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Antarctica defies global warming predictions

The uncertainty of science: Despite numerous climate model predictions during the past two decades predicting that the ice cap in Antarctica will shrink because a global warming, recent data shows its ice cap to have grown to record size.

Climate models predicted Antarctic sea ice would shrink as a result of global warming, but the opposite happened. Antarctic sea ice actually increased in the last two decades. Chinese scientists compared climate model sea ice predictions to actual observations from 1979 to 2005 and found “the main problem of the [climate] models is their inability to reproduce the observed slight increase of sea ice extent.” As it turns out, natural variability plays a big role here as well. “Sea ice extent is strongly influenced by the winds and these have increased from the south over the Ross Sea, contributing to a small increase in total Antarctic sea ice since the late 1970s,” Turner said. “The increase in ice seems to be within the bounds of natural variability.”

Had Chinese researchers gone beyond 2005, they would have found more than just a slight increase. 2014 was the first year on record that Antarctic sea ice coverage rose above 7.72 million square miles. By Sept. 22, 2014, sea ice extent reached its highest level on record — 7.76 million square miles.

The data overall suggests that all the fluctuations seen so far Antarctica appear to be entirely attributable to natural variation, not climate change.

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58 comments

  • Andrew_W

    “The uncertainty of science: Despite numerous climate model predictions during the past two decades predicting that the ice cap in Antarctica will shrink because a global warming, recent data shows its ice cap to have grown to record size.”

    You’re all at sea here mixing up sea ice and ice cap.

  • You are correct. My wording was incorrect. However, your nitpick about my wording doesn’t change this fact: “Climate models predicted Antarctic sea ice would shrink as a result of global warming, but the opposite happened. Antarctic sea ice actually increased in the last two decades.” Or this fact:

    Had Chinese researchers gone beyond 2005, they would have found more than just a slight increase. 2014 was the first year on record that Antarctic sea ice coverage rose above 7.72 million square miles. By Sept. 22, 2014, sea ice extent reached its highest level on record — 7.76 million square miles.

    The models were wrong. Sea ice grew, in contradiction to the prediction. Kind of indicates that there is a bit of uncertainty to this science, doesn’t it?

  • Andrew_W

    There’s always uncertainty in science, as Mann put it, proof is for math and whiskey.

    The changes in the Antarctic were not expected to be dramatic due to the deep ocean mixing layer and shear size of the ice cap, however the Antarctic peninsular, because of it’s more isolated nature, was expected to increase in temperature and have ice mass loss, and this we have seen.

  • Andrew_W: What disturbs me about your method of discussion when it comes to the issue of climate change is your certainty. No data point I or anyone introduces that raises questions about the theory of global warming is worth considering. You dismiss them, or ignore them, as if they do not exist, and then repeatedly mouth the talking points you like, such as when you say the following:

    Mann’s Hockeystick graph has been validated by more than a dozen subsequent studies, there was a slow decline in global temperatures from the MWP through to about 1900 AD.

    However, Mann’s hockey stick graph, which can be found here, does not show what you say, a slow decline. What it does do is wipe out almost a half century of research that documented the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) centered around 1000 AD and extending until about 1200 AD. On his graph, which I have provided a link for all to see, no Medieval Warm Period exists during that time period. It is gone, despite extensive other research that documents it.

    Is Mann wrong? Or are all those other studies? Who knows? I note the conflict and the uncertainty, and point out that this uncertainty means that Mann’s hockey stick cannot be accepted at face value. (This by the way, Mann’s removal of the Warm Period, has always been the problem skeptics have with Mann’s graph.) You however are certain, and dismiss all other research that contradicts Mann’s model as if it doesn’t exist.

    Similarly, as correctly Edward noted in our first discussion, in trying to discredit my point that the global temperature has been essentially flat since the turn of the century you made the claim that “all the major data sets show a continuing rise in the trend line for surface temperatures over the last two decades” [emphasis mine]

    However, I was quickly able to find an example where “all” was false. The satellite data, which is generally the most reliable global dataset we have, has not shown “a continuing rise in the trend line.” Instead, it is either flat, or shows a decline.

    Is the satellite data wrong? Or are all the other datasets? Who knows? I note the conflict and the uncertainty, and point out that this uncertainty means that the claims that the climate is warming cannot be accepted at face value. You however are certain, and want to make believe the data that contradicts this claim does not exist.

    Another example: We have not yet gotten into the question of the data tampering that appears to be going on at NASA and NOAA. You might think the adjustments they are doing to the surface data is sincere and justified, but when all the adjustments (not some, not most, but all) cool the past and warm the present, even with some historical data compiled more than a century in the past, the validity and trustworthiness of those adjustments has to be questioned. That the people doing the adjustments have as yet not provided any good explanation for those adjustments makes it even more reasonable for any objective and intelligent person to have doubts.

    And when the adjustments change the historical data beyond the error bars given by the original researchers, the questions become even more pointed. See for example the graphs at this link, especially the last, all either generated from NASA data compiled by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the organization that was headed for decades by global warming advocate James Hansen, or taken from actual NASA, NOAA, and IPCC reports.)

    Yet I can guarantee that you will dismiss this post, claiming its writer is partisan and therefore everything he documents directly from NASA sources has to be ignored. You are certain global warming is happening, and any data that contradicts that conclusion cannot be considered, for a second.

    Science however has nothing to do with certainty. As I noted at this post (which you apparently didn’t read after I provided you the link because I am guessing you were afraid it might have challenged your certainty),
    ——————————
    Science, however, is founded on skepticism and doubt. In order for scientists to figure out what is going on, it is essential that they have the freedom of thought to question everything. To deny anyone that freedom is to deny them the very essence of science. Or as Francis Bacon noted

    Truth is to be sought for, not in the felicity of any age which is an unstable thing, but in the light of nature and experience, which is eternal. . . . Let every student of nature take this as a rule — that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is be held in suspicion. [Novum Organum, sections 56 and 58]

    ——————————

    Science is not democracy. Nor is it consensus. It is based on doubt and uncertainty, and a willingness always to seek after the truth, no matter where it might lead. If one data point contradicts a scientific hypothesis, then that data point raises questions about that hypothesis that must not be ignored, and must be looked at very closely.

    You however have no interest in doubt or the seeking of truth. You are certain that global warming is happening, and any data point that might raise doubts about that theory must be dismissed.

    And this is why I think discussing this with you is sadly pointless (as it was with another global warming believer on this thread). My only real hope is that others reading this thread will learn something from it about the nature of science, and recognize the corruption of certainty that is sadly permeating its way into all aspects of the climate field. You sadly illustrate that corruption beautifully.

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    When I go to the beach, the ocean is almost exactly where it was 50 years ago. And the shifting sands of beach erosion/renewal swamp (no pun intended) any miniscule changes due to so-called global warming or cooling, for that matter. Meanwhile, Al Gore and his gang have grown rich playing this scam for all its worth.

  • Andrew_W

    [i]Mann’s hockey stick graph, which can be found here, does not show what you say,[/i]

    The graph you link to shows temperatures of around -0.2 C in 1000 AD falling to temperatures around -0.4 C in 1870 AD.

    Does that not constitute a slow decline?

    [i]What it does do is wipe out almost a half century of research that documented the existence of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) centered around 1000 AD and extending until about 1200 AD. [/i]

    The European temperature reconstructions clearly show the MWP, as do the global temperature reconstructions, the MWP is however more pronounced in Europe.

    “all the major data sets show a continuing rise in the trend line for surface temperatures over the last two decades”
    [i]However, I was quickly able to find an example where “all” was false.[/i]

    Here is the RSS linear trend for the last 20 years which you believe shows declining temperatures.
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996/to:2016/trend

    Regarding claims of data tampering, the corrections and the methodology used is freely available, when the skeptics put together what they believe are the true and honestly corrected data and publish it, you will have something solid to defend, the skeptics have had a decade to do this, why aren’t the skeptics true and honest graphs widely available?

