Climate Change

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

You again present a straw-man binary choice (total freedom or totalitarian rule) where there are numerous middle ways which involve either not subsidizing environmentally costly and harmful lifestyle choices, or encouraging what are deemed (based on the best consensus of scientists and policymakers) "healthy" lifestyle choices.

Once you consider that it is a common practice to keep or even expand policies which fail to produce results, the only choice we have is to determine the magnitude of the drift towards totalitarian rule. A established way to remove repressive practices is through technological progress: if e.g. broadcast of speech via TV & Radio becomes obsolete, then the FCC can't censor it.

Originally Posted by Ronald Reagan

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

The wonderful thing about your position is that because you consider yourself part of the consensus, you get tell all those selfish people who disagree with you how to live their lives or make them miserable. Who knows, maybe you can even get a scientific consensus to finally rid the world of all those sub-humans, by making voluntary breathing in a room filled with Zyklon-B a "healthy" lifestyle choice. My apologies, but you must have known that that analogy would be coming.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by __HRB__

Who knows, maybe you can even get a scientific consensus to finally rid the world of all those sub-humans, by making voluntary breathing in a room filled with Zyklon-B a "healthy" lifestyle choice. My apologies, but you must have known that that analogy would be coming.

I declare Godwin's Law in effect.

Game over.

Paul

[__HRB__]

Originally Posted by xilman

I declare Godwin's Law in effect. Game over.

I declare xkcd's exception in effect:http://xkcd.com/261/

P.S. The game's not over until xilman loses all contenounce and resorts to silencing dissidents by banning them to virtual gulags.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Really? There are plenty of real scientists out there who raise perfectly valid points against global warming. It's just that the media doesn't give them the time of day, thus creating the illusion of it not being highly debatable.

Actually, there's a different explanation: Many (not all) of the folks you deem "real scientists" are in fact scientifically ignorant or at least have incomplete understanding of climate science.

Here's an example of one article presenting some convincing anti-global-warming evidence that had the amazing fortune of being allowed to surface:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...662092,00.html

You've actually just provided another example of incomplete understanding in the Spiegel article.

How long did you try looking for scientific refutations of the argument presented in the Spiegel article? Here is one: "Did global warming stop in 1998?" at http://www.skepticalscience.com/glob...ed-in-1998.htm

Originally Posted by skepticalscience.com

To claim global warming stopped in 1998 overlooks one simple physical reality - the land and atmosphere are just a small fraction of the Earth's climate (albeit the part we inhabit). The entire planet is accumulating heat due to an energy imbalance. The atmosphere is warming. Oceans are accumulating energy. Land absorbs energy and ice absorbs heat to melt. To get the full picture on global warming, you need to view the Earth's entire heat content.

In the Spiegel article, do you see that (the Earth's entire heat content is still increasing) mentioned anywhere? Why not, if it was written by "real" scientists?

The refutation continues:

Originally Posted by skepticalscience.com

This analysis is performed in An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950 (Murphy 2009) which adds up heat content from the ocean, atmosphere, land and ice. To calculate the Earth's total heat content, the authors used data of ocean heat content from the upper 700 metres. They included heat content from deeper waters down to 3000 metres depth. They computed atmospheric heat content using the surface temperature record and the heat capacity of the troposphere. Land and ice heat content (eg - the energy required to melt ice) were also included.

[At this point the skepticalscience.com article has a graph captioned "Figure 1: Total Earth Heat Content from 1950 (Murphy 2009). Ocean data taken from Domingues et al 2008. Land + Atmosphere includes the heat absorbed to melt ice." - cheesehead]

Originally Posted by skepticalscience.com

A look at the Earth's total heat content clearly shows global warming has continued past 1998. The planet is still accumulating heat. So why do surface temperature records show 1998 as the hottest year on record? We see in Figure 1 that the heat capacity of the land and atmosphere is small compared to the ocean. Hence, relatively small exchanges of heat between the atmosphere and ocean can cause significant changes in surface temperature.

