO2 - most climate change research is an attempt to determine how the feedbacks in the system multiply or reduce that effect. The current best estimate is a sensitivity of 3 degrees per doubling of CO2, with historical data supporting that but showing that climate sensitivity probably varies.

3. In addition to knowing that putting x units of CO2 into the atmosphere does not simply yield log(x) increase in temperature, we also know that a wide variety of other cycles and drivers affect temperature - in particular, we know that large scale oceanic cycles such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) drive decadal changes, and that the effects of such cycles are temporary and variable, but much larger than anthropogenic warming. Thus, temperature data can be expected to be "noisy" on such scales.

4. Since we know that temperature doesn't have the simple relationship with CO2 that you suggest, we also know that we cannot expect some kind of smooth linear/logarithmic rise as a result of the continual addition of CO2 to the atmosphere.

The result of all these factors is that we know that temperature trends over short periods don't tell us anything. What constitutes a short period? That depends on the period of cyclic drivers. Since we know that the global temperature is affected strongly by variable drivers with a period of around a decade, we know that a decade must be too short a scale to be useful, because much of the variation will be the result of the decadal driver.

If we knew that the decadal drivers such as the NAO and the PDO were perfectly regular (had exactly the same effect every time), a single cycle would be sufficient to allow us to analyse and discount their effects. Unfortunately, they're not, so we need to observe their effects over several cycles - otherwise a decadal cycle can give us a decade of cooling which would only disguise an underlying warming trend.

So, no, you haven't actually justified using a decadal scale, nor can you - and justifying the use of the hottest year on record as a starting point for trend measurement over an inappropriately short period is even less doable. It's statistical nonsense you're arguing, I'm afraid - an example of how it's easy to lie with statistics, but only to someone who doesn't understand them.

Warming is an incontrovertible fact. It's been measured repeatedly, and it's been ongoing for decades. I don't see any point in arguing over it, since the only counter-claim is that the 'evidence' is being fabricated, and that kind of claim has no place in this forum. Equally, I don't intend to waste more time arguing against obvious falsehoods like the idea of a smooth rise in a complex system. You're welcome to argue about the degree of climate sensitivity, regional effects, and appropriate responses, but the Politics forum is not really the place for dealing with claims that require a huge conspiracy amongst the world's scientists.

cordially,
Scofflaw