An editor has resigned after committing the dastardliest of crimes: He helped publish a skeptical paper in a peer-reviewed journal. God-forbid, imagine a paper being reviewed only by people who have some sympathies with your results? It’s unthinkable. We all know that Nature and Science, for example, dutifully send all the papers by alarmists to at least one skeptical reviewer, and since 97% of 77 climate scientists are alarmists, that means the other two scientists who aren’t, are very busy people. (75 of 77 climate scientists “agree” that the world is going to hell because of CO2). And who knows where they found that third skeptic?
Naturally, lots of journal editors have resigned when they’ve realized that, accidentally, they’ve only sent alarmist papers to alarmist reviewers.
As if we needed reminding about how bizarre, unbalanced, and unscientific is the creed of climate. Normally, if egregious mistakes are found, a paper would be retracted. If “normal” mistakes are found, those who found them could publish something called a “reply”. This resignation appears to be a first. Wagner chucked his job without even so much as phoning Spencer or Braswell, which makes you wonder if it was all a bit convenient.
To the editors who are thinking of resigning from peer-reviewed journals, or finishing up as presidents of Science Associations, or winding up their position at a government funded institution, instead of just resigning, why not go out with a bang? You too, could quit, and leave a blockbuster-press-release-for-the-cause, pretending that (insert spurious reason) provoked you into going.
See, it’s really handy — Roy Spencer and William Braswell have a paper out there that’s peer reviewed, but very difficult to answer, Wolfgang Wagner has provided the perfect reply: That paper was so bad that the editor of the journal quit because it was published. See, no one needs to discuss the evidence in it now; they can just pour scorn, and talk about the editor resigning, case closed, it’s obviously a crap paper you know. Brilliant!
*Me. Of course, I’ve got no evidence, or even a hint that Mr Wagner was thinking of resigning anyway, but if he wasn’t and he really did resign over this, it’s all the more pathetic — like a cult victim sacrifice. In which case we ought be feeling sorry for poor old Wagner, who has been got too, excommunicated from his peer group for accidentally letting through an evil paper.
…In other words, the problem I see with the paper by Spencer and Braswell is not that it declared a minority view (which was later unfortunately much exaggerated by the public media) but that it essentially ignored the scientific arguments of its opponents. This latter point was missed in the review process, explaining why I perceive this paper to be fundamentally flawed and therefore wrongly accepted by the journal
But the paper WAS precisely addressing the scientific arguments made by our opponents, and showing why they are wrong! That was the paper’s starting point! We dealt with specifics, numbers, calculations…while our critics only use generalities and talking points. There is no contest, as far as I can see, in this debate. If you have some physics or radiative transfer background, read the evidence we present, the paper we were responding to, and decide for yourself.
Normally, if people think something is wrong with a paper they just write a reply…
If some scientists would like do demonstrate in their own peer-reviewed paper where *anything* we wrote was incorrect, they should submit a paper for publication. Instead, it appears the IPCC gatekeepers have once again put pressure on a journal for daring to publish anything that might hurt the IPCC’s politically immovable position that climate change is almost entirely human-caused. I can see no other explanation for an editor resigning in such a situation.
But the problem with Spencer and Braswell might be the way others are using their paper:
“I would also like to personally protest against how the authors and like-minded climate sceptics have much exaggerated the paper’s conclusions in public statements”
Perhaps the real problem wasn’t the scientific credence this paper lends to skeptics (since there are hundreds of paper on that list) but that this one paper made the mistake of generating headlines around the world.
Unfortunately, their campaign [Spencer and Braswell’s campaign to publicize the availability of their paper] apparently was very successful as witnessed by the over 56,000 downloads of the full paper within only one month after its publication.
Skeptics, this tactic will only work if we allow it to dull the impact of the real meaning of Spencer and Braswell. Go forth and comment, on news articles and other sites, make sure everyone knows that the Global Warming Thought Police are desperate to stop people talking about the evidence.
That paper:
Spencer, R.W.; Braswell, W.D. On the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in Earth’s radiant energy balance. Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 1603-1613.
Thanks to Alec Rawls on WUWT for one of the quotes from the editor.
Disko Troop on WUWT says:
I see this as a more carefully worded resignation than some are seeing. The contradictions are deliberate. He is saying that he did his job, the respected peer reviewers did theirs, but that he is being forced to deny this fact by agencies or persons beyond his control. His response is to resign rather than retract what he sees as a perfectly justifiable publication of Spencers Observations.
The nett result will be another 56,000 people downloading the paper to see what the fuss is about . Team fail.
I’ve heard that the editor of Remote Sensing sent a personal letter of apology to Kevin Trenberth over the publication of the Spencer Braswell paper. It’s not the first resignation inspired by Dr. Trenbreth. Steve Goddard’s site has the letter that Chris Landsea sent to the IPCC several years ago because of the miss characterization of the hurricane frequency and intensity as a result of climate change. http://www.real-science.com/uncategorized/kevin-trenberth-master-ipcc-junk-science He specifically mentions hyping the results in a press conference by people (Trenberth) who did not have the expertise to make such claims. “I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.” Trenberth has become a one man wrecking crew of scientific integrity.
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Wouldn’t you think Phil’s Team might have learned by now not to interfere with the peer review process? Some people just can’t understand the scientific method. Sigh.
20
If the climate alarmists can’t control the popular press, they will try harder to control the scientific press. This was evidenced before in the Climategate emails and here in Australia with the CSIRO re-interpreting research results released by their own scientists to reduce any possibility the IPCC orthodoxy is brought into question.
The peer review process in climate science is operating like our real estate industry where practitioners will always tell you it’s a great time to buy regardless of the evidence to the contrary. The state based REal Estate Institutes only report settled sales, they don’t report how many properties are taken off the market after failing to sell.
Sales prices are tracked and graphed without adjusting for the fact hundreds of thousands of dollars can be spent on renovation, additions and upgrades and thousands of dollars are spent on maintenance, rates, taxes,stamp duties and selling fees by the owners, thus dramatically reducing the actual return on investment. Consequently the real estate industry property market charts always show a higher capital growth rate than is ever actually achieved by the market.
They can also make property slumps disappear. Sound familiar?
Climate scientists are becoming the real estate agents of the science world willing to sell human induced catastrophic climate change no matter what the evidence.
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Beth Cooper @2,
I wonder…might it be that they understand it all only too well and can’t abide it because if they’re honest about it they’re exposed for the charlatans they are?
10
See what David M. hoffer has found – Wagner has a vested interest in maintaining cordial relations with the climate modeling community.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/02/breaking-editor-in-chief-of-remote-sensing-resigns-over-spencer-braswell-paper/#comment-735950
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How much of a break does Wagner need? I know this kind of trauma can induce PTSD so I am sure he will need to curl up with a blankly and a hot water bottle for a while.
But after a suitable period of time to decompress he will search for a new job. He is a Warmist Warrior of the first magnitude and I am guessing that his next gig will not be one where he must wear a paper hat, tin foil hat perhaps.
10
My limited understanding of the journal publication process is that if a “low quality” paper “slips through the process” the Journal will retract the paper. Given it did not happen in this case one wonders if Wagner tried to retract it under pressure from the Team but was stopped by the Publisher of the Journal. Wagner was then faced with the issue of who he stays “loyal” to –his boss or his mates. The boss won !!
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Dear Jo
Off topic but I amnot sure whether you have picked up two articles in The Daily Telegraph (UK) by Bonnie Malkin Page 17.
1 Australia is dropping the terms BC and AD (Anno Domini)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8736932/Anger-in-Australia-as-school-books-write-Christ-out-of-history.html
2 The possible demise of Gillard
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8736859/Julia-Gillard-defiant-as-critics-say-her-time-as-Australian-PM-is-up.html
Please`delete as it’s off topic
Regards
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DirkH @5, thanks for that link. I think David M. Hoffer may well be on to something there. I couldn’t help noticing in the same list of comments that one contributor confidently predicted that the Spencer & Braswell findings will be refuted next week, in a paper by John Abraham, in addition to the Dessler paper. That will be the John Abraham who launched the attack on Christopher Monckton a while back, rather eloquently dismantled by Monckton’s reply. Abraham does seem rather desperate to “take one for the [Hockey] Team”. I fully agree with your point in that thread: that no coherent response to a scientific paper is possible in such a short period, especially if it is to receive genuine peer-review, as opposed to a rubber-stamp (as Dr. Spencer himself says, “This has GOT to be a record turnaround for writing a paper and getting it peer reviewed.”). The other point I take away from the comments thread is that the commenter enthusiastically predicting Dessler’s paper and Abraham’s already “knows” that they will destroy the Spencer & Braswell paper. I doubt if he has read Spencer & Braswell (I haven’t, either), but I also doubt that he has had advanced sight of Dessler, or of Abraham. His simple faith assures him that they will triumph over Spencer. This isn’t science. It’s religion.
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My comment @ 7 ” The boss won ” — I meant the boss possibly faced Wagner down and said something like ” We published the paper and it stays there. If you don’t like it you know what to do “.
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When truth is exposed, those most exposed ruthlessly defend their nonsense with even less commonsense. Witness Due-Liar’s bunch of imbeciles trying to convince the less than your average Joe/Jen to pay more for their energy because it will be good for them.
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Funny that the TITLE of the S & B Paper is …”On the misdiagnosis of surface temperature feedbacks from variations in Earth’s radiant energy balance.”
The owner of the above quote is a gutless coward. Good riddance.
20
If anyone is interested in reading the egregious study, you can download it here [.pdf]. The more people who download it the better, but do so now before it is disappeared.
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“
”
Ah yes, there’s that ‘arm waving again as Monckton would call it. Just love that expression of his. Conjures up images of out-of-control windmills with Henry blades.
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Oops. That was ‘bendy’ blades. (no thanks to IPhone’s auto-‘correct’)
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Hey Joe, is this the Henry Blade you talk about??
The Henry Blade
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Owen Morgan at #9
Well if Prof Abraham has draw the short straw from the Team for this, then what he comes up with will be interesting.