In 1998, an abnormally strong El Nino caused heat transfer from the Pacific Ocean to the atmosphere. Consequently, we experienced above average surface temperatures. Conversely, the last few years have seen moderate La Nina conditions which had a cooling effect on global temperatures. And the last few months have swung back to warmer El Nino conditions. This has coincided with the warmest June-August sea surface temperatures on record. This internal variation where heat is shuffled around our climate is the reason why surface temperature is such a noisy signal.

Again, do you see the Spiegel article taking this into account? Why not?

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

My point of bringing this up is not as much to argue against global warming as to demonstrate that the matter is far from closed. Legitimate, scientific debate on it is as lively as ever.

What are your criteria for judging whether some article is part of, or at least accurately represents, legitimate scientific debate?

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Actually, a good scientist should account for all known evidence, including evidence that doesn't support his position, when doing research

So, why didn't the Spegel article do that -- account for all known evidence including ocean heat content -- if it was written by a good scientist, as you seem to suppose?

Now, read the rest of the article at skepticalscience.com that I linked to, then tell us if you still think the Speigel presents the "real" scientific argument in light of what the skepticalscience.com article says.

and in this case, when sunspot cycles obviously affect the Earth's temperature so much, to ignore that when researching global warming would be irresponsible. Unless, that is, you're deliberately trying to prove anthropogenic global warming.

Do you think that sunspot cycles actually have been ignored by climatologists warning of AGW? If so, what evidence do you have of that ignoring besides the statements of AGW-deniers who are demonstrably not presenting important evidence that contradicts their arguments?

How hard have you looked for evidence that sunspot cycles have not been ignored, but instead have indeed been taken into account, by climatologists who warn of AGW?

And regarding latent heat of ice-water transition, that still doesn't challenge what the article stated: that temperatures had risen steadily for 30 years (which should be plenty to get some ice melting) and then plateaued, at which point we are now.

Did those "plateaued" temperatures include ocean water temperatures, appropriately weighted to account for their larger heat capacity compared to land and atmosphere?

Lastly, let me remind you that my point of bringing up that article was not so much to argue against global warming as to simply illustrate that the debate is far from over on it.

But, instead, what you've actually done is to show us another example of incomplete understanding masquerading as competent "real" science.

Matt, there are indeed scientists presenting competent objections to whether various aspects of climate data are consistent with AGW. Their main accomplishment has been to assist in running down and correcting instrumental or procedural errors which had been making some data apparently contradict the AGW trend. After corrections, this data just made the AGW trend clearer.

Generally, my experience is that if you see an article claiming that mainstream science has been overlooking some simple important factor, it's probably bogus, and there's a refutation for it at one of the mainstream science sites. Check the latter before trusting the former.

- - -

Recently in another discussion forum, I demonstrated a similar situation: an anti-AGW article purporting to show that mainstream science had overlooked an important factor (greenhouse effect of water vapor), but which actually was just revealing incomplete understanding and ignorance on the part of the AGW-denier who wrote the article. In fact, the figures provided in the anti-AGW article turned out to be perfectly consistent with AGW, once the overlooked interpretation was added!

[cheesehead]

Matt,

It would be useful to analyze why the Spiegel article seemed to have a convincing argument. Determining just what made it seem so convincing would help us understand the psychological factors involved.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Actually, there's a different explanation: Many (not all) of the folks you deem "real scientists" are in fact scientifically ignorant or at least have incomplete understanding of climate science.

You've actually just provided another example of incomplete understanding in the Spiegel article.

How long did you try looking for scientific refutations of the argument presented in the Spiegel article? Here is one: "Did global warming stop in 1998?" at http://www.skepticalscience.com/glob...ed-in-1998.htm

In the Spiegel article, do you see that (the Earth's entire heat content is still increasing) mentioned anywhere? Why not, if it was written by "real" scientists?

The refutation continues:
[At this point the skepticalscience.com article has a graph captioned "Figure 1: Total Earth Heat Content from 1950 (Murphy 2009). Ocean data taken from Domingues et al 2008. Land + Atmosphere includes the heat absorbed to melt ice." - cheesehead]
Again, do you see the Spiegel article taking this into account? Why not?

What are your criteria for judging whether some article is part of, or at least accurately represents, legitimate scientific debate?