    [i]And when the adjustments change the historical data beyond the error bars given by the original researchers, the questions become even more pointed. See for example the graphs at this link, especially the last, all either generated from NASA data compiled by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the organization that was headed for decades by global warming advocate James Hansen, or taken from actual NASA, NOAA, and IPCC reports.)[/i]

    Here’s the site referenced, I don’t see the last graph at the GISS site, nor do I see the source for it on the site you link to.
    Despite what you’ve been told the adjustments are not all upwards, you can see this by simply comparing the year to year corrections at the GISS site, for example on the 5 year mean graphs the 2016 version temperatures are higher in 1880 and in 2016, and as is pointed out the changes are small compared to the overall trend.

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/history/

    You accuse me of not considering alternative perspectives, I think I’m less guilty of that than you are, you keep referencing blogs to support your claims, I think you’ve been seduced by the bias in what you read and not looked at or sort out and fairly considered the wider information available, I recognize all of the blogs you reference because I have looked at what they’ve offered, on occasion when they’ve put forward points I haven’t been able to refute to my own satisfaction I’ve gone to those more expert than I.

    As I see it you’re falling over yourself looking for reasons to dismiss AGW as real, you have an ideological motivation, you’re following the same course as others of your politics, I don’t have that motivation, if anything I’m going against my ideological peers.

    As I’ve said, I accept that AGW is happening, but I’m not convinced that we need to do any politics to address it. So no ideological driver, and man oh man, it seems everyone who’s convinced that something needs to be done, or convinced that nothing needs to be done, does so according to what their ideology and peer sheeple dictate.

    One other other point, the Lamb temperature graph that is so popular with skeptics has no sound origins, it’s based on nothing more than the popular anecdotal beliefs on past climates at the time it was produced.

  • Andrew_W

    From one of your links:
    IPCC participant Jay Overpeck said in his email to Professor Deming, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”

    http://drtimball.com/

    What he actually said:
    “I get the sense that I’m not the only one who would like to deal a mortal blow to the misuse of supposed warm period terms and myths in the literature.”

    http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/12/medieval-anthony-watts-reveals.html

    Linking to (and presumably putting stock in) the Real Science post makes you look like a conspiracy theorist, perhaps you are one.

  • Jim Jakoubek

    Bravo Mr. Zimmerman. You have pointed out the hypocrisy of the global warming crowd perfectly. The data simply does not support the computer models and yet they go on and on and on that we have to do something.

    I for one keep scratching my head as the date of this impending disaster keeps moving forward. Back in the ’70’s everything was going to go to hell by the year 2000. Then as 2000 got closer everything was going to go to hell by 2050. Now I have seen and heard that everything is going to go to hell by 2100 unless of course we do something about it now!

    Each time the “science” supported the expiration date that they were touting. Of course the only real way to “solve” this doomsday that hangs over all of humanity is to raise taxes and destroy our energy industry in favor of solar and wind power. Nothing political here to be sure…….

  • Robert Pratt

    I’ve long postulated that the Enlightenment has flipped: Dogma is now more strongly associated with the profession of “science” and many institutions of religion have gone to the extreme to throw off their beliefs, even morals, to appease what they see as scientific-consensus.

    It’s almost fun to watch the dogmatic science crowd try and explain away the unprovable or error of their ideas with word games and assertions which are a near match for the way some religious officials did the same for articles of faith. Truly science (of a political and social nature) is the new dogma of faith. Somehow consensus, mutual agreement, trumps evidence, prediction, and repeatability. Next, they’ll all be meeting together in gothic buildings to discuss how bad everyone else is and needs saving from their ignorance. Oh wait, they do this; the building are part of colleges and universities.

  • wayne

    Jim Jakoubek–
    Good stuff!

    1st it was “global cooling,” then it was “global warming,” now it’s “climate change.”

    In the mid 70’s, I was told and taught (as indisputable fact) we were running out of oil, land, and food, and by the year 2000 I would only have 1 cubic-yard of space in which to live, because of the “population-explosion.”

    “The Pretense of Knowledge”
    Friedrich von Hayek
    December 11, 1974.
    http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1974/hayek-lecture.html

    (I have no doubt our climate changes on a regular basis, but it’s very revealing the “solutions” to this “change,” all entail authoritarian-statism. Idea’s so GREAT, they have to be MANDATORY.)

  • wayne

    Robert Pratt — Good stuff!

  • Localfluff

    In the Arctic Ocean, ice cover has decreased. But that is very different from Antarctica. The Arctic sea is dominated by the rivers from Siberia and North America, while there are no real rivers from the Antarctic continent. Fresh water has a lower freezing point than salt water, and lower density so that it floats on the surface where it freezes from the cold air. The amount of ice coverage at the North Pole depends on how the rivers freeze from the north (their mounds) to the south. The ice formed on the rivers clog their outflow of fresh water that could be frozen to ice in the Arctic.

    Warmer weather thus leads to MORE fresh water and more ice, while colder weather leads to LESS fresh water and less ice. The opposite of the naive intuition of expecting more ice at lower temperatures.

    Lower temperatures at the coasts of the Arctic sea means that the mounds of the rivers freeze earlier in the winter season and blocks further outflow of fresh water. That water instead floods the inland. In the hey days of the Soviet Union, they considered megalomaniac ideas to dig channels (of Lowellian Martian dimensions) to move that water to the Central Asian deserts, saving the Aral Sea and watering their cotton fields, while at the same time making north Siberia more habitable without these giant floodings during early cold winters. I think such an experiment would have failed because of unforeseen consequences. Climate is a complex thing and we can just adapt to whatever it does to us.

  • Localfluff

    In the current Google Earth, the Alaskan rivers to the north coast are white, because they were frozen when the satellite images were taken. The weaker ice sheets break up from the south and are transported under the thicker northern ice cover to clog the rivers’ mounds, depriving the Arctic of freezable fresh water. Warmer weather = more arctic ice cover. There are certainly others factors involved, but this is a substantial one.

  • Andrew_W

    Localfluff, is that a theory you’ve come up with yourself, or have you picked it up from elsewhere?

  • wodun

    Climate Change is out. It is now Climate Chaos.

    Since the climate is a chaotic system by nature, this allows the primitive neopagans to claim that any and all weather events support their religious beliefs and the policy positions of their clergy.

  • Andrew_W

    Jim Jakoubek

    Here is Hansen’s 1981 paper Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, as you can see it predicts doom by 2000, oh wait, no it doesn’t, it predicts changes in line with those that have been observed.

    If you look through the popular literature you’ll find lots of BS, try to be a little honest and don’t start attributing nonsense claims to people other than those who made those claims.

    Would you like to know the BS claims I’ve seen made by people claiming to be “skeptics”?
    – Volcanoes produce more CO2 than modern civilisation
    – CO2 levels were as high as 600 ppm in the 19th century
    – The scientists doing ice core samples don’t know what they’re doing, CO2 was far higher than now in the recent past and has leaked out of the core samples
    360 380 400 ppm of CO2 is hardly any, it’s not enough to slow or stop IR radiation escaping Earth.
    360 380 400 ppm of CO2 is so effective at blocking IR radiation escaping the Earth that adding more won’t make any difference.
    – There’s a worldwide conspiracy involving hundreds or thousands of scientists and politicians altering the climate data to show a fictional rise in global temperatures, even though the process by which the corrections are made has been open and transparent for a decade, us honest skeptics folk haven’t been able to show how the process has been corrupted.
    – IR radiation can’t warm the oceans because it’s absorbed by water too quickly(!)
    – Arctic sea ice isn’t declining because the Arctic is warming, it’s declining because – RIVERS!

    And that’s those after a couple of minutes thought, there’re a hell of a lot more of those nonsense claims I could find.

    http://people.oregonstate.edu/~schmita2/Teaching/ATS421-521/2015/papers/hansen81sci.pdf

  • wayne

    wodun:
    – Most excellent!