About a month ago I had a fight here on Jo’s blog with a CAGW supporter over Prof Abraham’s widely distributed attack on Chris Monckton. It was amazingly easy to show Prof Abraham’s attack was wrong in science using data sources independent of the both of them. That does not bode well for his effort against Dr Spencer, not least that their paper looks pretty reasonable to me (and for that matter to Dr Curry and Prof Pielke Snr too).
I think the Team is about to score in their own net again.
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I’ll add that Prof Pielke Snr has a new post which excoriates the MSM article by Drs Trenberth, Gleike and Abraham:
If they can’t explain in a blog article where the science is wrong then it is probably because it is pretty right. That is the impression I get from Prof Pielke – who famously lists in great detail all the science papers which show why if there IS something wrong. He would not have held back regarding Dr Spencer’s paper if that were the case. Instead he calls Drs Spencer & Christy “two outstanding scientists”. Hard to better that vote of confidence.
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have just read the most reasonable analysis of this resignation from a comment on WUWT by a “Davidmhoffer” …
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/02/breaking-editor-in-chief-of-remote-sensing-resigns-over-spencer-braswell-paper/#more-46549
It all starts to make perfect sense and makes me feel a little more hopeful.
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Yes, the resignation, rather than retraction, is a weighty argument … I am still out on this question, but the question is significant. Can anyone connect to him for clarification?
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AGW is a religion, ergo criticism is sacrilege.
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Tim Lambert has already debunked the paper 😛
/sarc
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Still trying to ascertain the exact weighting to give the resignation of an editor-in-chief in my CAGW veracity model. I would add more weight to the fudge factor, but it is already dominating the system. Perhaps I shall add it as a new parameter called global
dimmingdumbing… there we go, catastrophic as ever!10
I saw this comment elsewhere and rather liked it.
It came from El Gordo who often comments here:
“The noise overwhelms the AGW signal and if left to continue will destroy the global warming hypothesis.”
It sort of sums up how insane this whole obsession with AGW has become….both literally and figuratively 🙂
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From Roy Spencers “A Primer on Our Claim that Clouds Cause Temperature Change”
Ah but NASA said
Click here
From real world research we see that this can happen without temperature change(or cosmic radiation change):
Click here
More here
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Climate Assassin Garrottes Wagner.
The Clarendon Code is hereby enforced!
As a sign of how far the religion has spread, check the definition of “goad” in no less than the Cambridge dictionary.
Well, have we all had our daily quota of outrage yet?
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so the MSM can report all of the following in the past couple of days, none of it scientifically proven, but when did you hear an AGW climate scientist demand a single retraction???
UN Chief pledges to flight for sinking islands
Mental illness rise linked to climate
Stadium-sized artificial floating volcano aims to fix Earth’s climate
Climate change can trigger asthma
Climate change game developed by Monash students
Seeing Irene as Harbinger of a Change in Climate
Expect to see more hurricanes, tornados, and blizzards as climate changes scientists say
BigPond News
Combet accuses Abbott of climate change racism
another push by the MSM to blame CAGW for EVERYTHING:
2 Sept: Toronto Star: Antonia Zerbisias: Global warming could lead to global warring
That’s what journalist Christian Parenti, 41, argues in his new book Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence.
In the hot zone that girds the Earth near the equator, ethnic violence, religious strife, vicious criminality, piracy on the high seas, even civil war are being fuelled by the rising temperatures that bring drought, famine, fire and floods, Parenti contends…
Says Parenti, “Drugs are a serious problem in Mexico but climate change is exacerbating it by pushing people off the land.”…
Parenti, who has been interested in climate change since his teenage years and boasts a PhD in sociology from the London School of Economics, fears that “conflicts will be even worse if we don’t reduce emissions.”…
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1048806
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Other causes for plankton blooms and the resulting cloud change:
NASA “Hurricanes Help Ocean Deserts to Bloom”
Click here
Science Daily “Volcano Fuels Massive Phytoplankton Bloom”
Click here
From Here
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4 Sept: UK Telegraph: Andrew Porter: Environment policy reforms to add £300 to energy bills
The Prime Minister has been warned that government plans to get people to reduce their bills through efficiency measures are likely to fail.
Mr Cameron’s senior energy adviser pours scorn on claims by Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, that rises in gas and oil prices will be offset by people using less power…
Mr Cameron is said to be “very worried” about the figures in the paper, written by Ben Moxham, his senior energy adviser who was recently brought in to beef up the Prime Minister’s policy unit.
The private note, seen by The Daily Telegraph, is titled “Impact of our energy and climate policies on consumer energy bills”…
The disclosure that Mr Cameron’s own policies are likely to add “significantly” to the burden on householders will anger voters…
Five of the “big six” providers have in recent months announced price rises of as much as 24 per cent…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8741032/Environment-policy-reforms-to-add-300-to-energy-bills.html
pure comedy:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-31/olympics-drops-carbon-offset-plan-to-focus-on-u-k-benefits.html
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DirkH, #5. Good catch. He looks to have discovered the real scenario behind the shadow play.
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Autonomous Mind weighs in on the side of Spencer & Braswell against the Team:
Yes.
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Sigh. Now Prof Stephan Lewandowsky weighs in at the Drum:
Yes.
But not for the reason he thinks. Prof Lewandowsky, if you fight against the data all you get is discredited. Except you’ll also take your beloved ABC with you. My suggestion: read the paper and check the data before you sound off about:
Oh, my aching sides. I especially like his comment about “Ideology, subterfuge, and propaganda.” Oblivious, completely oblivious.
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Bruce,
do you really fight against the data?
data is just data.
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Wagner has taken the stick – I wonder what the carrot may be. The two usually go together.
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Gee Aye at #33
Gee – The data I refer to is the lapse rate to a climate forcing, which S&B analyse in both their 2010 and 2011 papers. In S&B 2010 you can easily see the empirical lapse rate is 6 Mw^-2.K^-1, which is bleedingly obvious in the dataset. I invite you to convert that into a climate sensitivity value. None of the models get nearer than about 2.5 Mw^-2.K^-1 to this real system behaviour.
That is the problem for Prof Lewandowsky: its NASA’s satellite after all, not the Koch Brothers’ satellite.
As I’ve recently said, there is no reason to just take this stuff on faith either. You can very easily do a cross-check yourself. Look at SST’s for example – which are mostly free of UHI contamination. The rise in SST’s in the last 130 years is not compatible with 2XCO2 above 1 C. Or as I’ve analysed myself: the CET dataset of 350 years of temperature measurements fits a climate sensitivity of about 0.7 C, give or take.
Now if the data says 2XCO2 is about 0.7 C, just how can you blame Exxon and Texaco for this? The arithmetic is not what you would call difficult.
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Sorry, typo: WM^-2 etc not Mw^-2. We’ve been spend too much time of energy generation recently.
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S and B 2010 is J. Geophys. Res. 2010: 115?
The following is not to say I agree Lewandowsky, but I think you have misrepresented his argument. I interpreted Lewandowsky’s comments about oil funding to be clearly regarding William Soon.
Lewandowsky cites published refutations of Soon’s work and adds the comments about oil to explain Soon’s publication pattern. He does not refute it with that information.
Just to add my own off topic observation; Soon’s mercury publication would not even stretch the capabilities of the most novice sceptical scientist.
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Thank you Jo, I find this site truly edifying.
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ABC confirms: it was what Milne said about Gillard
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/abc_confirms_it_was_what_milne_said_about_gillard/
Protecting Gillard: ABC sacks Milne
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/protecting_gillard_abc_sacks_milne/
CENSORSHIP ANYONE……….
10
.
Spencer & Bracewell were unsuccessful in getting their paper published at GRL, a journel they have had papers published at in the past. Did Trenberth & team have anything to do with their rejection at GRL this time?
It is more than obvious, Trenberth & team are interfering at Remote Sensing.
What chance now? that Spencer will ever get a paper published at Remote Sensing again in these circumstances?
And what effect will Wagners actions have on other journel’s editors when Spencer tries to present another Paper for publication?
Wagners actions could have the effect of ending Spencers career in as far as publishing is concerned.
[No, it won’t stop Spencer publishing. It may be the death knell of the current “pal reviewed” system though. It’s outdated, corrupted, lacks rigour, and too easy for the establishment to manipulate. It’s time for skeptics to formalise the on-line review method. –JN]
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[Kevin Trenberth]
It sounds like Spencer and Trenberth need to sit down and talk about this paper, so any methodological confusion can be addressed.
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Roy Spencer speaks like a real scientist aware of the complexities and uncertainties in Earth’s climate and how little the science as yet has definitive answers. Thus he doesn’t indulge in glib climate change predictions as do the consensus witchdoctors and soothsayers.
I think I read on Spencer’s blog something to the effect “where is Trenberth’s missing heat?” Pretty sure neither Trenberth nor any other alarmist climate scientist has been able to give a credible answer to that question. The pressure obviously put on the craven Editor-in-Chief, Wagner, to repudiate Spencer and Braswell’s paper is a very clear indication that S & B have scored a telling hit on the leading alarmist’s credibility.
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Gee Aye
Gee – Sorry I should have included a link to SB 2010. Context is here and here.
Regarding Prof Soon’s work…my point exactly. Here is Soon 2005 with his graph correlating TSI with Arctic temperatures (Fig 1). Now if Prof Lewandowsky wished to discuss data not oil money grubbing fiends he might address data such as this, which I might add you can find elsewhere – Prof Soon’s sin was to link these two datasets together. Clearly the work of a Koch Brother’s Exxon inspired mafia.
I will say that I am not familiar with Soon et al 2003 that Prof Lewandowsky cites, and I generally have not read up on paleoclimatology, but the fact that there may have been a century last millenium when temperature was higher than that in the 20th C is not “in flat contradiction to virtually all existing research”. That is incorrect, as you will find by looking at the extensive references to the MWP. “Virtually all” does not in my mind mean “some”. Should you wish some references to the existence of the MWP (other than the famous graph from the first IPCC report) let me know and I’ll hunt some up. I’ve seen many, just not bookmarked them as it hasn’t been something I’ve been much interested in.
Then as I allude at #32, after a lead-in talking at length about the evil dastardly Prof Soon, he starts to talk about Dr Spencer. I feel quite OK about including both aspects in the one post when Prof Lewandowsky did exactly that for what appears to be quite intentional reasons. But you are entirely correct, Prof Lewandowsky in no way accuses Dr Spencer of being an outrageous greasy petrochemical fuelled Exxon secret agent. No, he doesn’t.