So, why didn't the Spegel article do that -- account for all known evidence including ocean heat content -- if it was written by a good scientist, as you seem to suppose?

Now, read the rest of the article at skepticalscience.com that I linked to, then tell us if you still think the Speigel presents the "real" scientific argument in light of what the skepticalscience.com article says.

Do you think that sunspot cycles actually have been ignored by climatologists warning of AGW? If so, what evidence do you have of that ignoring besides the statements of AGW-deniers who are demonstrably not presenting important evidence that contradicts their arguments?

How hard have you looked for evidence that sunspot cycles have not been ignored, but instead have indeed been taken into account, by climatologists who warn of AGW?

Did those "plateaued" temperatures include ocean water temperatures, appropriately weighted to account for their larger heat capacity compared to land and atmosphere?

But, instead, what you've actually done is to show us another example of incomplete understanding masquerading as competent "real" science.

Hmm...I'm not sure how a rise in global heat content is an argument against sunspot cycle-caused global warming. After all, a heat source outside Earth (such as sunspots) is of course going to add to Earth's total heat content.

As you suggested, I did look for an article presenting evidence that sunspot cycles have not been ignored by the writers of the skepticalscience.com article you mentioned. This presented itself rather quickly in the form of a link on the very article you pointed me to:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/sola...al-warming.htm

However, the point remains that the article you linked to doesn't address the sunspot issue, despite the fact that it is a key factor of the argument regarding a plateau in global warming. In fact, once you take it into account, the article doesn't pack a very big punch, since its conclusions appear to fit quite well into the sunspot model. Seeing this seems to emphasize that the skepticalscience.com site seems bent on proving AGW, rather than an objective pursuit of the facts.

Matt, there are indeed scientists presenting competent objections to whether various aspects of climate data are consistent with AGW. Their main accomplishment has been to assist in running down and correcting instrumental or procedural errors which had been making some data apparently contradict the AGW trend. After corrections, this data just made the AGW trend clearer.

Generally, my experience is that if you see an article claiming that mainstream science has been overlooking some simple important factor, it's probably bogus, and there's a refutation for it at one of the mainstream science sites. Check the latter before trusting the former.

Let me stress once more that I was not attempting to draw a conclusion one way or the other in posting the link to the Spiegel article. I was merely trying to emphasize that debate is far from over on the topic. And as for which is the "real" scientists, both sources seemed to be presenting data and quotes from "real" scientists at "real" research centers, many of them pro-AGW. In the Spiegel article, at least a few of those scientists stressed that it's definitely a "hot topic" in their area of research. That is the point I was intending to make: the discussion is not over.

Max (not Matt--but don't worry, it's a common mistake for some reason )

[__HRB__]

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/a...hadley_hacked/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ja...lobal-warming/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-leaked-emails
http://www.examiner.com/x-28973-Esse...ocs-and-emails
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/0911...2009.1101.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8370282.stm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,576009,00.html


From a poster at the Mises-Forums:

So the 1079 emails and 72 documents seem indeed evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory - a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science. I’ve been adding some of the most astonishing in updates below - emails suggesting conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. If it is as it now seems, never again will “peer review” be used to shout down sceptics.

My Comment: Pah! Humans...

EDIT: the data

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=003LKN94
http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/517...06.TPB.torrent

[cheesehead]

Max (I'll try to remember that :), I can't address all of your last post just now, so I'll concentrate on the first part for now.

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

Hmm...I'm not sure how a rise in global heat content is an argument against sunspot cycle-caused global warming.

You're confusing two different things: (a) whether or not global warming has stalled, and (b) what role sunspots play in climate change.

Look again at the title question on the page I linked. It's "Did global warming stop in 1998?". It's concerned with item (a), not item (b).

So, of course it's not "an argument against sunspot cycle-caused global warming" -- it wasn't intended to be that argument! It's not aimed at the sunspot theory; it's a refutation of the frequent AGW-denier claim expressed in very first sentence ("Global warming appears to have stalled.") of the Spiegel article.

The Spiegel article includes many ideas, but its title, its lead sentence, the third and fourth paragraphs, the first subtitle ("Reached a plateau"), and the first paragraph after that subtitle all are about the claim that global warming has stalled because global temperatures have stopped climbing recently. What I was presenting was a refutation of that claim.