  • Andrew_W

    Thanks Wodun, you’ve reminded me of another.

    – The alarmists changed it from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” so that any change in climate could be attributed to Humans. (It was actually Frank Luntz who came up with the term as political spin, he’s reasoning was that “Climate Change” sounded less scary than “Global Warming” so describing it in those terms would result in less voters supporting strategies to mitigate it.
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange

  • wayne

    Andrew_W;

    This is not my bailiwick, but I seem to recall the “scientists” at East Anglia, manipulating data to death & getting caught red-handed bragging about it, in hundreds of emails.
    Not to mention well documented cases of raw data, paid for by taxpayers, being destroyed.

    IF this is such an important issue, might it not be prudent for you folks to keep a grip on lying scientists who shill & manipulate for your cause?
    Why are obvious liars never denounced?
    Because… it’s a Religion and it is result-oriented.

    Again I’ll say– “Idea’s so brilliant, they have to be imposed by force.”

  • Mitch S.

    Robert I have to disagree with one thing you said:
    ” I think discussing this with you is sadly pointless (as it was with another global warming believer on this thread). ”

    IMO this has been a worthwhile discussion, closest thing to an honest debate on the issue that I’ve seen.
    I think Andrew_W deserves credit for sending the time here even tough it’s clear most on this forum are “climate skeptics”.

    Both participants start with firm beliefs that won’t be quickly disrupted but the debate hasn’t broken down into a name-calling match (as too many do) and i hope it will continue.

    To throw in my two cents I’d like to point out the difference in the needs of setting accepted scientific fact and setting public policy.
    It may turn out the AGW crowd is correct but the numbers are a bit off – say it turns out serious effects or a “tipping point” from global warming won’t happen for another 500 years instead of 50.
    450 years is not a lot from a scientific view when dealing with timelines or tens of thousands of years but from a policy point of view it’s huge.
    100 years from now the energy sources and carbon output may be vastly different just due to technological advances and economic factors without vast gov’t intervention.

  • wayne

    Mitch– Good points. (Not all of which I agree, but food-for-thought nonetheless!)

    I as well appreciate it hasn’t degraded into name-calling (with the provision I like the term Statist to describe rampant Statism, and If I think something is communistic, I’ll offer up my opinion as such.)

    And for Andrew_W— go for it dude! I have no problem reading your argument’s.
    I’m not an engineer by trade, (although I sometimes play a Physicist/Cosmologist/Political Scientist, on the internet,) (that’s a joke!) but I do have a Minor in Environmental Studies & am familiar with a wide range of issue in that realm. (I’ve had my fill of “environmental scientists,” I find vast majorities of their stuff to be inherently Political and with authoritarian-agenda’s.)
    Despite that, I remain pursuable but my Statism-Detector is on full-strength.

    I thinks it’s safe to say– everyone here is concerned with the “environment,” and some are extremely well versed in the details.
    I also think the bent of most, is to default to more market-based & less centrally-imposed methodologies to handle our problems, if they actually are problems.

  • Garry

    I always try (with varied levels of success) to avoid us vs. them in any discussion; it’s human nature to do so, and it makes for messy outcomes.

    Andrew_W, if you read through the archives, you’ll find that Mr. Z is very careful to state that we don’t know enough to make definitive statements about global warming/climate change. He is a true skeptic, and looks at data to see where it goes.

    You wrote,

    “– There’s a worldwide conspiracy involving hundreds or thousands of scientists and politicians altering the climate data to show a fictional rise in global temperatures”

    I’m not a believer in mass conspiracies, because to pull one off a lot of people have to have their stuff together, and that just never happens.

    However, it doesn’t take hundreds of thousands to dishonestly change data at NASA/NOAA, always in the same direction, with no valid explanation. Although perhaps hundreds of thousands have been involved in propagating the “statistic” that 97% of climate scientists believe in AGW, it wasn’t necessary for all of them to knowingly fabricate this claim out of very dubious “findings.”

    I think, rather than widespread conspiracies, the dynamic involves opportunism, and a lot of people grabbing on to and propagating “findings” that support one’s biases (especially when they know that by propagating these “findings” they can easily get funding for research supporting AGW)..

    I’ll take your word that Frank Luntz is the one responsible for changing “Global Warming” to “Climate Change,” for political reasons. If he did, it certainly didn’t have the effect he intended. I would guess that the hardcore warmists saw opportunity there, and went along with this change. If so, does it really matter who used it first?

  • wayne

    Garry–
    Good stuff, all around!

    Thanks for bringing up the Luntz thing. From his perspective, it served the purpose of his clients, at the time, and then was promptly co-opted extremely successfully by the warmists. (but that co-option would assume Bush & Co. weren’t on the progressive-rino wing of the Party to start…not saying it was coordinated just that ‘birds-of-a-feather,’… ya know?)

    Luntz is credited with the terms “death-tax” (v. “estate tax”) & “energy exploration,” (v. “oil-drilling”) which are brilliant!

    That sort of wordsmithing, does however say-something, about the state of written political language.

    A repeat, but excellent nonetheless:
    “Politics & the English Language”
    George Orwell
    http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

    brief extract thereof–
    “A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

  • Garry

    Thanks for the link, Wayne; when I’m not dizzy from editing 25,000 words per day and can concentrate better during non-work time, I’ll definitely read the whole essay. That’s an awesome line that I’ll steal often.

  • Edward

    Andrew_W wrote: “There’s always uncertainty in science, as Mann put it, proof is for math and whiskey.”

    Thus, we see that even a true believer admits that there should be doubt and skepticism, despite his insistence that AGW is happening.

    Andrew_W wrote: “The graph you link to shows temperatures of around -0.2 C in 1000 AD falling to temperatures around -0.4 C in 1870 AD. Does that not constitute a slow decline?”

    Once again ignoring the argument that the graph obliterated the MWP. The graph also obliterated the Little Ice Age.

    AGW skeptics do not advocate doing nothing, we advocate adapting to new conditions, which are out of our control and have been for millennia. The political alternative is to tell everyone on the planet how to live their lives in order to supposedly control the uncontrollable climate.

    Andrew_W,
    You wrote: “Regarding claims of data tampering, the corrections and the methodology used is freely available,”

    This freely available information has yet to be found. I noticed that even you have been unable to find it.

    The graph you posted differs from the graph that Robert Zimmerman found, which contradicts your claim.
    http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2016/trend

    It is the 1998 to 2016 trend that is what is considered flat, not the 1996 to 2016 trend. Temperatures are acknowledged to have risen in those two extra years. Or are you cherry picking your data points?

    You wrote: “As I’ve said, I accept that AGW is happening”

    Despite not one stitch of actual evidence that any global warming that may be happening is caused by man. Indeed, the scientifically admitted “pause” indicates that global temperatures are controlled by influences other than CO2, man-made or otherwise. If CO2 were the dominant factor, then there would not have been a pause while CO2 levels continued to rise.

    This is a very serious indication that global temperature is not due to man but to some unknown other factor(s). By clinging to AGW, we risk missing the true factor(s) that controls Earth’s temperature. By clinging to AGW, we may miss predicting future temperature changes and risk missing the opportunity to adapt to the next ice age glacial period (due any millennium) before it is too late.

    You wrote: “Here is Hansen’s 1981 paper Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, as you can see it predicts doom by 2000, oh wait, no it doesn’t, it predicts changes in line with those that have been observed.”

    That’s funny. You finally found a scientific paper, then you claim that it correctly predicted what has been observed. Not only do you ignore the papers that you disagree with, you conveniently cherry pick the data from within the papers you provide. Figures 6 and 7 failed to predict the observed “pause.” Rather than what you said, it does not predict changes that have been observed.

    Just because Hansen did not predict the doom by the year 2000 does not mean that others did not, either. You cannot say that no one predicted doom by showing that one person did not predict it.