I don’t know anything about the mercury paper, though I’m very familiar with general mercury abatement from a practical stand point (effluent treatment, off gas treatment etc). You’ll have to give me a link before I could respond.
Thirty years ago I did some vacation work in a coal lab. Clearly therefore I am part of the vile nasty stinky evil Big Coal secret society that wants to destroy the world. However, should anyone wish to discuss climate data I’d still be pleased to do so.
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Ho hum. A “skeptic” gets a paper published in a dodgy journal. Press release comes out exaggerating paper. Blogosphere goes into overdrive. Fox News gets all excited. “Skeptics” proclaim final nail in AGW coffin. Paper quietly vanishes, because it had no real merit.
Repeat every few weeks.
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Pat: #27
Says it all – he is somewhere to the left of Josef Stalin
10
Following on from Jo’s comment Observer @ 40.
I think the whole idea of prestigious journal and their so called impact factors are past their use by dates with the advent of the Internet and all the associated search engines. To me it no longer matters where a paper is published because anyone is now able to easily access any information. So if S&B had a paper reviewed by reputable people and it was published for example, in the LA Times it does not matter –if it is any good and relevant to those interested to read it , it should be received and valued the same as if it was in Nature.
The people who review the paper and their associated comments ( which both should be available with the paper’s publication ) will be the important matters in the future.
So Jo’s idea is the right one in my view and the way of the future.
Trenberth and the Team with their stupid ranting over this paper have only widened it’s distribution and most of it will not have been from the Journal’s website but from others “on posting” copies of it.
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In his resignation letter, Wagner states “But, as the case presents itself now, the editorial team unintentionally selected three reviewers who probably share some climate sceptic notions of the authors”
Apart from the obvious comment that reviewers sharing the alarmist views of authors has never presented any apparent problem – indeed, it is deemed essential by Jones, Trenberth et al – the proposition that, by random chance the editors may have selected 3 sceptics strongly contradicts the widely circulated claim that 97% of climate scientists agree with CAGW. Surely finding 3 sceptical scientists, and no alarmists, in a random (or any) sample of 3 should be next to impossible if only 3% of qualified scientists are “sceptics”
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Bruce @ 43
“Should you wish some references to the existence of the MWP …….let me know and I’ll hunt some up.”
Bruce. One of the best and most informative I’ve seen is an article by the late John L Daly:
The Hockey Stick: A New Low in Climate Science.
http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm
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Defend your claims, or rather, ad hominum attacks, John Brooks.
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John @ 44. Real science gets published in a dodgy prejudiced magazine. Editor gets rolled because he allowed it. But the news
confirms real science came through unscathed. You should be pleased
John the real truth is now being heard, and if you care about the
health of the planet then you won’t mind when the truth emerges.
INSTEAD OF ALARMIST’s THAT WANT TO CONTROL YOUR MIND, EDUCATION AND
LIFE STYLE and publish junk science. (That’s a fraud you know).
By the way folks there is a Climate Fools Day in October, and in London people will meet outside Westminster to complain about the
Climate Change Act. Maybe we can organize something in Australia too, with the EU Commissioner wanting Australia to join them in a climate trading scheme? Oh – I did say once, they want this because their own economy and trading system is failing. Gillard
thinks still this scheme has successfully proven to reduce CO2.
Whose conning who?
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Looks like Spencer is crushed, going by his latest blog headline:
“A Primer on Our Claim that Clouds Cause Temperature Change
September 3rd, 2011
…and Why Dessler, Trenberth, and the IPCC are Wrong”
Like this bit:
“In a New York Post opinion column on February 26, 2007, Spencer wrote:
Contrary to popular accounts, very few scientists in the world – possibly none – have a sufficiently thorough, “big picture” understanding of the climate system to be relied upon for a prediction of the magnitude of global warming. To the public, we all might seem like experts, but the vast majority of us work on only a small portion of the problem.[26]”
For alarmists and true believers who are ignorant here’s a little resume of why he’s worth listening to on climate science:
“Roy W. Spencer is a climatologist and a Principal Research Scientist for the University of Alabama in Huntsville, as well as the U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite. He has served as senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is known for his satellite-based temperature monitoring work, for which he was awarded the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award.”
“Spencer suggests that global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution and suggests that natural, chaotic variations in low cloud cover may account for most observed warming.[1][2]”
wiki
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G’day Peter
Until the reviewers have been given an opportunity to explain their decision to recommend the paper for publishing, people (read: Wagner) should probably abstain from comments regarding their possible positions on AGW.
Personally I’d have been cautious about recommending such a paper. Given I’m not a climate scientist my ability to judge such papers is limited, but I’d have asked for error bars/confidence intervals and more comprehensive methodology so that the paper could be replicated.
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I wonder whether Andrew Dessler has ever really looked at the long-term records or ever heard of ENSO and La Nina? Judging from this following effort it doesn’t appear so.
More at ICECAP. http://www.icecap.us/
“As a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, I can also tell you from the data that the current heat wave and drought in Texas is so bad that calling it “extreme weather” does not do it justice. July was the single hottest month in the observational record, and the 12 months that ended in July were drier than any corresponding period in the record.
I know that climate change does not cause any specific weather event. But I also know that humans have warmed the climate over the past century, and that this warming has almost certainly made the heat wave and drought more extreme than it would otherwise have been.”
This is the type of “climate scientist” whose advice Gillard takes, on how to destroy Australian industries and the economy. LOL
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There is no such thing as considered reflection and cautious response with the AGW brigade, is there? No sooner does a paper like this get peer reviewed and released than Trenberth and his ilk go into overdrive, clamouring about trying to refute it before the ink is dry, so desperate to disparage it by degrading and deriding the paper itself with sweeping generalizations, denigrating the reputations of their fellow scientists (who may disagree with their beliefs but whose qualifications are without doubt the equal of their own and worthy of respect even if they may ultimately disagree with their conclusions), scrambling to hurry out a refuting paper to counter it before it can get any semblance of thought and consideration could possibly be enacted. It’s as a study in the alarmists psychology in their responses to anything contradicting their position that really defines this episode for me, even over and above the merits of the paper, which others are more qualified than I to describe. I smell panic and fear, and it’s not because we’re all going to burn to a crisp, of that I am convinced.
10
When one has spent thirty or more years (an entire career)postulating a single hypothesis and seeing a strong correlation to prove your point then to find you may have been (or are) in error it would take some getting used to. These guys have been the heroes of the global warming movement and their pronouncements were gospel but now there is some doubt. I can understand why they are furious but by their actions they show they are far from being great scientists. The opposite in fact.
What concerns me is the amount of “facts” that have been taught to children and others that are no longer facts. I received a glossy booklet from the Australian Academy of Science as a result of asking Wayne Swan how he could justify a CO2 tax. It is full of AGW BS reflecting the projections of the 2007 IPCC AR4. Graphs with exaggerated y-axis to show unprecedented everything and the result of the magic 2 degree limit to global warming. I have attempted to give them the latest data so they can correct the publication but so far to no avail. Propaganda trumps mere detail obviously. No wonder the government sees AGW as a great golden goose with scientific advice such as this. I wonder do these scientists give Gillard a heads up on the Spencer paper or the results of the CLOUD experiment? I guess not.
10
Bruce @43
well not sure where to start with Soon. Poorly written documents, contradict all sorts of logic without adding anything meaningful to the body of knowledge. But that is too easy to write. You will find some stuff in the blogsphere supporting his conclusions and most against, so use your judgement.
My problem looking at Lewandowsky’s piece is that, as a sceptic, many not accepting AGW will demonise anyone agreeing with someone who does not agree with them even if it means putting my own knowledge aside. In all honesty Lewandowsky is more right than wrong with the criticism of some of the so called sceptical science. Just because I disagree with him on other points and points central to this blog does not stop me from agreeing with him on other points. I see no evidence that crap science gets published anywhere other than in crap journals
There is poorly considered, vexatious and self interested argument on both sides of this debate not because of right or wrong but because the debate is bad.
Anyway…
10
Its just like Scooby Doo! At the start of each episode there is some new monster with apparent superhuman powers (thats the new “skeptic” paper). By the end of the episode, it turns out the monster was just some middle aged bloke with a monster suit on – but don’t worry, it kept the kiddies who want to believe in monsters (i.e. “skeptics”) happy.
And Lawrie@55, do you really think there is doubt? Back in 1989, climate scientists said it would get hotter, and 20 years later, its hotter. There were no organised “skeptics” in 1989, so we don’t have a prediction from them. Each decade is warmer than the last – and I reckon the odds favour this decade being hotter again.
Winston@54: Of course climate scientists rubbish any new attempt to confuse and befuddle. They are the older kids watching Scooby who tell the younger kids not to worry – its just some bloke dressed in a monster suit.
Annabelle@49:
I’m sorry, but can you explain “ad hominum” to me? I though I understood it, but obviously there are subtle nuances which are difficult to grasp.
10
Put them all in jail for fraud!
Brookes..
NO.. just criminal sharletons (Maurice Strong etc.) hell bent on pushing there anti development, anti human agenda to reduce world population. And guess what..the suckers (media Govts) fell for it..yes (and Brookes).
10
Arguing science is complete waste of time! STOP the fraud! So how are YOU going to do it! Pigs have wings!
10
[Put them all in jail for fraud!
Brookes..]
Why should people be jailed for their opinions?
10
some classic quotes:
5 Sept: News.com.au: AAP: Climate modelling is improving – experts
AS questions continue to be raised about the science of climate change three experts have explained how modelling helps to predict what temperature rises will do to the planet.
Dave Griggs, from the Monash Sustainability Institute, says one of the best ways to sum up uncertainty over modelling was former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s famous statement about “known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns”.
“There are things in the climate system, because of the way our climate models show us, that we know could happen … but we’re not yet good enough to say this is going to happen in 20 years from now,” Prof Griggs said on Monday during an online briefing organised by the Australian Science Media Centre.
Climate models were better at predicting some things than others, largely due to the spatial scale involved, he said…
The Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research’s John Church says virtually all climate data is shared among scientists worldwide…
Prof Griggs agrees. Twenty years on from the first climate models the observations have started to prove predictions correct, he said.