Did you notice that the author, Gerald Traufetter, of the Spiegel article seems to be confusing global surface and air temperatures with global heat content? Traufetter writes as though the surface and air temperatures are all one needs to know in order to decide that global warming has stalled.

You wrote "Actually, a good scientist should account for all known evidence, including evidence that doesn't support his position, when doing research". So, by your own criterion, Traufetter's failure to account for evidence of subsurface ocean water temperatures (which doesn't support his position) shows that Traufetter is not doing what a good scientist should do.

Do you admit that?

I notice that in Traufetter's first eight (where I stopped counting) uses of the word "temperature", he never once mentions that all his uses refer only to surface and air temperatures, but not subsurface ocean water temperatures! Over and over, his arguments are based on a supposition that surface/air temperatures are all that's neeed to indicate global warming. He's ignoring that subsurface ocean temperatures have not stopped climbing!

Do you admit that by your own criterion Traufetter did not do what a good scientist should do?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

As you suggested, I did look for an article presenting evidence that sunspot cycles have not been ignored by the writers of the skepticalscience.com article you mentioned. This presented itself rather quickly in the form of a link on the very article you pointed me to:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/sola...al-warming.htm

Right.

So you admit that the writers at skepticalscience.com have not ignored sunspots.

Do you have any evidence that any other mainstream climatologists have ignored sunspots?

In your post #448, you wrote, "in this case, when sunspot cycles obviously affect the Earth's temperature so much, to ignore that when researching global warming would be irresponsible. Unless, that is, you're deliberately trying to prove anthropogenic global warming."

That is an implicit slur against the integrity of the mainstream climatologists who claim that we have AGW going on. Can you defend that slur by presenting evidence that mainstream climatologists have ignored the effect of sunspot cycles, or will you retract that slur on their integrity?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mdettweiler

However, the point remains that the article you linked to doesn't address the sunspot issue, despite the fact that it is a key factor of the argument regarding a plateau in global warming.

No it isn't a key factor in that ... because there's been no plateau in global warming, which is what the article I linked to is saying!

You, like many AGW-deniers recently, seem to be confusing a decadal variation with a multi-decadal trend.

To illustrate, consider the function y = 0.6t + sin t.

(The 0.6t part represents a long-term trend and the sin t part represents a period-3.1 oscillation imposed on the long-term trend, just as the 11-year solar-cycle oscillation is imposed on the long-term global warming trend.)

t = 0.0, y = 0.
t = 0.4, y = 0.63
t = 0.8, y = 1.20
t = 1.2, y = 1.65
t = 1.6, y = 1.96
t = 2.0, y = 2.11
t = 2.4, y = 2.12
t = 2.8, y = 2.01
t = 3.2, y = 1.86
t = 3.6, y = 1.72
t = 4.0, y = 1.64

t = 4.4, y = 1.69
t = 4.8, y = 1.88
t = 5.2, y = 2.24
t = 5.6, y = 2.73
t = 6.0, y = 3.32
. . .

Suppose we were sitting at t = 4.0 and didn't know any future values of y at larger values of t yet. Did the drop in y between t = 2.8 and t = 4.0 mean that the long-term trend had ended? No.

It's not that the solar cycle has been ignored by mainstream climatologists. It's the anti-AGWers who keep ignoring or overlooking factors, usually because of their own incomplete understanding of science. What's being overlooked by folks claiming that the apparent pause in temperature rise for the past decade means that global warming has ceased is that oscillations imposed on the long-term trend don't mean the long-term trend has ended.

In fact, once you take it into account, the article doesn't pack a very big punch,

... because you've not understood what the article is saying in the rest of the context. It's saying that there has been no plateau in the long-term trend. So the conclusion that the solar-cycle oscillation means that the long-term global warming trend has plateaued is wrong. Anti-AGWers are the ones who haven't yet taken all factors into account.

since its conclusions appear to fit quite well into the sunspot model.

No, they don't. The solar cycle is an 11-year oscillation, just like the sin x part of the function above. The argument for AGW is that there is a larger, longer trend that has not disappeared just because of a short-term oscillation.