    By the way, his prediction had a spread of .7C (.1C to .8C increase) for the difference between 1980 and 2000 temperatures. 1980 was about the time that scientists switched alarms from cooling to warming. So really, any warming at all would have been a correct guess; it looks more like a lucky guess that there would be some warming rather than coming of the next ice age. He predicted a wide range of possible future temperatures and, voila, the 2000 temperature fell within that range.

    What an excellent example of accuracy of prediction. [Oops, that should have come with a sarcasm alert.]

    You wrote: “Would you like to know the BS claims I’ve seen made by people claiming to be ‘skeptics’?”

    So now, just because you found some BS claims by people you admit are not scientists, you get to disregard the science, or lack thereof? Excellent logic, on your part [another sarcasm alert]. That type of logic must be how you decided that AGW is happening.

    You wrote: “The alarmists changed it from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” so that any change in climate could be attributed to Humans.”

    What does IPCC stand for, again? Don’t they predate Frank Luntz by more than a decade? And why did the global warming enthusiasts take it up so easily and proudly? Wasn’t it for the very reason that woden said? Because they really *are* using new phrases, now — Climate Chaos, Climate Weirding, and Climate Disruption. All because the Earth stopped warming, so “global warming” became passe.

    You may not be advocating that we spend trillions of dollars keeping the climate steady, but when you ask what is the Libertarian solution to a problem that is most likely due to nature, you sound like you think that a solution should be sought. Please excuse us for misinterpreting the purpose of your question. What was the purpose, anyway?

  • wayne

    Garry– That Orwell essay is pretty short & I think you will enjoy it. Written in 1946, it’s remarkably cogent and his advice appears to have a timeless aspect to it. (He only addresses “political language” in this essay.)
    (btw– you write very well; it’s “calm, cool, and collected.”)

    I must take this opportunity to ask you in an “environment thread,”: What do the Japanese, do with their trash?
    Perversely, where I live now, if I separate glass, metal, paper and plastic, they charge more to collect it (a solid 35% more). In contrast, at my previous home, we received a credit on our trash bill for separating recyclables. Needless to say, I respond to incentives, and it all goes into one bin now. If my trash actually had an economic value, I wouldn’t have to pay someone (or pay extra) to take it away…

    ———————————————————————–
    “If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs.”
    “Politics & the English Language”
    George Orwell

  • Andrew_W

    Wayne.
    The Wiki page on the Climatic Research Unit email controversy pretty much covers my understanding of that matter, the emails featuring phrases such as “hide the decline” and “a travesty” were deliberately misrepresented. Considering there were thousands of emails stolen you’d think that there would be some sort of coherent and unambiguous evidence had there been some sort of fraudulent conspiracy to falsify climate data, there wasn’t.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy#Content_of_the_documents

    You suggest that there are lying scientists who shill & manipulate for [the AGW case], that accusation cuts both ways, several scientists have left the field under a cloud on the pro AGW side, and several on the “skeptic” side have had their work proven false, biased or incompetent.

    Mitch S.
    The point you raise about the rate of change we can expect with AGW is one I agree with, while the rate of change is fast on the geological scale on human time scales it’s very slow, I would expect that by 2100 AD we would have considerable deliberate control over Earth’s climate.

    Garry
    Andrew_W, if you read through the archives, you’ll find that Mr. Z is very careful to state that we don’t know enough to make definitive statements about global warming/climate change. He is a true skeptic, and looks at data to see where it goes.

    Sorry, I don’t agree that you can rule someone out as having their skepticism based in politics rather than a sound scientific base because they argue “we don’t know enough”, if you look at the Guardian link I posted above you’ll find that the “we don’t know enough” strategy has been a political policy promoted by Frank Luntz to stall implementing methods aimed at mitigation.

    Slight correction, I wrote “hundreds OR thousands”, “not hundreds OF thousands” but either way, the methodology used for making the corrections is public, if skeptics want to make the corrections to the raw data that they think should be made they should just do it, rather than relying on non-specific claims and innuendo.

    Why do you think it is that they don’t just go ahead and do the corrections* The Right Way themselves? I know why I think they don’t – their claims have no empirical substance, it would end up with the same mess for them that Anthony Watts attempts to find fault with the quality of US weather stations data did.

    * The corrections allow adjustments for changes in weather station site location, and changes in the time of day that measurements are taken, for instance as a result of daylight saving.

    Regarding AGW vs Climate Change, I usually stick with AGW, Too often I’ve seen people reply to the term “Climate Change” with “Ohhh! The climate is always changing, it’s natural!!” As if they’d just discovered the Lost Ark, to be bothered using it.

  • NormD

    Wayne,

    Pointing that some skeptics have made some claims that are wrong does not prove or disprove AGW theory any more than pointing out that many alarmists have made many, many, many claims that turned out to be wrong as well.

    Like all *good* science AGW theory should make predictions that are not explainable without the theory. All data and calculations MUST be FULLY publicly released so they can be replicated by anyone, not just believers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and all that. Climate scientists producing studies that support AGW theory is to be expected as the normal course of business. Anything else would be surprising. Just like drug company studies support the effectiveness of their drugs and tobacco company studies see no harm in cigarettes. Duh.

    Even if we posit that climate scientists are saints, they cannot be left alone to analyze data, just as we know that allowing doctors to know which drug they are giving patients affects the results of drug studies. Bias always creeps in. It shocks me that you would take any climate science study at face value, especially given the obvious heavy biases of the researchers.

    The fact that AGW theory requires positive-feedbacks in the climate system seems bizarre. If such feedbacks really existed how in the hell did the Earth survive 4.5B years? Surely sometime in our history we would have triggered this and we would not be here to discuss it.

  • Andrew_W

    Edward, you make a good point about the two terms “global warming” and “climate change” both being in use before Luntz pushed for using “climate change”.

  • Garry

    Wayne,

    The Japanese are very enthusiastic about saving the environment, although I consider some of their efforts misguided, and some companies have had some outrageous violations. Someone once told me “there’s very little crime in Japan, but when it happens it’s very extreme and disturbing.” You can say the same thing about pollution and other anti-social behaviors.

    When I lived there ~20 years ago, we separated our trash into burnables and unburnables. Some cities have taken this to an extreme, separating their trash into 30 or more categories(!) Minamata, famous for Minamata disease (which turned out to come from some really outrageous mercury pollution), prides itself on having the largest number of categories for sorting, making it the “greenest” city in the world. Japanese culture is closely tied to nature and the 4 seasons, as evidenced by Buddhist practices, national holidays, etc. (the fall and spring equinoxes are national holidays, as is sea day, and starting this year, mountain day).

    I remember in the 70s and 80s reading about how polluted Japan was, because back then they were obsessed with economic growth. At some point, they got very gung ho about protecting the environment, and quickly passed what are perhaps the world’s strictest anti-pollution regulations, following our lead. They are enthusiastic to the point where much of their overseas aid (they are the #1 donor nation) goes towards projects to improve the environment, using their technology to cut pollution drastically, in the form of new power plants, industrial plants, mass transportation infrastructure, etc.

    Being short of space, Japan burns as much of its trash as it can, and is very careful about not producing dioxins and other pollutants during combustion.

    The people follow the rules, no matter how detailed, very closely, as they do in almost any other aspect of rules and regulations. If you don’t sort your trash properly, it doesn’t get picked up at the neighborhood pickup point, bringing great shame on you and your family in the eyes of your neighbors. And believe me, sorting can be quite confusing at times.

    There is a requirement to turn in your refrigerators, washers, etc. back to retailer, who transports them to the manufacturer, who salvages what they can, recycles what they can, etc. The consumer has to pay a fee for this, or a much larger fine if caught dumping appliances somewhere.

    I had a beater of a car when in the service in Japan, and had an accident. It would have cost 90,000 yen to fix the car, or 80,000 yen to dispose of it; such were the regulations on how cars must be disposed of (I fixed it, and sold it when I rotated stateside).

    I’ve never heard of charging more if your trash is sorted; that’s outrageous!