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/climate-modelling-is-improving-experts/story-e6frfku0-1226129848473
10
a plea for more money…
5 Sept: Compter World: Tim Lohman: Climate science chewing up supercomputing resources
‘Infinite’ demand for supercomputing resources could one day threaten the quality of Australia’s climate change science
Demand for supercomputer access is not only coming from the climate science community. Australia’s bid for the $2.1 billion Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope is a major driver behind the creation of the Pawsey high performance computing centre…
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/399723/climate_science_chewing_up_supercomputing_resources/#closeme
18 May: Computer World: Tim Lohman: CSIRO sourcing hardware for Pawsey SKA supercomputing environment
The commitment formed part of a record $3 billion in the 2011/2012 budget to keep CSIRO going over the next four years…
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/386913/csiro_sourcing_hardware_pawsey_ska_supercomputing_environment/
10
Why should people be jailed for their opinions? I was referring to the CARBON SCAMSTERS that started this whole thing in the seventies and eighties. AND GORE! Who profits from it.
10
John
Comparing Spencer to Scooby Doo cartoons has got to be a new low in warmist denigration of an eminent scientist. Even if their paper was flawed, which you have yet to show mind you, and even if their contentions are diametrically opposite to reality, you have managed to be so insulting beyond the pale. It does you absolutely no credit to pursue this line of attack as it merely vindicates that the mature and sensible people are on the other side of the fence to yourself.
Any objective person reading this blog thread would be readily persuaded to entertain the skeptical arguments when confronted with such simplistic, irrelevant malarkey as you just spouted @57. I believe it shows that you actually don’t care, John, whether Spencer’s paper is true or not. You don’t even care whether AGW is a fact or a fiction. You’re just enjoying screwing the rest of us for the sake of exercising your polemicist zeal. It’s about the desire to pontificate, to aggrandize yourself as some paragon of virtue in an evil world of Neanderthals and troglodytes.
It must be truly dreadful to be so reactionary and regressive, I don’t know whether or not to feel pity for you or sorrow for such a misguided intellect. The truth will win out, and I don’t believe history will be kind to you, John.
10
u have to pay $19.95 to read the rest of Manne’s diatribe!
3 Sept: SMH: Robert Manne: The truth is out there
The most important fact is that there is a consensual view among qualified scientists about the cause of climate change. This consensus provided the basis for the four reports of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
In the real world, scientists accepting the climate consensus view outnumber denialists by more than 99 to one…
This is an edited extract from Robert Manne’s Quarterly Essay, Bad News: Murdoch’s Australian and the Shaping of the Nation (Black Inc, $19.95).
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-truth-is-out-there-20110902-1jq1z.html
10
John Brookes:
September 5th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
let me just correct that for you John so that it is truly accurate.
10
And I asked a simple question. Why should anyone ever be jailed for their opinions?
10
Not to be outdone — John Brookes begins to revel in what he imagines is the complete destruction of Spencer and Braswell. Smoke and fire are seen emanating from his nostrils, so great is his passion to see all enemies of the Goracle put in their place.
Help me here, John. I can’t figure out whether you have infinite impedance between your ears or a short circuit. Would you be willing to let some qualified electrical engineer take measurements so we can all know which it is? 😉
Seriously, this one is shallow, pointless and far below even your usual low standard of commentary.
10
Tristan proposes
It may surprise him when I say yes, bring it on. But let it be done publically so everyone can see what happens. That would be the fair and equitable way for all concerned.
Should this actually happen I expect that Spencer will mop the floor with Trenberth.
I also suspect that nitpicker Trenberth will never agree to such a meeting.
10
I’m serious guys. This is really tiresome. Why argue about each paper?
If you have someone who continually cries “wolf”, do you go and hunt for the wolf each time? No, after a while you just assume its another false alarm.
So whether its clouds, or cosmic rays, or a new calculation of tsi, or undersea volcanoes, or Salby, or the 2nd law of thermodynamics, or Spencer & Braswell, or Lindzen & Choi, or the fairies at the bottom of the garden, there is absolutely no point even reading them. It will turn out to be another false alarm. If you are keen, just wait for a sensible review from Real Climate etc.
Its like crackpot cancer cures and cars that run on water, just rubbish.
10
I don’t give rats a%# that this guy quit. It means nothing to me, I have never heard of him before. To me he’s a nobody who quit his job, happens every day. And over here in America it is getting zero airtime from the news outlets. No public traction.
I’m not sure who cares about this guy quitting his job but as far as I can tell just about no one.
Cheers
10
I didn’t suggest it as some sort of competition, the methods aren’t specific enough to replicate the experiment so Spencer should demonstrate how he did it. It’d clear up any confusion between he and Trenberth.
10
Pat @65,
Yes, it’s really bad news that someone has the nerve to challenge the party line.
The edited (free) version of Manne’s little imaginary world ends with this:
So, “We know what’s best for you and you have no choice but to follow the road we dictate.” Say what?
Thank God for Rupert Murdock! Trust not the experts. Their boat needs rocking. No! It needs to be sunk.
10
Tristan,
Only Trenberth is confused if anyone is. He has a vested interest in marginalizing Dr. Spencer. He would like a way to make Spencer a complete fool if he could.
Now just why is Spencer singled out for attack so often? You can’t be as innocent as you pretend. But even if you are, I’ve been around a long time and I know human nature quite well. No one spends time attacking someone who doesn’t represent a threat — no one.
You draw your own silly conclusions if you want to. But I’ll go with reality. Spencer threatens Trenberth.
I repeat my earlier suspicion. Trenberth will never even suggest a face to face meeting with Spencer, much less do it.
10
[…] than the observed data from satellites. Basically a smudge by association…Jo Anne Nova has a detailed article on this. Apparently this particular news piece has gone super viral – perhaps not exactly what the […]
10
Wagner says: “But, as the case presents itself now, the editorial team unintentionally selected three reviewers who probably share some climate sceptic notions of the authors”
So here he is saying that the three reviewers he chose or accepted are corrupt or incompetent or both! but only “probably”. So he is saying he doesn’t know them or their positions or credibility or ethical-ness.
“They” are against him. Why? Because “they” disagree, or might disagree, or someone, somewhere, thought that “they” had disagreed with someone else that Wagner or his friends thought well of.
I have had the sickening feeling when I realised that, in my honesty, I just compromised my salary and ability to get another job. I abased myself and still cringe about it. I feel for Wagner. He lies awake in a sudden sweat, wishing the whole thing had never happened and wondering when it will go away.
10
John B @70.
You are missing the point on this one John. The issue is not about sceptics arguing about another alarmist paper –it is the activities of Trenberth and co. If the supposed apology by Wagner to Trenberth is correct then huge pressure was obviously put on Wagner by the Team. Now we have Trenberth et al attempting a character assassination of Dr Spencer and Dr Christy in “the Daily Climate” ( it would therefore appear that Real Climate did not want anything to do with this little hissy fit ).
I think Roy @ 74 has hit the nail on the head on this issue.
10
Ho hum. The IPCC, the “Gold Standard”, is about 30% non peer reviewed and thoroughly discredited by its various conflicts of interest and “gates” ad nauseum, making it beyond dodgy. Press releases that are never questioned and dutifully published by the lame stream media are released by a self serving group of scientists desperate to avoid being exposed for the criminals they are. Propaganda sites like desmogblog go into overdrive and screen out any dissenting opinion that might expose the fraud. Skeptics have scored another nail in the coffin and will continue to pound nails into the coffin until this CAGW scam is finally destroyed. More and more papers will continue to be published debunking and falsifying this humongous fraud until the scam finally collapses, because there never was a problem to begin with.
10
Scooby Doo? Has your cheese slipped off your cracker, John? The only non existent monster is CAGW. We were told in 1988 by Hansen that we would all be frying by now but there has been no statistically observable increase in temperatures. Where is it John, where is the missing heat? How can you be so obtuse?
10
@ John Brooks 70
John, I have always known you to be a fool and I realized some time ago that you were incapable of an independent thought but you have plumbed new lows with your comments at 70. So, no matter what paper comes out and no matter how convincingly it destroys the CAGW hypothesis you, John, are staying on board the SS Global Warming and you are going to take the ride down?
What an absolute stooge you are, John!
10
Re Spencer & Braswell:
It’s always easy to know which papers are the most threatening.
The Orchestre de la Change Climatique rises on cue to a truly cacaphonic triple fortissimo climax. Problem is, the audience rushes to the doors, hands over ears. They ain’t listenin’ no more.
10
John @70
Talk about opening your mouth just to change feet …
“just wait for a sensible review from Real Climate etc”
The high priests of the CAGW religion are not going to do anything except defend their computer models that have been found to be wrong time and again. Not only this but they have consistently sensored any “sacrilegious” comments that go against their dogma. Hardly the behaviour of anyone who actually willing to debate the issue.
Adam Smith @67
No-one should be jailed for their opinions, but lying so as to get money under false pretences is fraud and that is an action that should be punished to the full extent of the law.
10
Gee Aye at #56
Gee – you were doing well, being relatively polite and willing to enter civilized discussion.
But you have now fallen to an ad hominem attack on Prof Soon when I gave you an opportunity to discuss the science given in three of his papers, one cited by Prof Lewandowsky (ie Soon et al 2003), one which I cited which was the apparent subject of unjustified criticism by Prof Abraham (and I gave a link to this effect), and one which you mentioned for which I don’t have the citation (and which I asked you to provide).
Your answer was as follows:
You chose to give no citation and no link to justify this ambit sliming. You chose not to address the scientific content, particularly the correlation between Arctic temperature and TSI, or the existence or otherwise of a MWP warmer than the 20th Century.
You therefore have stooped to the ad hominem level practiced with such venom by so many on your side of the debate sir. This does not support your apparent desire to discuss the science, an opportunity which I offered to you.
Should you wish to debate the actual science contained in those papers I will of course be pleased to do so. But I have little time for hypocrites who mouth off against scientists without providing evidence.