Seeing this seems to emphasize that the skepticalscience.com site seems bent on proving AGW, rather than an objective pursuit of the facts.

No, it seems to show that you have an incomplete understanding of science, you want to ignore part of the data, and you impose your bias on what you read.

Let me stress once more that I was not attempting to draw a conclusion one way or the other in posting the link to the Spiegel article. I was merely trying to emphasize that debate is far from over on the topic.

But what you've shown is only that the debate with anti-AGWers who are ill-informed and don't have a complete understanding of climatology is ongoing. The debate between fully-informed competent climatologists _is_ over.

If you want to convince us that there are still well-informed, valid arguments aginst AGW, then present them instead of presenting us with articles written by anti-AGWers who are by your own criteria NOT doing good science!!

And as for which is the "real" scientists, both sources seemed to be presenting data and quotes from "real" scientists at "real" research centers,

That's only because you apparently can't tell the difference between "real" science and the faulty scientific understanding presented in the Spiegel article.

That is the point I was intending to make: the discussion is not over.

But the point you actually made is just the opposite!

The discussion, regarding whether AGW exists, between scientists who actually know what they're talking about _is_ over. The remaining not-over discussion is being perpetuated by people who _don't_ know what they're talking about -- which is exactly, precisely what you have just shown us!

I regret that our educational system's science education has left so many adults with faulty understanding of scientific principles.

Max, face it: AGW exists, and you have some learning to do before you can distinguish between real science and the other stuff.

[mdettweiler]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Max (I'll try to remember that :), I can't address all of your last post just now, so I'll concentrate on the first part for now.

You're confusing two different things: (a) whether or not global warming has stalled, and (b) what role sunspots play in climate change.

Look again at the title question on the page I linked. It's "Did global warming stop in 1998?". It's concerned with item (a), not item (b).

So, of course it's not "an argument against sunspot cycle-caused global warming" -- it wasn't intended to be that argument! It's not aimed at the sunspot theory; it's a refutation of the frequent AGW-denier claim expressed in very first sentence ("Global warming appears to have stalled.") of the Spiegel article.

The Spiegel article includes many ideas, but its title, its lead sentence, the third and fourth paragraphs, the first subtitle ("Reached a plateau"), and the first paragraph after that subtitle all are about the claim that global warming has stalled because global temperatures have stopped climbing recently. What I was presenting was a refutation of that claim.

Did you notice that the author, Gerald Traufetter, of the Spiegel article seems to be confusing global surface and air temperatures with global heat content? Traufetter writes as though the surface and air temperatures are all one needs to know in order to decide that global warming has stalled.

You wrote "Actually, a good scientist should account for all known evidence, including evidence that doesn't support his position, when doing research". So, by your own criterion, Traufetter's failure to account for evidence of subsurface ocean water temperatures (which doesn't support his position) shows that Traufetter is not doing what a good scientist should do.

Do you admit that?

I notice that in Traufetter's first eight (where I stopped counting) uses of the word "temperature", he never once mentions that all his uses refer only to surface and air temperatures, but not subsurface ocean water temperatures! Over and over, his arguments are based on a supposition that surface/air temperatures are all that's neeed to indicate global warming. He's ignoring that subsurface ocean temperatures have not stopped climbing!

Do you admit that by your own criterion Traufetter did not do what a good scientist should do?

Actually, in the Spiegel article it didn't seem to be even necessary to point out about ocean heat content or global heat content. After all, if the theory being presented is that global warming cycles are caused by changes in the sun's activity, then there'd be no argument against the fact that the planet's heat content would increase because of that.

Also, I am by no means claiming that the guy who wrote the article is himself a "good scientist". After all, he's just a news reporter, writing about what actual scientists have said, and such were quoted throughout the article. Would you consider them "good scientists"? A number of different scientists quoted throughout the article, all of whom seemed to be well-respected, concluded completely opposite things from the evidence presented: some that global warming was caused by sunspot cycles and had stagnated, and others that it wasn't and had apparently "stagnated" for other reasons. This fits perfectly well with the point I was trying to make, which was not about the validity of the article itself, but rather that debate is still continuing in earnest between well-respected scientists..