    I’m a big fan of conserving resources and recycling when it makes sense, and it’s a shame how much we waste in this country. I’m not a big fan of the principle of making lots of rules and regulations, but when I see what Japan accomplishes, I see the potential benefits. Of course, people here would not follow the rules as closely as the Japanese do, so we would have to employ different mechanisms to accomplish a lot.

  • Andrew_W

    NormD
    Even if we posit that climate scientists are saints, they cannot be left alone to analyze data, just as we know that allowing doctors to know which drug they are giving patients affects the results of drug studies. Bias always creeps in. It shocks me that you would take any climate science study at face value, especially given the obvious heavy biases of the researchers.

    I agree skeptical scientists need to keep those scientists honest by actually studying the data and the methodology – rather than just throwing innuendo around, and that’s exactly what most of them do.

    The fact that AGW theory requires positive-feedbacks in the climate system seems bizarre. If such feedbacks really existed how in the hell did the Earth survive 4.5B years? Surely sometime in our history we would have triggered this and we would not be here to discuss it.

    A positive feedback is not necessarily a runaway feedback, in climate other factors come into play for example limited inputs.

  • Garry

    Andrew wrote,

    “Sorry, I don’t agree that you can rule someone out as having their skepticism based in politics rather than a sound scientific base because they argue ‘we don’t know enough’, if you look at the Guardian link I posted above you’ll find that the ‘we don’t know enough’ strategy has been a political policy promoted by Frank Luntz to stall implementing methods aimed at mitigation.”

    But what if the truth is that we don’t know enough (which I think it is)? Even if others have used that statement improperly, does that mean nobody can use it, even if it’s true? Sometimes one’s dog really does eat one’s homework

    “Slight correction, I wrote ‘hundreds OR thousands’, ‘not hundreds OF thousands’ but either way, the methodology used for making the corrections is public, if skeptics want to make the corrections to the raw data that they think should be made they should just do it, rather than relying on non-specific claims and innuendo”

    Sorry for my misreading, but my point stands; hundreds would have no more success pulling off a grand conspiracy than hundreds of thousands would.

    If this methodology is available, why don’t you post a link to it? Is the explanation rigorous enough to pass peer review? Most of us here like reading the raw data, explanations, etc., and while I can’t speak for anyone else, I’d like to see what you’ve found in the way of explanations.

    “Why do you think it is that they don’t just go ahead and do the corrections* The Right Way themselves? I know why I think they don’t – their claims have no empirical substance, it would end up with the same mess for them that Anthony Watts attempts to find fault with the quality of US weather stations data did.”

    Maybe they don’t have confidence that we can figure out a way to make valid corrections, as the assumptions involved might involve taking potentially large leaps? Correction is not always wrong, but in some cases it’s impossible to know what corrections to make.

    Why aren’t corrections made that make present data cooler, such as accounting for the heat island effect, or for sensors being placed near air conditioner compressors, etc.? Why, in many instances, are data from some stations used as proxies for other stations, often hundreds of miles away?

    As Mr. Z has written often, what’s suspicious is that the corrections always cool the past and heat the present.

    So show us the explanations.

    By the way, one of the worst possible outcomes is that AGW turns out to be real, but nobody believes it because of the Chicken Little Syndrome. It’s very important that we get this right, or explain that we don’t know enough at this point to make accurate predictions.

  • wayne

    Andrew_W:
    I’m leery of some Wikipedia derived information. But I won’t use that as an “excuse,” I recall the East Anglia incident to have been far more serious, and frankly, indicative as to the ends some people are willing to go, for their Faith.
    This is partially why I don’t like to match study with study or factoid-to-factoid, pro or con, I neither have the time or desire to do so. (In fact, I’m sick of it all out in the real world. Here, I can take it or leave it. I come for the Space & stay for the good old fashioned Common Sense.)

    I’m completely confident that others here are far more well-versed, & can place the proposition that Man Causes Irreparable Damage to the Earth, in it’s proper position, relative to fact vs speculation.
    Personally, I don’t believe Man is capable of altering the atmosphere of our Planet on a medium to long term scale. (In the manner in which the proposition is presented today.) We are certainly capable of fouling parts of it horrendously in the short term.
    “Weather” predictions are pretty much useless 72+ hours into the future, but we are going to have to alter our entire economic/political system, indeed, the whole world, on a dubious outcome, scores of years into the future, because “3 out of 4 dentists agree?” I’m just not down with that, or any of the other dozens of arguments.
    As I mentioned– I’m not so arrogant as to disavow anything that doesn’t fit my opinion, but I have satisfied myself to the degree necessary, to form my opinion that it’s largely bunk, Political, and with an Agenda that does not include reality.
    I remain persuadable, but the bar is pretty high, and “your side” doesn’t endear itself to people who think like me, with the devious and diabolical tactics often employed.

    It’s Religion masquerading as science, with a preconceived outcome. The “solutions” for which are largely totalitarian/authoritarian in nature. (It’s no-growth, eco-Marxist, radical-egalitarianism, count me out. Not down with that Revolution, not down with that, at all.)

    Norm–
    Point(s) taken.
    ————————-

    I would say one final thing before I bail on this thread– the simple fact the language that is used to discuss this Topic, alters on a regular basis, I would proffer, does not bode well for prudent planning.
    >It’s Orwellian.

  • Andrew_W

    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/faq/#q213

    Urban sites aren’t included. There are corrections working in both directions, this is obvious from the giss link way above.

    But what if the truth is that we don’t know enough (which I think it is)? Even if others have used that statement improperly, does that mean nobody can use it, even if it’s true? Sometimes one’s dog really does eat one’s homework

    I’m not saying there’s a simple answer, but if I come across a “skeptic” claiming AGW is a fraud committed by lots of evil scientists, advancing theories that contradict well established science without an explanation for the contradiction, pronouncing certainty when they’re not qualified to judge the science and have demonstrated a political bias, color me skeptical about their claims of being “scientifically skeptical”.

    and the same applies to “alarmists” warning of an imminent runaway greenhouse effect, attributing all the skepticism to big oil, advancing theories than aren’t supported by the science without having a competent explanation of why the established science is wrong.

    It’s a minefield out there ;-)

  • wayne

    Garry– thanks for the Japanese Waste Disposal tutorial!

  • wayne

    Andrew_W:

    Absolutely agree, it’s a minefield out there!

    Personally, I totally have an Agenda. And it doe not include CAFE standards or declarations that Carbon is a pollutant.
    I don’t feel the need to defend my positions in any great detail, the onerous is on those who propose to limit my freedom & take my resources, to persuade me to agree with their propositions.
    …and I deeply resent having to fund these people in their political/religious endeavor’s.

    Not sure who said this:
    “Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.”

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    Given the voluminous discussion here about Professor Mann’s “hockey stick,” perhaps Bob could obtain the raw data used in constructing it from Dr. Mann, and post it on BTB for download, so that we might do our own analysis. As a world-renown scientist, I am confident Dr. Mann would be pleased to oblige.

  • DK Williams: Heh. I suspect there was a bit of sarcasm intended by your comment, considering that Michael Mann has been exceedingly uncooperative and in fact quite hostile to anyone who has requested his raw data.

  • Andrew_W

    Perhaps you people are unaware that Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1998 and Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 have been arguably the most thoroughly investigated scientific papers recent history that the data, codes and methodology used is available for scrutiny and were used by the NAS when it investigated the papers, the findings of the NAS investigation were published in SURFACE TEMPERATURE RECONSTRUCTIONS FOR THE LAST 2,000 YEARS 2006, and that the only real issue uncovered was that the uncertainties for the earlier part of the time period covered in the earlier papers were slightly greater that had been calculated by Mann et al.

    So you don’t need to ask Michael Mann for anything, if you’re keen to go and do your own little investigation go ahead, though I know you won’t bother because you know you won’t find any of the great wrong doings you choose to dream about.