10
Hi Bruce,
a lack of citation does not equate with ad hominem and I did not attack him. Citing the source (which is poorly written)is not actually a citation when making a claim about the source. The source is the source is the source. Also, as you had read the ABC unleashed article I naturally assumed that you noted the publication (regarding mercury) that I referred to (about which I was also clear about which paper I referred to) is contained in a link in the article. The Wall Street Journal has 2 weeks free subscription.
My side of the debate is the sceptical side. My side of the debate is the open minded side (this actually follows from being a sceptic). It is hard to say that without sounding haughty but I have a feeling I need to clarify this. If I think someone talks nonsense and I agree with their intent, their ideology and their previous body of work, I’ll still call it nonsense.
10
[…] own Joanne Nova chimes in: How to go out with a bang — score points for censorship — a poseur for honor! “…Go forth and comment, on news articles and other sites, make sure everyone knows that […]
10
Hey Joanne
Did he “go out with a bang”; or with this track by a relative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Jw8MuZxo?
Alice
10
The insidious implication of this statement is that skeptics are not scientifically objective when they review papers, but alarmists are. Nice!
Goebels would be proud.
10
Hi Bruce O’Newcastle
It took you that long to sort G.Aye out??
10
Gee whizz it took all of 33 posts before the first wart covered head of a troll first appeared but alas once again the content of the paper in question was avoided like the plague. Instead of debating the paper the first troll has lead Bruce a merry dance through the fields of Big Oil and Willie Soon, at this point i gave up reading the trollisms.
This initial trolliology gave JB the gumption to pipe up with a new line of defence by claiming the journal was dodgy ergo the paper is dodgy and to lay claim to his credentials in this area he then proceeded to compare the paper to a scooby doo cartoon. Finally in what i found to be a very touching moment JB fortified his faith by declaring that no paper neither past, present nor future could convince him that the end of the world is not nigh.
I have devised and experiment, we could put a dummy load in one ear and shout into the other and if we can here the pea rattle around then we know it is a short curcuit if not then it must be an open circuit.
10
[…] How to go out with a bang — score points for censorship — a poseur for honor! […]
10
Well that’s not what I’ve observed on the other side of the climate fence.
Innocent of what? I just try to avoid making statements I can’t back up. From what I’ve observed both groups consider the other a threat. Those who accept AGW think that Spencer et al are threatening their attempt to thwart global disaster. Those who don’t accept AGW think that Trenberth et al are threatening the global economy in a time of financial instability.
You’ll go with your reality and I’ll go with mine, that’s all we can do after all.
10
Crakar
Why do you use the term ‘troll’ to describe someone who accepts AGW?
A troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
There are trolls on all sides of this forum. Liberal trolls, conservative trolls, AGW accepting trolls, AGW rejecting trolls. Ain’t that the way it goes.
10
Crakar24 at #89
You may wish to look at my post #85 from this thread. You might find that the resolute and inestimable Maxine has been urgently elsewhere since. She’s done a Sir Robin.
There is a test you can use on people in this area of interest. The genuine ones are willing to discuss the science and policies, and provide reasoned argument, taking the time and effort to add citations to defend their positions. This is honorable. And there are those who commit slander or unjustified criticism, who refuse to give evidence for their assertions. Who have endless excuses for not discussing the science or conclusions derived from the data. These are the religious soldiers of the progressive-CAGW ideology. They cannot defend their indefensible arguments because they are based on unsupported faith.
I have no problem with people having faith, so long as they don’t forcefully impose their idea of tithes on me.
Those who are newly interested in this area are the ones who quietly read the arguments of both sides, and read the papers and links provided. Then they make their decisions. We’ve been seeing this for some years now, moreso since Climategate. The public have not been kind to the people I’ve described here. Goes to show you can’t fool science, in the end, nor can you fool the people forever.
10
Tristan at #91
Not so sir. A true troll is green, regenerates and has 6+6HD. Or some say that when confronted with the Sun and all its works they turn to stone. Quite a danger – according to this reference if this happens you should run away, because the isotopes so generated are likely to be highly radioactive.
10
Hi Bruce et al,
well you all have opinions but one factor in them that stands out as a lesson to me is that you require your debates to be conducted according your own particular rules. I can see that Bruce got frustrated and maybe grumpy as indicated by the verbiage when I didn’t respond in accordance to specifications. I’m not particularly flexible in this regard either so will continue being myself while trying to respect how others do things. To that end I’ll try to avoid making off topic observations (post 37) when I don’t have the time available to support them.
The rest of that post was making a pedantic point, but I don’t go back on it.
10
Tristan,
“aint that the way it goes?”……………no not really. The topic for discussion here is that we have a paper by Spencer and braswell which shows the sensitivity to CO2 imagined by the IPCC to be in error by orders of magnitude, this paper was submitted for publication. The reviewers felt the paper was worthy of publication and so it was published. However the editor felt that this sceptical paper should not have been allowed to be published because………wait for it………..the three reviewers did not act in a ethical manner, apparently the only reason why they gave it a favourable review is because the paper supported their sceptical views.
Now let me ask you tristan what has big oil, willie soon, scooby doo and faith got to do with this topic? Where these posts made by JB and that other poster intended to incite an emoyional response by others?, where they off topic? were they inflamatory? Of course the answer is yes to all now what was your description of a troll again?
10
Haha, you’re awesome Bruce.
Trolls AKA The Other Reason to Remember your Torch
10
Gee Aye at #94
You were giving plenty of references and were happily discussing the science of DDT a couple threads ago. Why so reluctant now? Have I hit a nerve?
I’m ready to talk about the content of Prof Soon’s papers, or Prof Abraham’s or anyones, if you are willing. If you are not I can only conclude is because you don’t want to. Is it threatening? Could it be that a poor scientist who once took oil money might actually have done some science? (But I ask myself did he inhale? Were there oil stains on the blue dress?)
You can’t have it both ways. Your arguments about DDT are reasonable, although I don’t agree with everything you provided. On the other hand you flee from discussion of the science of global warming, and do not provide links to support your statements whence you were so happy to do so a few days ago in support of your own thesis on DDT. Ante up!
10
Crakar, as far as I can see, JB’s posts are just as mocking and derisive as those of his opponents. Both sides are smarmy, inflammatory, make unsupportable claims and generally seem to enjoy conflict.
10
Hi Bruce O N
“”You can’t have it both ways. Your arguments about DDT are reasonable, although I don’t agree with everything you provided. On the other hand you flee from discussion of the science of global warming, and do not provide links to support your statements whence you were so happy to do so a few days ago in support of your own thesis on DDT. Ante up!””
I noticed the other day that he seemed more at home with biology than AGW but I still think he’s a lawyer (SAT) or Philosphy student or maybe doing a PHd in Climate Change Ethics like our little miss Latter from WA.
10
I have been following this issue since it started and also commented on WUWT (same ID).
I have revised my thinking to the following.
Among sceptics:
We get a new case study concerning the dirty tactics of “The Team”.
We will get a mild increase in the number of sceptics.
Among the alarmists:
They will get smug satisfaction to yet again smear a prominent sceptic scientist i.e. Spencer.
Journals will be very hesitant to publish peer review by sceptics. Sceptical papers will now find it more difficult to get published. <- This concerns me greatly.
Among the general community:
As the mass media is generally mildly to very pro alarmist, Spencer and Braswell will not get a fair say, and will lose in the court of public opinion. The couch potato will continue to support the alarmist mantra and continue to assume automatic suspicion of climate sceptics.
Overall
This will unfortunately be another victory for the mud slinging Team. But at least their feathers will have been ruffled as more and more people who do their own digging will realise that something smells rotten in climate science.
Cheers
10
Quite correct, Tristan, my posts are (sometimes) mocking and derisory.
As for me not accepting evidence against AGW, that is true to a point, and the reason for that, as I said above, is because too many times “skeptics” evidence turns out to be wrong.
What will make me and other AGW adherents lose our “faith”? Well, I can’t speak for all of the rest of us, but for me, it will take a persistent and significant departure between AGW predictions and reality. Thus far, no such thing has emerged.
And Crakar, I was not off topic. The topic was yet another in a long line of “skeptic” papers. All I did was take an overview of the phenomenon of “skeptic” papers, rather than try and address the details particular to the current one.
10
Re 101
Hi Mr Brookes
You seem convinced AGW is real and serious. I likewise believe AGW is almost certainly real, but I am not yet convinced how serious it is.
On the specific nature of this topic what do you actually find wrong in Spencer’s peer reviewed paper? Climate moderates Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Senior and Roger Pielke Jr claim there is little wrong with it?
How do you reconcile that there are now around 900 peer reviewed scientific papers that do not support the alarmist case of AGW?
Cheers
10
Hi Ravensclaw:
I’m not competent to comment on Spencer’s paper. Nor are most people on this and other blogs. For the most part, both their and my comments are sound and fury signifying nothing. If there really is something important in Spencer’s paper, it will come out over time, as people with sufficient understanding come to grips with it. Based on historical precedent, I think it more likely that there is nothing in it, and it will gradually fade away.
As for AGW being serious, I hope it is not too serious, because future generations will have to cope with the consequences. And that is even if we do something about it now. If we don’t, it will be worse.
As for those 900 papers, I suspect that this is a silly list.
10
Hi Mr Brookes
Thank you for the reply
I too am not a scientist, so it would almost always be from very difficult to impossible for me to comment on each paper.
But what isn’t so hard to observe is whether there is transparency and a level playing field; and whether the debate on someone’s peer reviewed paper is done in the spirit of a scientific discussion among peers and a debate about the evidence relating to the paper, or if the discussion degenerates.
If Spencer and Braswell’s peer reviewed paper is so bad, an editor does not to resign, Spencer does not need to be vilified with fabrications or smears. There is an agreed upon method to discuss and validate/repudiate the science.
I have not once seen Spencer or Braswell smear other climate scientists. Plenty has been done against them (especially Spencer) though.
Cheers
10
John Brookes at 104
Try this for a “silly list” …
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
Took me 5 minutes to find using this site (JoanneNova > Index > Peer reviewed papers). Typical lazy opinion without checking facts.
10
Nova says:
Gee I am so surprised to find that once again Nova’s assumption is incorrect.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2011GL049236.shtml
10
JohnB you are so lucky I’m not a journalist and you’re not an important person in the AGW saga.
BREKING NEWS
John Brookes comes clean on his AGW feelings, slams alarmism and supports Spencer & Breswells landmark paper. Says future generations have nothing to fear from AGW
JOHN BROOKES…..#104
🙂 🙂
10
Blimey has apparently not yet noticed that the peer-reviewed literature is full of papers that contradict each other. Either that, or he thinks everyone should just accept the ones he likes and dismiss the ones he doesn’t.
I think that’s going to be a tough sell, Blimey.
I don’t think Blimey has a clue about what peer review actually accomplishes or why it is used.
I think I’ll side with Francis Bacon and let the World itself decide. So far, skepticism is way ahead, as the predictive skill of the warmist models falls farther below zero every year.
10
John Brookes @104:
Why don’t you try educating yourself, instead of proudly displaying your ignorance?
Are you this helpless when you are buying a car?
Inquiring minds really want to know.
10
Find me a skeptic prediction? Or feel free to predict something yourself, regarding temperature or sea level.
10
The climate is a chaotic, non linear system which is why it is unpredictable. Skeptics do not need to make predictions, warmest do. The burden of proof is on the proponents of the hypothesis. Skeptics merely need to show that that the hypothesis is falsified. We have done that.
NOT ONE FORECAST MADE BY THE PROPONENTS OF CAGW HAS COME TO PASS; ALL HAVE BEEN AN EPIC FAIL!
Care to cite one, mate?
10
So, your position is: Because skeptics can’t predict the climate, we should accept the warmists’ predictions, which have been uniformly falsified (as Eddy notes)?
I suggest a remedial course in logic.
****************************
Skeptics tend to believe that the climate is a chaotic system that can’t be predicted beyond a short time horizon (longer than the weather, but the same idea). One would have to include in the skeptic camp Edward Lorenz, who initiated the whole field of non-linear computer climate modeling.
Lorenz determined that the climate was a chaotic system (he invented the field of chaos theory while doing it), and was intrinsically unpredictable because of the — as he put it — “sensitivity to initial conditions”: So sensitive, in fact, that it is impossible to ever measure the state of the atmosphere and climate accurately enough to use as a starting point for any model, even if the model were perfect. He coined the term “butterfly effect” to illustrate this.
Ironically, he was awarded the Kyoto Prize for his work, demonstrating that there are those in Kyoto who still understand basic science (unlike the warmists on this blog, who only seem to understand obsequious acceptance of authority).
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One problem with putting your paper on the ‘net is that everyone gets to look at your arguments in detail. Spencer and Braswell have done this, and so far no one can find anything wrong with their arguments or data (as Jo has noted). (One reason for the over-the-top response by the warmists may be that they don’t control the data that Spencer and Braswell use to falsify the climate models.)
Dressler, whose paper you reverently reference, has also put it on the ‘web, but the results are not so good. His basic argument, which physicist Lubos Motl analyzes here is based on avoiding the fact that clouds reflect light back to space, which therefore never gets to participate in warming the Earth. That such a bizarre omission passed peer review is a sad commentary on the degree to which peer review has been corrupted (as is also seen in the Climategate emails).
(He does argue that clouds don’t store heat, which I think is uncontroversial.)
And Dressler’s talking point claim that “Observations are not in disagreement with models” apparently means that some models (the ones only predicting 1 or 2 deg warming for a doubling of CO2 are only wrong by 50%. (The more alarmist models are off by much more.) This does not mean that they are wrong according to some other theory — they are wrong in that they fail to reproduce the measured data. Motl produces Dressler’s own graph to show this.
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Tristan @91,
Actually what I and many others here think about Trenberth is that he’s dishonest.
But I have to say I respect him more than I respect you. Trenberth knows what he wants and goes after it with considerable passion. I have yet to figure out what you want, much less have I seen the slightest sign of passion about it. You might want to consider commenting under the nom de plume, Wimpy.
And FYI: our objection to the warming scare has nothing to do with the current financial instability. We were opposed long before the bottom fell out from under everyone. If you had taken a good look around this site as I suggested you would realize that we think AGW is a fraud, driven not by science but used as a hammer to accomplish political objectives.
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Sure, and that also goes for any competing hypotheses that have been employed by those with different views.
Sea level rise? Speaking of which, what’s your hypothesis for why sea levels are rising Eddy?
No Bob, that is not my position.
Good. That’s a falsifiable position. That’s all I want from people.
Haha. You and I respect different things Roy, and that’s cool.
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In answer to Tristan @ 111.
This prediction by a retired engineer using a laptop and a spread was close to the mark — better than all these “magical” models from the other side.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/01/laptop-beats-met-supercomputer-soi-index-scores-a-win/
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Ross
Seems like a good call, regarding ENSO, although it didn’t save 2010 from being the hottest year on record, 2011 is a fair bit cooler in terms of surface/air temps so far.
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@BobC, let’s take a look at the peer-reviewed climate science Lubos Motl produces …
[insert blank page]
… oh, that’s right, he’s only good for blogging apparently.
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Science progresses by means of logic and empiricism, Blimey — and Dressler’s paper fails on both counts as Motl easily shows using Dressler’s own data. You seem to be impressed only by authority. Perhaps you are unable to evaluate anything else?
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When I wrote, “Care to cite one, mate?” I was referring to a prediction made by a climate forecast made by a model that ever came to pass. I will give you a hint: you cannot cite one because there isn’t one.
Why are sea levels rising? When we go into an ice age more water accumulates on land in the form of snow which compacts into glaciers. As the ice accumulates sea levels drop. I am sure you heard of the land bridge which existed 15,000 years ago and enabled humans to migrate from Asia through Alaska and into North America? During an interglacial or the termination of an ice age the ice melts and sea levels rise. Sea levels rise until the start of the next ice age or the end of the interglacial. So, sea levels are supposed to be rising. The question is: if temperatures are rising why aren’t sea levels rising at an accelerated pace? The little ice age ended in approximately 1850 and a lot of CO2 has been added to the atmosphere since. Yet, no increase in the rate at which seal levels are rising, hmmm! BTW, we are approximately 13,000 years into the holocene interglacial. Interglacials average 10,000 to 15,000 years, So, we could be going into an ice age now or it may be a couple of thousand years from now or never, nobody knows for sure.
True, a hypothesis cannot be “proven” but it can be falsified. If science was “settled” the world would be flat, the sound barrier would remain unbroken and man never would have set foot on the moon. A theory does not necessarily have to compete with other theories as it may be the only one. In fact, I am unaware of any climate theory competing with the IPCC’s which, if accepted as a law of science, would require humans to live a stone age lifestyle. Reducing CO2 emissions to prehistoric levels would only shave a fraction of a degree from a theoretical four degree rise in temperatures. All pain for no gain and the catastrophists wonder why Joe Six Pack is hesitant to jump on board with the IPCC and come in for the big loss?
Fact: The weather is a chaotic, non linear system. If it were not then your three day forecast could be replaced by a one year forecast. All you want from people is a falsifiable position? Perhaps you should set your goals a little higher? Besides, you already have a falsifiable position because you are a proponent of a falsified hypothesis!
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Tristan:
September 7th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
Ross
Seems like a good call, regarding ENSO, although it didn’t save 2010 from being the hottest year on record, 2011 is a fair bit cooler in terms of surface/air temps so far.
2010 was the hottest years using Jim Hansen’s “massaged to fit the theory” data. Have you ever wondered why he almost always adjusts the numbers to show an increase in recent warming and a decrease in past warming? Gee, what a coincidence! When Hansen finally gets his numbers “right” just give me a call and ask for Mr. Blue. That will be me holding my breath!
@ Blimey
Darn, BobC [ed] has already administered the intellectual spanking you seem to always be craving! Are you an intellectual sadomasochist or are you just a plain, old fashioned idiot?
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You still seem to be assuming the fallacy that an hypothesis can’t be proven wrong unless an improved hypothesis takes its place. The fact that Eddy hasn’t proposed an hypothesis about sea levels is irrelevant to the fact that the AGW hypothesis predicting sea level rise to be accelerating has been falsified by the data (LINK).
It’s not strictly falsifiable, since I haven’t specified what a “short time horizon” is. Frankly, I don’t know — obviously I can say that this winter will be colder than last summer, but beyond that, predictions have been dodgy — except for those based on solar activity, which tend to be OK for the next solar cycle. My opinion is that we will be able to predict climate for just as long as we can predict solar activity.
For a given time horizon, however, the “Unpredictable due to Chaos” hypothesis could be falsified by simply exhibiting a model that does indeed predict climate. Currently, the IPCC is claiming a prediction time of ~100 years. Actual testing, however, shows it’s more like 1 – 2 years.
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Actually, testing of GCM’s have shown that, over a several year period, they are just as accurate as simply projecting the linear trend — which often has some predictive skill over several years (as does random guesses).
There are periods in the proxy climate records where a linear trend would have been accurate for hundreds of years — look at the temperature rise between 800 and 1000 AD in NOAA’s GISP2 Greenland ice core . Compare it to the recent rise.
The claim that the recent rise can only be explained by anthropogenic influence — based on models that can’t reproduce the Medieval Warm Period — is obviously bunk. It was to get rid of inconvenient evidence of past climate changes like shown in this ice core (Full record over the Holocene ) that the “Hockey Stick” graph was conjured up. (Now, that really is “Climate Change Denial”.)
And, before someone recycles the tired claim that “this record is only the temperature in Greenland, not the World’s temperature”, note that this ice core (and others, as well as current Greenland records) falsify the AGW-based claim that “Greenland is melting at an unprecedented rate”.
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So the sea levels are rising because the ice is melting, is the ice melting because the earth is warming?
There are lots of competing hypotheses. Hypotheses are competing if they are mutually exclusive. Your hypothesis is something like ‘sea levels rise during the interglacial period because the ice slowly melts’. Another example found on these boards is ‘sea levels rise and fall due to solar variation’. Both hypotheses differ from the IPCC’s for the rise in sea level.
3-day weather forecast =/= global climate predictions usually often only discernable on a scale of decades.
So has Hansen modified HadCrut, GISS, NOAA or all three?
No, I just want people to make falsifiable predictions if they have alternate hypotheses. Demonstrating that the hypothesis ‘The earth is warming’ is wrong is a different game (just as pertinent though!).