    Perhaps you’re also unaware that there have been numerous subsequent studies that reach the same conclusions and with higher confidence than the earlier trail blazing papers (“skeptics” usually choose to ignore that the earlier Mann et al papers broke new ground, with no previous climate reconstruction papers covering the history of global climate to anything like the details of the Mann et al papers).

    Anyway, you obviously aren’t interested in any facts that contradict the beliefs you religiously cling to, so no point in me wasting more of my time here.

  • Andrew_W

    Wayne, I like “we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts” a sentiment no doubt wasted on the climate disciples on both sides.

  • Localfluff

    @Andrew_W, It is common knowledge if you look around for explanations of the ice coverage in the Arctic. Ingemar Nordin is professor in the scientific method (philosophy) and writes well about it here, in Swedish you maybe can google translate.
    http://www.klimatupplysningen.se/2012/04/19/nagra-kommentarer-om-havsis-runt-antarktis-respektive-i-den-arktiska-bassangen/

    It’s pretty obvious. Water has the lowest density at +4°C and salt water freezes at about −2°C. If you hadn’t started out with the conclusion you wish for (that doomsday is coming because of the sinful human kind) and only looked for the rare data and failed models which confirm it, you could train your logic thinking.

  • Andew_W: Heh. Lots of hyperbole from you here, most of which appears to designed to distract us from the discussion. Your comment here also once again demonstrates that you really have no understanding of the scientific process.

    To quote my own previous long comment:

    Is Mann wrong? Or are all those other studies? Who knows? I note the conflict and the uncertainty, and point out that this uncertainty means that Mann’s hockey stick cannot be accepted at face value. (This by the way, Mann’s removal of the Warm Period, has always been the problem skeptics have with Mann’s graph.) You however are certain, and dismiss all other research that contradicts Mann’s model as if it doesn’t exist.

    Mann’s graph smoothed all the climate variations that numerous other in-the-field studies have found for the past thousand years, eliminating the Medieval Warm Period as well as the Little Ice Age. Mann’s paper in which the graph was published did not provide any good explanation for dismissing this previous data, however. Based on this conflict, there is a basic disagreement in the science. I merely recognize that disagreement and remain a skeptic, as is clearly stated in the quote above.

    You, however, do not want to deal with that disagreement. You dismiss it, citing studies that agree with Mann and assume that ends the debate. It does not, however. As Carl Sagan very correctly noted, ““Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Mann’s evidence does not meet that standard, especially since his evidence is not real from-the-field data, but from computer modeling. The previous numerous studies remain that repeatedly have documented a warming centered around 1000 and a cooling centered around 1600.

    A good scientist always hones in on the problems, as I do. A bad scientist tries to rationalize them, as you do. Mann could be right. I never said otherwise. All I noted was the legitimate questions scientists have raised about his graph, and recognized the problem he has convincing others his conclusions are correct.

  • Garry

    Sorry, Andrew, the explanations at the links you provided are not thorough enough to allow peers to review the methods. Rather, they are very general explanations that appear to be designed to obscure rather than express the complicated in the simplest possible terms, which is what I do for part of my livelihood. For example, when I read (from the link in your latest response to me)

    “Rather, these differences are dominated by the inclusion of appropriate homogeneity corrections for non-climatic discontinuities made in GHCN v3.2 which span a range of negative and positive values depending on the regional analysis.”

    my head spins; this is the type of bureaucratic language often written by someone who either doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or wants to make sure nobody else knows what he’s talking about.

    Good science papers give access to raw data, and very detailed explanations of how the data were corrected, processed, etc., so that peers can properly review what was done, to reinforce the conclusions or find holes in them. These links do not do that.

    A quick look at your early link shows that the 2016 correction moved the past temperatures downward and the current temperatures upward, which raises lots of suspicions.

    A year or so ago I saw (maybe here?) showing the temperature record over the past 1000+ years from an early IPCC report, alongside the temperature record of the same timeframe in a later IPCC report, after Mann had transformed it into the hockey stick. I’ll take a look for it in a few days (this is one of those times when I don’t know how I’ll get everything done I need to in the next few days, but I certainly will). In the meantime, if someone has ready access to it, I’d appreciate your posting it; the two graphics together speak volumes.

  • Andrew_W

    Mann’s graph smoothed all the climate variations that numerous other in-the-field studies have found for the past thousand years, eliminating the Medieval Warm Period as well as the Little Ice Age.

    Several years ago the “skeptic” blog CO2 Science ran a project to collect paleoclimate studies from around the world, they collected together all these studies and put them up on their site, on the temperature graphs they stuck in little arrows pointing to “MWP” and “LIA” and yep, where the “MWP” was the temperature was markedly warmer, and where the “LIA” was the temperature was markedly cooler.

    Can you work out why their “proof” of the existence and strength of the MWP and LIA was meaningly?

    Their “proof” clearly showed that these events happened at different times around the globe, the timing of the peak of the two events differed by hundreds of years depending on location.

    What do you suppose happens when all those data sets are combined? Yep, the extremes shown on the individual data sets are smoothed out and the global data set doesn’t have those extremes.

    Truly Global data sets continue to show what the earlier studies showed, globally the MWP and LIA were not as extreme events as they were at any one locality.

    If you’ve got papers using GLOBAL data sets showing extreme temperature variation over the last 2000 years, link please.

  • Andrew_W

    Garry, you’re probably referring to the Lamb graphic, it didn’t have a temperature scale and was based on anecdotal evidence of the time rather than genuine research – there had been no comprehensive global paleoclimate research papers published at the time.

    When scientists are talking science to each other the language is often gobbledygook to everyone else, I’ve often opened up links to papers on subjects I’ve had a lay interest in and been flummoxed.

  • Andrew_W

    Localfluff thanks for the reply.
    The way sea ice forms from a salty ocean is reasonably well understood. The google translation unfortunately didn’t make the meaning of the articles interpretation of the process completely clear to me, suffice to say that indeed a sheet of sea ice does form around the antarctic in the autumn, at its peak this sheet of sea ice covers an area of 15 million square kilometers, it is not a product of fresh water coming off the Antarctic continent, in part it’s from atmospheric precipitation, but it is also a product of the surface of the ocean freezing.

    The article seems to be claiming (as I said the translation wasn’t clear) that a layer of fresh water a meter deep exists around the Antarctic that is the source of the fresh water in the ice. Well if that’s the claim it’s wrong, the ice forms from the saline water with the salt being ejected during the freezing process.

    Do the rivers around the Arctic ocean contribute to the amount of sea ice formed? Probably, but a lot of the new ice is formed many hundreds of miles from the nearest rivers, and you don’t get fresh water floating across the ocean surface for hundreds of miles – at least I’ve never heard of such a thing.

    The process of salt ejection from forming sea ice is covered in the link below

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_ice_growth_processes

  • Andrew_W wrote: “Truly Global data sets continue to show what the earlier studies showed, globally the MWP and LIA were not as extreme events as they were at any one locality.”

    Ah yes, I am very aware that there is evidence that suggests that both events were not global. However, three points:

    1. Not all scientists agree on this. Many instead have found evidence of their global nature, and have published to that effect. My climate bibliography includes many of those papers, though if you asked me to cite the specific ones I’d have to do some digging to find them again. I do know that, having read all the IPCC reports, prior to the one that included Mann’s graph all considered both events global.

    2. Even you admit however in the quote above that there is global evidence both existed, even if they “were not as extreme events as they were at any one locality.” They might not have been as an extreme event in all localities, but the data you cite still apparently shows them.

    3. Mann’s graph however wipes both entirely. This does not fit with even the evidence you cite above, which from what you write indicates that both show up globally, albeit in a more smoothed and less extreme manner. This illustrates again the problems that many scientists have with Mann’s graph.

    Once again, my point here is not to say that human-caused global warming isn’t happening. My point is to note that the science simply isn’t settled, and remains uncertain. That we are even having this discussion illustrates my point I think.