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Funny how you keep mixing the two “games” together, until called on it.
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@ BobC 123 and 124 [ed note BobC is not Bob Carter] ED
Thank you for your intelligent, cogent and [prescient thoughts.] ED
Tristan can’t seem to comprehend that sea levels are supposed to be rising! I have yet to see him explain the trend. The data shows no acceleration in the rate at which sea level is rising. If the Earth was warming then the ice would melt faster and there would be an acceleration in the rate at which sea levels rise. Another falsification of the CAGW hypothesis!
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Gosh, you’re just completely innocent of any knowledge about this controversy, right? Just arrived from Mars, perhaps?
Pretended ignorance is not a particularly effective Troll technique, as it allows us to give the Lurkers links to educate themselves.
Try reading this — or just google “falsifying climate data”.
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You mean this? Anyone who wants can access the records for the stations used and not used. Doesn’t seem like a scandal.
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Well, whether it is or isn’t accelerating depends on what timescale we’re talking about. The current rate of sea level rise isn’t calamitous although if the AGWers have it right then the rate will become a much larger problem.
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Has anyone here discussed the Dessler debunking submitted, peer reviewed and published faster than the speed of light?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/07/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-my-initial-comments-on-the-new-dessler-2011-study/
Spencer takes 24 hours out of his life to put dessler back in his place.
You know i first thought “the team” was created to whip the masses into place, but over the years i have come to realise the real purpose of “the team”. Their real purpose is not to control the masses but to keep decenting scientists in place, take this latest escapade by the team. If you asked most people who Spencer and Braswell are they might think they were a comedy duo or maybe a law firm but two scientists that have just shaken the AGW scam to its very core so in this respect why would Dessler bother with such a thing.
No the reason why the team need to respond and respond so quickly is to keep the honest scientists quiet, i suspect most no name scientists understand this is a scam but keep quiet whilst the team have control but if they did not respond to the S&B paper it would give the impression they had lost control thus giving the no name scientists courage to speak out.
Can any one else think of a reason as to how Dessler could study the S&B paper, gain an understanding of the S&B paper, formulate a series experiments (in this case write a couple of thousand lines of computer code to create a model to test the real world experiment), study the results, form an opinion of these results, decide these results show the S&B paper to be flawed, write a paper on the issue, submit it for review and all the back forth corrections that no doubt happen TO EVERYONE, get it past peer review and published in as little as 6 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
How can you take a debunking paper seriously when the paper work side of things would take longer than the actual debunking, surely only an idiot would accept such behaviour.
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Right. Anyone can (if they want to) access the raw temperature data and determine that the processed data has been biased. Here is an example that Jennifer Marohasy examines. If you are into do-it-yourself, This website provides links to the raw data (from NOAA), source code to extract and grid it (Unix Shell commands), and an analysis of the fake trends added to it to make it seem like warming.
Of course, anyone who really, really wants to believe in AGW can ignore all the evidence and allow themselves to be blissfully conned.
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And if pigs had wings, they could fly.
So far, no one has seen any flying pigs, and no one has seen a climate model exhibit any predictive skill distinguishable from chance. Why don’t you spend a few score trillion $ just in case they’re right?
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Hi Bob
Oh it’s worse than that, NOAA themselves admit their con job
Note that three of the four adjustment procedures they cite predate the existence of the IPCC. As there’s nothing hidden, anyone who wants can challenge their data processing steps.
For how long would temp/sea level have to rise before you reconsidered your position?
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You have got to be kidding…………………
Ok maybe you have just awoken from a 50 year coma, consider this, SL began to rise at the end of the LIA now lets assume this SL rise has been steady ever since then. That is to say it has not increased or decreased significantly. Is it possible that “something else” introduced to the equation has had a measured effect?
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LIA was due to decreased solar activity, right?
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Bill and Ben science. “blog blog blog blog”? “blog blog blog blog blog!”
Sorry BobC, yeah I’ll appeal to the authority on topics outside of my own expertise every single time.
You keep to your Bill and Ben science, but of course, you’ll need to cherry pick which blog sites you believe in, but this shouldn’t bother you. 😉
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As I pointed out in post #124, temperatures rose steadly for 200 years between 800 and 1000 AD ( Here’s the link again ).
I presume (correct me if I’m wrong) that you do not blame the Medieval Warm Period on Human industry. Why, then, are you so eager to blame the last one-third of the recovery from the Little Ice Age on Humans?
And, let’s not recycle the inane IPCC argument-from-ignorance that “they can’t think of anything else that could cause it”. The IPCC also can’t think of anything that could have caused the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age — that’s why they tried to get rid of them by deciding the temperature then was better determined by bristlecone pines (which have known responses to sheep dung and CO2 that are greater then their response to temperature)?
(In fact, bristlecone pines don’t even like high temperatures, which is why you only find them at timberline, and I can’t grow them in Boulder. Only an idiot or a con man would use them for temperature proxies.)
***********************
Given that you apparently agree that the temperature data has been biased toward warming, why in the world are you willing to accept it as evidence of said warming? The fact that the bias can be seen does not validate it.
University of Colorado climatologist, Rich Keen (a friend), maintains a pristine weather station on his land in the mountains SW of Boulder. NOAA’s programmers have determined that the temperature at his station is actually several degrees warmer than the records, because he is less than 200 miles from Denver, which is warmer due to the Urban Heat Island effect (as well as being at a lower elevation). There are hundreds of individual instances of this kind of bias, some of which have been addressed on this blog and on Wattsupwiththat.com.
How much evidence of fraud does it take for you to wake up?
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What is your area of experise, Blimey? Nobody has been able to figure it out yet.
It’s blindingly obvious you have nothing useful to say about the subjects covered in Jo’s blog.
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BobC
When you read 137 you can see what an easy job they have.
When I read that I have visions of those high timber post and rail fence leading from the cattle yard, gradually squeezing them in closer until there’s only enough space for one at a time.
And my son tells me all the effort put into getting an engineering degree was time he could have spent having fun. In time he will see that education in science gives independence and the capacity to avoid being one of the sheep; or was that cows.
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And how is this relevant? The IPCC was not the beginning of the scam (as a little historical research could easily tell you), but was meant to be the culmination of it. When this started, the Internet was a nearly exclusive toy of government researchers and academics. Data shared on the Internet was indeed hidden from most people. Fortunately, the explosive expansion of Internet access (which no one foresaw) has exposed it, and nature has not cooperated with it.
What they are left with are pathetic appeals to authority, as if climate scientists were a special breed of geniuses. Good enough for folks like Blimey, but — as the Petition Project has shown — many real scientists and engineers are not impressed. Also, of course, the technique you use above:
“Everyone already knows this, nothing to see here, move along”.
In fact, the data processing has been shown to be biased and even, in the case of the ClimateGate code (not emails), fraudulent.
Sorry Tristan: The evidence of bias, and even fraud, is clear — it takes a wilful suppression of reality to pretend otherwise.
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See, the concept you’re failing to grasp here is that C02 travels through time in both directions.
Neither the MWP/MCA or LIA are refuted by the IPCC. The main driver of the MWP/MCA was increased solar activity. The main drivers of the Little Ice Age cooling were decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity.
Collect raw data -> Control for extraneous variables -> Present adjusted data
This is standard practice. Of course you have to provide the raw data (check) and the controls used (check). The controls will introduce various ‘biases’. In fact, that’s almost the definition of a control, to introduce a bias to the raw data to remove the impact of an extraneous variable. None of the above is fraudulent.
I think we do our research at different places.
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Tristan @ 142
Just when I’m beginning to think there might be a shred of honest decency about you Tristan, you go out of your way again to remind me and everyone else here just what a squirming, conniving agenda-driven genocidal greenie you are who will say anything to defend your indefensible “climate science”. Even to the point of outright and demonstrable lies.
Here is a link to the original Mike Mann Hockey Schtick graph – for years the favoured poster-child of the IPCC. Perhaps you would like to point out for us just where it depicts the either the MWP or the LIA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hockey_stick_chart_ipcc_large.jpg
The controversy surrounding the IPCCs insistence that TSI did not vary enough to account for ANY significant “climate change” was just one of the many widely publicised “gate” controversies following the leaking of the CRU emails.
For you to come here now and attempt to rewrite recent history (“neither the MWP or LIA are refuted by the IPCC”, and MWP and LIA caused by variation in TSI), is to insult the intelligence of the rest of us.
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loquacious much? =p In any case you’re right that the ‘hockey stick graph’ doesn’t illustrate the MCA/LIA very well. There’ve been quite a few temp reconstructions of the NH done though.
AGW contends that TSI forcing is not enough to explain the rate temperature has been changing over the past few decades. AGW does not discard TSI as a forcing mechanism.
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BobC says:
Making mockery of your logic.
Recall your failure to understand that a feedback response can be increasing whilst the initial force is decreasing? Still waiting for you to provide science to back up your point of view … forever waiting I expect.
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Tristan @ 144
No Tristan, Mann’s Hockey Schtick graph, poster child of the IPCC for years until it was utterly discredited, does not “illustrate” the MWP and LIA AT ALL. It was a blatant, and thankfully failed, attempt to rewrite history a la Orwell’s ‘1984’.
And what rate of temperature change would that be, Tristan? Pretty much the same rate of temperature change that has happened in the past? – Even within the modern period of thermometers?
Or do I have to give yet another link to yet another graph proving you are trying to rewrite history?
Yet another Orwellian rewrite of history. How many links to “peer-reviewed” and/or “published papers”, “pro-warming” articles on pro-CAGW sites and similar material in hard copy magazines, claiming TSI as largely irrelevant in climate change, are required to brand you as dishonest and a liar.
Give me a figure between 10 and a 20 and tomorrow I will post the links.
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145Blimey:
Major fail, Blimey. Pathetic, really — you couldn’t understand what the spreadsheet you linked to demonstrated, even though the author explained it twice.
You didn’t get within light-years of understanding that the spreadsheet actually demonstrated what the ice core records show: That, even if CO2 is a positive feedback on temperatures, it can be (and often is, in the ice core record) overwhelmed by other drivers.