  • Garry

    I always try to keep in mind what I wrote yesterday: it would be a real tragedy if AGW turned out to be true, but nobody believed it because of the Chicken Little Syndrome and we missed chances to prepare for it.

    Personally, the doomsday predictions about the ozone “hole” are probably the biggest reason I’m a skeptic. I don’t think that was a conspiracy as much as it was jumping to conclusions, making the dynamic much simpler than it is in reality.

    It turned out to be a false alarm in that case; that doesn’t mean that these types of predictions are always false alarms.

  • Andrew_W

    It turned out to be a false alarm in that case; that doesn’t mean that these types of predictions are always false alarms.

    You obviously don’t live in New Zealand, we’ve (and other higher latitude SH countries) been stung with a 15% increase in UVb radiation as a result of the increased size of the ozone hole. NZ now has the highest melanoma rates in the world.

  • Andrew_W

    Buried in this graph is one of the Man et al graphs (dark blue), I guess you and I will just have to agree to differ on whether or not it shows enough of a temperature difference over the period to qualify as “showing” those periods, I personally have no difficulty in seeing the MWP and LIA on Mann’s graph, even when they’re not labeled.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_(climate)#/media/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

    This is turning into an argument about how long is a piece of string or how high is up, it definitely needs an ending. Cheers.

  • Edward

    Andrew_W,
    You wrote: “The Wiki page on the Climatic Research Unit email controversy pretty much covers my understanding of that matter, the emails featuring phrases such as “hide the decline” and “a travesty” were deliberately misrepresented.”

    You really should read your own material better. For instance, the “travesty” topic was about the lack of increasing temperature. According to the global warming hypothesis, the rising CO2 should have translated directly into rising temperatures. The skeptics were right to use this admission to help conclude that the climate science was woefully lacking. That lack is what was being called a “travesty.”

    Skeptics have not taken the “hide the decline” out of context. We are not nearly as stupid as silly politicians, such as Imhofe and Palin. Read your wiki link again, as it explains that the tree ring data was shown by the climatologists to be unreliable, and they needed to hide that unreliability. By the way, they were referring to the tree ring data that was used to create the Hockey Stick graph. That graph was based upon this unreliable data. By the way #2, when I was in school, tree rings were used to measure rainfall levels, not temperatures. I have always wondered how the climatologists were getting away with changing what measurement the tree rings were a proxy for. With the email scandal, we now know that tree rings are not useful as the temperature proxy they were being used for.

    Once again, you are cherry picking your information, but this time it is out of the same paragraphs and sentences that you use for your side of the argument. In fact, you rely upon Wikipedia’s biased interpretations as facts. You fail to believe what actual skeptics say and prefer to use worn out, biased, misleading, and disproved evidence when discussing the topic with people who actually know about this topic.

    My advice (and as with everything else I have said to you, I expect you to ignore it) is to listen to those who know the actual facts and not listen to those biased people who want to use you as a tool to gain power over you.

    We skeptics do not deny that climates change or that temperatures have risen; we are merely skeptical that human activity is the driving factor. As I have pointed out a few times, now, the evidence is that there are one or more factors — more powerful than man — that drive the Earth’s temperature. Without these factors, there would have been no Ice Ages, or interglacial periods during Ice Ages, or Little Ice Ages, recoveries from Little Ice Ages, or even a Medieval Warming Period.

    That some skeptics were incorrect is the nature of science, but then, you have not been paying attention to Robert Zimmerman’s opening lines, such as: “The uncertainty of science.” Instead, you believe in the certainty of AGW while emphasizing the uncertainty in those who are looking for alternate factors, and assume that if one alternate factor does not measure up then your belief is proved. That is not only cherry picking your evidence, it is hypocrisy. But you probably do not mind being a hypocrite, so long as doing so allows you to be certain of AGW.

    You wrote: “if you look at the Guardian link I posted above you’ll find that the “we don’t know enough” strategy has been a political policy promoted by Frank Luntz to stall implementing methods aimed at mitigation.”

    “We don’t know enough” is a scientific reality in every field of science. If we knew enough, then we would stop researching the topic. It is increasingly clear that you do not know enough about this topic to argue logically or accurately. You use other people’s arguments because you are unable to figure out the science or the topic by yourself. And you cherry pick the arguments you use, because you have not bothered to objectively research the topic. Those who do objectively research the topic become skeptics of anthropogenic global warming, finding that there is actually a lack of actual evidence as to how much man contributes — if any.

    If you can say that the Oil Companies are biased and any studies that they fund are biased, then you must admit that government funded studies are just as biased. Or you have to admit to being a hypocrite (which, as I said, you don’t mind being one).

    You wrote: “Regarding AGW vs Climate Change, I usually stick with AGW”

    Which explains why you refuse to acknowledge the “pause” that even the climate scientists admit exists. by this refusal, you have abandoned all science, even abandoned the scientists who argue your case, just so that you can cling to an unsupported and easily disputed position. This is why almost everyone else, even the IPCC, have switched to the ludicrous “Climate Change” argument. Because it is ludicrous, many have started looking for other names, such as “Climate Disruption.”

    You wrote: “I agree skeptical scientists need to keep those scientists honest by actually studying the data and the methodology – rather than just throwing innuendo around, and that’s exactly what most of them do.”

    Your defense of the University of East Anglia’s CRU scientists and Mann’s Hockey Stick belies your statement. If you wanted to keep them honest, you would be outraged at their malfeasance. In context, those leaked emails document fraud, fudging, deliberate destruction of data, and silencing of critics. All of these actions are anti-science. All of them are dishonest actions.

    You wrote: “I’m not saying there’s a simple answer, but if I come across a ‘skeptic’ claiming AGW is a fraud committed by lots of evil scientists, advancing theories that contradict well established science without an explanation for the contradiction, pronouncing certainty when they’re not qualified to judge the science and have demonstrated a political bias, color me skeptical about their claims of being ‘scientifically skeptical’.”

    So let me see if I have this right. You are only willing to be skeptical of skeptics, but when the CRU does actual misdeeds; Mann eliminates known and documented temperature changes; and the American Geophysical Union’s journals and the Los Angeles times refuse to print anything that refutes AGW, that does not raise any red flags for you at all. Right? These anti-science actions are OK with you? That must be because they support your AGW belief, and you accept anything that supports and reject out of hand anything that shows otherwise — even realities such as the “pause.”

    You wrote: “Perhaps you people are unaware that Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1998 and Mann, Bradley & Hughes 1999 have been arguably the most thoroughly investigated scientific papers recent history”

    Yes, these papers have been looked at thoroughly. And Mann’s graph has been shown to be false. Mann can’t even defend his graph in a libel case against Mark Steyn on the fraudulent nature of Mann’s Hockey Stick graph. That is how unsupportable his graph is.

    You wrote: “‘skeptics’ usually choose to ignore that the earlier Mann et al papers broke new ground”

    This does not make his graph any more correct than before, when it was wrong. Mann’s earlier papers can be right as rain, but that does not mean that his graph is correct. The graph has to measure up. As I linked earlier, Feynmann said: “It doesn’t make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment [observation], it’s wrong.”

    You wrote: “Anyway, you obviously aren’t interested in any facts that contradict the beliefs you religiously cling to, so no point in me wasting more of my time here.”

    You have presented very little that is new information. Most of what you present is not only old but disproved. You think it is true because biased reports have said it is true, but you have not presented us with reports that actually support most of your beliefs — especially not any science that supports your religiously clung-to belief in AGW. Mann’s graph, whether or not it is true, does not indicate AGW, it only indicates GW — but we already knew that there has been warming of the globe. What scientists and the rest of us don’t know is *why* the globe has warmed, and we don’t know why it recently stopped. And if it has started warming again, we don’t know why that happened either.

    You wrote: “If you’ve got papers using GLOBAL data sets showing extreme temperature variation over the last 2000 years, link please.”

    Nice. If we are to disprove what you said, we have to provide links, but you get to say anything without providing supporting links. [I was sarcastic when I said “nice.”]

    You wrote: “When scientists are talking science to each other the language is often gobbledygook to everyone else, I’ve often opened up links to papers on subjects I’ve had a lay interest in and been flummoxed.”

    Yes, but your link was to a FAQ that was supposed to reassure the public, not scientists, that they had used good methods for good reasons. Instead, they wrote a bunch of stuff that seemed to be for scientists. Then when someone like you uses it to prove his point, he gets to say, “see, it’s all copacetic” without knowing what it means himself. Garry’s point is correct. It neither reassures the public nor does it reassure the scientists.

    You wrote: “You obviously don’t live in New Zealand, we’ve (and other higher latitude SH countries) been stung with a 15% increase in UVb radiation as a result of the increased size of the ozone hole. NZ now has the highest melanoma rates in the world.”
    http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ozone-hole
    Not only is the hole decreasing in size, but it looks like the hole never got large enough to reach New Zealand or any other Southern Hemisphere country. It does not look like the Ozone hole does is responsible for increased melanoma rates in New Zealand.

    You wrote: “Buried in this graph is one of the Man et al graphs (dark blue)”

    The graph you linked to before, the one that did not obscure Mann’s Hockey Stick graph, clearly showed no evidence of either the MWP or the LIA. That you have to obscure Mann’s graph in order to make your point shows how weak your argument is.

    We skeptics are willing to wait for actual evidence of what causes Earth’s temperature to change (but you chose to decide without any evidence that man is responsible), and we are seeking knowledge on how much or how little effect humans have on this process. You may not want to hear this, as you emotionally need an evil enemy to your “the sky is falling” Chicken Little hypothesis, but it is vitally important to the planet’s future that we be able to predict any future temperature declines, as they can have immediate devastating effects on our food supply. I am sure that you would rather we adapt before a temperature decline rather than hunt and forage, into extinction, all the animals and plants on the planet in an effort to feed ourselves during a devastating new Ice Age.

  • Garry

    This is a total aside comment, but sometimes I wish I lived in New Zealand; it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. I spent a few days out of Christchurch in the autumn in 1987, taking several drives in the countryside. I’ve always wanted to go back, and take one of those 2- or 3-day tours where they drop you off in the mountains by helicopter and you go nordic skiing.

    Of course, that would require 3 things I haven’t had access to in decades: (1) time (2) money (3) getting back in very good physical shape. I blame the arrival of my kids, but all in all, I got the better of that tradeoff, so I can’t complain.

  • wayne

    Edward– Good stuff!

  • Edward

    Andrew_W,
    One of the general problems that AGW has is that the various hypotheses generated to explain global warming so that it can be attributed to human activity fail spectacularly.

    1) Mann’s Hockey Stick hypothesis fails to predict the MWP and the LIA. However, you argue that it is valid anyway, even finding a graph, comparing the Hockey Stick with various graphs of derived historical temperatures, that obscures the Hockey Stick in order for you to argue that the Hockey Stick is the same as reality. You also tried to use revisionist history to suggest that the MWP and the LIA occurred at different times at different locations around the globe, in order to suggest that they were barely consequential, thus would not show up in the Hockey Stick graph. By the way, both the MWP and the LIA are prominent, not inconsequential, on that composite graph.

    Once again, you cherry pick your data to fit your argument of the moment.

    2) All of the climate models that are generally accepted by a majority of climate scientists failed to predict the recent “pause” in warming (the word “pause” is intended to suggest that warming will continue, but there is no reason to believe that it is more likely for temperatures to rise next than that they will decline). Almost all of these climate models predicted higher temperatures than we have today. These faulty models are the major argument that AGW is happening. Yet the faultiness of these important models does not disrupt your belief in AGW.

    3) Various politicians and celebrities have, over the past quarter century, have warned us that if we do not solve the global warming problem by a certain date, then it will be too late to solve it. Then when that date nears or arrives, and global warming has not been solved, the warnings are either forgotten or updated deadlines are announced. However, you have used mere misstatements by politicians as evidence that all skeptics must be wrong, even though incorrect predictions by AGW advocating politicians does not disrupt your belief in AGW. You are inconsistent, here.

    Skepticism should not be confused with denial, as often happens. This is the “if you ain’t fer us, you’re agin’ us” philosophy. If skeptics do not agree, they must be shouted down (or our papers not be published, opinions expressed in the LA Times, etc.), even if they do not disagree.

    The problem between the skeptic and the believer (even the global warming advocates use the word “belief”) is that the believer acts like climate science is a faith, like a religion, and the skeptic is looking for hypotheses that better agree with observation (as Feynmann explained as the key to science). The believer treats the skeptic as a heretic.

    We have seen over the past half century that no one has correctly predicted future temperatures, from warnings of a coming ice age, to warnings that global warming must be solved quickly, to climate models that fail, to a Hockey Stick model that failed not only to show the MWP and LIA but failed to predict the current “pause.” Thus, skepticism is justified and faith has been shown to be blind to our observations of nature.

    Unfortunately, too many people are too emotionally committed to their AGW faith to admit that they could possibly be wrong. These people often use convoluted logic, cherry picked evidence, and inconsistent arguments to rationalize their continued faith in their unscientific belief, yet insist that their belief actually is scientific.

    Since it has been shown that global warming need not be solved by any date, we see that we have plenty of time to further study the issue in order to determine the additional factors that our models currently lack but must include in order to more correctly predict future temperatures. There may even have to be corrections made to the CO2 feedback assumptions that have been used in these models, as these assumptions seem to be greater than observation suggests.

    Unfortunately, there is an insistence that current models must be correct and a denial that other factors must be found to improve these faulty models. This insistence and this denial are preventing climate scientists from working toward finding the necessary factors for correcting the models, and the necessary knowledge needed to model nature will not be found very quickly.

    The scientific method has been short circuited in climate science. This is why skeptics are disappointed with climate science as it is currently practiced. Skeptics would rather that the scientific method be applied to climate science, too.

  • wodun

    Here is a claim I hear AGW Alarmists make all the time, “The Earth is cleansing itself of humans because humans are A) too numerous B) bad for nature C) need to be brought into balance D) murdering animals”

    The absolute nut baggery that goes along with “climate science” is insane.

    I live in a place that was scoured by the mega floods that occurred at the end of the last glaciation. Floods that were incomprehensible in scale that altered the topography in incomprehensible ways. Truly astounding acts of nature.

    And the floods uncovered basalt miles deep that traveled hundreds of miles from where it upwelled from dikes.

    It was settled science that the floods didn’t happen and the man who came up with the theory was treated just as horribly as the AGW Alarmists treat others. But the consensus was wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_Harlen_Bretz

    The silly notion that the climate never changed is retarded. I have no idea why AGW Alarmists keep pushing this. The climate has always changed and it always will. We can’t stop it. Even if every single item off the AGW Alarmists wish list were enacted, the climate would not stop changing. Why do they always claim it will?

    We live in an interglacial, a climate optimum called the Holocene, but still technically an ice age. The climate we have now is just about the most favorable it gets for life on Earth, unless it gets warmer. The fear mongering over this is a crime against humanity and civilization.

    We have a small group of people using the evolutionary fear of an uncertain future to control other people by claiming that the sacrifices they demand will appease Mother Nature and get her to stop “punishing” us. It is literally the most primitive form of religion and it is crazy to think that people who think they are the smartest humans to ever walk the Earth and are more evolved that everyone else are not even self aware.

  • Cotour

    This entire conversation is for naught, as per academia and political orientation and agenda.

    http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28825/

    “The point of departure for this course is based on the scientific premise that human induced climate change is valid and occurring. We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course,”

    Argue all you like.

  • wayne

    Cotour– saw that post at the college fix— “unreal.”

    wodun: Very good stuff!

  • Cotour: Your link has been promoted to the main page. Good catch.

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