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This is obvious. Mine was done at NCAR in the 1970’s. Your’s sounds like it is done at the DailyKos.
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You’re forgetting the important step made clear in the ClimateGate Code: Insert hard-coded “data” in record to cover up inconvenient measurements.
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You’re right Bob, I’m forgetting that important step.
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A) I’m not the person with whom to debate the history of the IPCC’s opinions.
B) This ‘liar, liar, pants on fire’ business is is unbecoming of a multi-qualified scientist.
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Roughly these rates. I’d prefer error bars, controlling for ENSO/volcanoes and a bayesian amalgamation of the various datasets, followed by a statistical examination of similarity. Maybe you could ask nicely for that over at open mind.
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(The rate of change I’d cite for the 75-10 period is 1.71 or so, not the higher 75-05 rates given in that table)
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.
Hi Tristan,
You act like this is a joke and doesn’t matter. I wish you were right (that was my opinion in the ’70s) — but I believe you are tragically mistaken. Much too much is at stake here to treat it as a joke, as you may eventually discover to your sorrow.
I’ve got degrees in math, physics, and optical engineering. I’ve been programming computers since 1966. I’ve been building flight instrumentation for atmospheric science for 25 years and following the “joke” that GCMs have long range predictive power now for over 40 years.
What is your purpose here? If it is to convince us that climate science is just normal science (and not a corrupt modern version of Lysenkoism with serious consequences for civilization), you are decades too late and way short of persuasive arguments.
Your raconteur attitude and misplaced wit (which would be more suited for a cocktail party) simply tells us that you are not to be taken seriously.
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Blimey @145, I believe that was my “failure to understand” not BobC, And you provided no evidence that such a mechanism operates in the global atmosphere.
Tristan you come out of your closet with links to Tamino and SS (yes I mean SS).
Predictable.
And why is it not appropriate for a “multi-qualified scientist” to call out a liar? Why not anyone call out a liar for what they are?
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Rest assured I take the topic seriously. I don’t take Climategate seriously, you and I have come to different conclusions regarding that.
To educate myself.
So don’t.
I started reading about AGW 3ish weeks ago. I read stuff here, I read stuff at SkS and I follow links from both places.
I have a different opinion to a lot of people here. I cite sources I that I consider likely to be true. I have no issue with people questioning the accuracy of my sources. Just because I believe something doesn’t mean others should. If I’ve been duped, I’ve been duped. But I haven’t lied.
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BobC says:
That’s hilarious given that I AM the author of that spreadsheet. Yes I do understand what the spreadsheet showed and that the science linked to also showed why CO2 acted as a feedback, like it does today. You on the other hand presented your own ignorance in abundance and no science what so ever!
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Blimey
Is this an example of peer review in a BLOG by AGW scientists?
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Tristan,
Three weeks plus or minus and you have your mind already made up concerning Climategate (and seemingly a whole lot of other things)?
You have so far been weighted heavily on the side of AGW. Perhaps you can explain to us why you would believe the sources you so naively choose as, “…likely to be true.” What are your criteria for making that judgment? I’d like to know. And probably everyone would like to know.
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Well, to be fair, I’d already heard a bit about Climategate. I try to keep abreast of ‘the news’ and it made headlines.
Honestly, It’s pretty hard to self-evaluate in that fashion. Even though I try to keep fairly critical of information I receive, I don’t know how much my priors affected my perception of the various views I encountered. I find the conspiracy/fraud idea pretty hard to swallow and it seems like the AGW hypothesis is internally consistent, even if some of the numbers are still pretty uncertain.
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Well, what a great idea. And here were the rest of us citing things we considered likely to be false.
By Crikey. I knew we were missing something… 😉
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How bizarre, then, that you completely misquote “your own” comments above and below the calculations. For anyone who wants to see just how delusional Blimey really is, I suggest going to this thread and read posts #205 -> 208. As to what I believe about CO2’s feedback effects (and what the ice cores tell us about it), read post #196. What I said has no relation to what Blimey thinks I said — apparently reading comprehension is not his “area of expertise” either.
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Done.
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Jo
pfft. =p
As opposed to what I would do were I a liar like some of your readers like to claim.
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Tristan,
No matter what it is, always a weasel worded response. You are wasting your life.
Fortunately I’ve never been able to take you seriously. So I had no letdown when you failed to get your act together.
You are fooling no one but yourself.
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Tristan, If I knew you were an AGW virgin I’d have been much more gentle. Now that you have fully explained that you only came of age three weeks ago I’ll be more understanding.
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I think I see what Tristan’s problem is: He has been reading about AGW for ~3 weeks, but his memory spans less than one day. To jog his memory, here is what he said 18.5 hours earlier:
See Tristan, that’s not quite the same thing: You weren’t comparing what you do to what you would do if you were a liar — you were comparing what you do to what you say a lot of people here already do. (And then, you didn’t bother to name anybody — way to take the high road.)
I’d like to say if you keep reading you will become more knowledgeable, but I’m afraid the evidence suggests that you have already plateaued.
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Tristan, I’d agree with you, the AGW hypothesis is internally consistent. I agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it can warm the planet. I just disagree with their numbers. But the numbers are everything. If the warming effect of CO2 is 0.5 degrees as the empirical evidence suggests, then shouldn’t we focus on more important environmental problems?
The internal consistency of AGW, I might add, is based on a system completely at odds with the tenets of science. In science, observational evidence trumps everything else, and all theories and models are invalidated by incorrect predictions, and observations (eg 28 million weather balloons) that disagree. In “AGW” the data is adjusted til it fits the models.
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But I enjoy wasting it so much!
Sorry I wasn’t more clear Bob. I should have said:
I have a different opinion [on climate change] to a lot of people here. I cite sources I that I consider likely to be true [although you may already have decided they aren’t].
Both sides accuse the other of this (and most other mistakes and deceptions that a scientist can possibly make). As the ‘debate’ is full of such antagonism and closed-mindedness, it’s harder for everyone to learn more.
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Appology accepted — sorry for the misunderstanding.
Your reading has been seriously deficient if you have come to that conclusion. Both sides have access to (most) of the raw data — the CAGW side “adjusts” the data to fit their hypotheses. The skeptics don’t do anything like that, as the raw data already supports our position.
That scores of “adjustments” should always be in one direction is not credible, assuming no fraud.
That scientists email each other often, conspiring to break the law (dodging the FOIA) is not “normal” scientific behavior.
That the computer code released in the ClimateGate data dump clearly substitutes hard-coded numbers for data is not normal coding practice — it is a specific instance of fraud.
That climate models have no documented predictive skill distinguishable from chance does not mean that they are right. When advocates continually make ad hoc adjustments to their models to keep up with the world it is a clear admission (to anyone who has done honest science or engineering) that their models are seriously flawed.
That you (supposedly) read about this and excuse it does not indicate that you are “open-minded” and “trying to learn more”.
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As I said before, anyone is free to challenge the way in which any scientist controls for extraneous variables. Ignoring extraneous variables because you like the look of the raw data is not ‘science’.
You’re right, it isn’t.
From ‘wattsupwiththat’:
Fortunately there was an official investigation of CRUteam which found:
—
Obviously.
Or, to characterise it differently: Models in every single field are continually updated as more is learned. Models are never perfect, by definition. Implying that this process is dishonest won’t earn you any scientific cred.
The only thing indicated by any of the above is that you and I have a different opinion.
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And so it shall ever be!
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Making up extraneous variables because you don’t like the look of the raw data is also not ‘science’. I have the feeling that you have never done ‘science’.
Here’s an article in NASA’s webzine about Josh Willis’ attempt to find “extraneous variables” that would allow him to change the raw ARGOS float data indicating “oceans are cooling” to “oceans are warming”. I’m betting you see nothing wrong with Willis’s behavior, which would have earned an “F” on the physics labs I was grading in the ’60s. Willis was strongly motivated to find some way to “correct” the raw data, since it contradicted his colleagues’ models. His methodology for selecting the “probably erroneous” floats was “which ones are too cold?” (i.e., which ones cause the answer to be other than I desire?) Can you spot the logical error here? I’m betting not.
Try as I might, I have never found an example of a government-funded climate scientist who ever tried to find any way to correct data because it showed warming. But there’s no bias — we are “officially” assured (by the proponents of ‘post-modern’ science, apparently).
About the computer code: You’re right, it needs to be completely disclosed.
About the ‘official investigations’ (by friends of AGW): They did not do any such disclosure — their attitude is the same as the colleagues they are ‘investigating’: “Trust us”.
Claiming that a model has a 50+ year prediction horizon, then “adjusting” it yearly to avoid predictive failure, while continuing to claim a 50 year prediction horizon is dishonest. Pretending otherwise won’t enhance your reputation for honesty.
I don’t need any scientific ‘cred’ advice from you, thanks. I get that from my colleagues who know my work.
And you’ve already indicated that I shouldn’t take your opinion seriously.
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BTW Tristan;
We’ve been giving you a pass on a number of blatantly false statements you have made. How about some supporting evidence for your claim: (In response to; “In AGW the data is adjusted til it fits the models”)
I have just (post #173) given you an example of a government-funded climate scientist bragging about ‘adjusting’ the data so that it didn’t get the ‘wrong’ answer (and that’s just one of many I could cite). Now you give me an example of a skeptic (try to find a scientist, will you) who has been caught ‘adjusting’ the raw data to bias it against the AGW hypothesis.
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Meantime, the resident self appointed Mormon theologian-climatologist from BYU e.g.:
http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=12&num=1&id=332
http://www.tektonics.org/af/bickmore02.html
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/about-this-blog/
is busy as a little bee calculating how much juicy Apostasy he can squeeze out of those pesky sceptical scientists to balance on the pin of his head:
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/roy-spencer/
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/the-church-of-monckton/
BUT where the rubber on the tires of the mighty CAGW bandwagon (which poor BB so desperately wants to reconcile/integrate with the teachings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young etc., etc.,) meets the highway of reality…..
alas, the famed oil slick in the shape of Jesus (of which the latte day saint Carl Hiassen wrote in his frothy missive to the faithful ‘Lucky You’), awaits:
http://rossmckitrick.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/mmh_asl2010.pdf
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~qfu/Publications/grl.fu.2011.pdf
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