Why have they dodged open discussion on such an important issue? I’ve been told that the American Economic Society does not take sides on controversial economic issues but acts primarily to help in stimulating back and forth discussion. This is what the AMS should have been doing but haven’t....Read the whole thing.
Many of us AMS members believe that the modest global warming we have observed is of natural origin and due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in the globe’s deep ocean circulation resulting from salinity variations. These changes are not associated with CO2 increases. Most of the GCM modelers have little experience in practical meteorology. They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction....
The AMS is going to be judged in future years as having foolishly sacrificed its sterling scientific reputation for political and financial expediency....
Science needs to be science. It is a great violation of ethics to make it politics or religion.
Posts
166 comments:
No kidding. Governments are prepared to spend trillions on this issue without even truly understanding what is going on.
Money quote:
To obtain any kind of a balanced back-and-forth discussion on AGW one has to consult the many web blogs that are both advocates and skeptics of AGW. These blogs are the only source for real open debate on the validity of the AGW hypothesis. Here is where the real science of the AGW question is taking place. Over the last few years the weight of evidence, as presented in these many blog discussions, is beginning to swing against the AGW hypothesis. As the globe fails to warm as the GCMs have predicted the American public is gradually losing its belief in the prior claims of Gore, Hansen, and the other many AGW advocates.
It is a great violation of ethics to make it politics or religion.
That will never happen.
...right?
HERESY!
HEATHEN!
U SHALL BURN! (or drown)
wow. The water must be safe.
There's a disturbance in the Force.
Who funds the science?
When religious leaders funded science, you get religious science.
When politicians fund science, you get politicized science.
When corporations fund science, you get science that fits with the corporation's goals.
There is no pure science, because science only very rarely pays its own way.
So, science has to go in the direction of the money.
Now, if those supposedly brilliant scientists had just figured out to get that alchemy thing working right, we'd have a totally different story.
Finally, a sane person.
The part I'm most skeptical of is that politicians and bureaucrats are going to fix anything. Therefore I don't worry about whether the earth is warming or whether it's manmade. We'll adapt, because that's all we can and will do.
In just the past 2 decades two professions, science and comedians, have not been honorable. Scientists should follow the facts, and not be influenced by politics. Comedians should be relentless in attacking all subjects, politicians, etc. There are some scientists and comedians who have prevailed against this wave of liberal politics, but the are becoming increasingly rare.
Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade
Physicists say sunspot cycle is 'going into hibernation'
By Lewis Page
What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.....
...An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots [which occurred] during 1645-1715.....
& there's that word again! LOLOL
...As NASA notes:
Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715. Although the observations were not as extensive as in later years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes. There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past.
During the Maunder Minimum and for periods either side of it, many European rivers which are ice-free today – including the Thames – routinely froze over, allowing ice skating and even for armies to march across them in some cases.
"This is highly unusual and unexpected," says Dr Frank Hill of the NSO. "But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation...."
diessin - dies sin
I agree with Ann - but it must be frustrating for scientists when people choose to believe what they want to regardless of the facts. If you can't count on people to believe something as irrefutable as evolution, what hope is there that they will respect scientific findings on other issues. But still, I agree that should not be a reason to politicize scientific findings.
. There are some scientists and comedians who have prevailed against this wave of liberal politics, but the are becoming increasingly rare.
Not to derail the thread, but as far as comedians and topics are concerned, it's getting much better. I, as a voracious stand-up consumer, have noticed an increasing number of white comics willing to take on race, for instance. Sure, there are still a lot of liberal comics out there, but they seem to have realized that politics, outside the truly egregious like the Weiner scandal, doesn't play to a wide audience and a wide audience is what most of them want.
So, in the last couple of weeks we've discovered:
1. Fossil fuels aren't running out. In fact, we've got a 100 proven reserve.
2. Electric cars aren't any cleaner than gas powered cars.
3. The global warming crisis is a ginned up scam.
President Obama seems determined to shut down domestic oil, gas and coal production. In the process he's given us high unemployment, inflation and recession.
What's wrong with this picture?
It must be the fault of that stoopid Sarah Palin.
All discussion about AGW, or just GW, is beside the point until some reasonable baseline of what would happen absent any human activity is established.
That is, we know that the global climate has changed in the past, and there is strong indications that the variations have been cyclical.
Information is now available from various disciplines of science as to how and when the climate has changed across the continents over millenia, and with modern computers it should be possible to do a lot better than Crazy Mike Milankovic could do in WWI times to tie this in with astronomic observations, etc.
This still will not tell us what causes "Ice Ages" to begin or end, but we should be able to predict the what, when, and how of the near future within the present Ice Age absent human intervention, which would give us some basis for arguing about whether the climatic effects of our activities, if any, are good, bad, or indifferent.
Science needs to be science. It is a great violation of ethics to make it politics or religion.
This was a field that I almost pursued, so I have some interest in this, from a science standpoint. Not for the ol' credibility ratings or those of us assuming they were following "the rules".
Too late. No one should trust "climatologists" for at least a generation. They have soiled themselves and they stink.
Scientific theory, rather than premature acceptance, needs to be vigorously challenged.
We have not seen the rigorous investigation needed to verify claims that have been made and in many cases, faithfully accepted.
Consensus is not science. At best, it is shared opinion without support.
Instead, challengers are haphazardly called 'deniers'. It is the onus of the theoreticians to provide proof of their claims, not challengers.
So far, they are 1. not up to that task and 2. dreadfully short of evidence.
So, to base economic decisions on such flimsy claims is foolishness.
Politicians, lefties and other government types like AGW because it is an excuse to give government more power over the individual.
Scientists have voluntarily retreated to the days before Galileo for the sake of money and professional acceptance.
It fascinates me that there's such a left/right split on the topic as well. The right thinks the left looks for any excuse for more taxes and regulation. The left thinks the right is a bunch of oil barons and their minions.
But I would still like to understand it. I mean, beyond that the left just wants more taxes and regulation.
There go all of his government grants, and invitations to all the best academic conferences in Rio.
Not science, or environmentalism, or worry about the future of the planet or mankind. These things do not drive modern political environmentalists.
Hatred of the human species drives them. It is very simple.
And this is why i am no longer a member. When Heidi Cullen of the weather channel suggested that credentials of meteorologists be revoked if they didn't tow the line on global warming was the day i left.
Forget carbon, real scientific concerns about the reduction of sunspots and solar flares is giving us real concerns about another little ice age.
Trey
Two quick comments:
(1) Our Department of Energy (which funds research) is hopelessly biased on this issue.
(2) Note Bill Gray's emeritus status. Hopefully, a greater number of climatology scientists reaching this status will feel the need to speak out as well (once they get off the gravy train).
Ann, don't get me started! AGW is the greatest hoax/scam since Piltdown Man. I just LUUVED the latest warmest attempt to down-play the recent news about the possibility of any cooling/ice-age, etc, by using the Climategate models--as opposed to actual measurements of REALITY--to argue that any cooling due to the effects of the sun will be offset by AGW--using the models to argue from; when if one reads the qualifying fine print in EVERY SINGLE MODEL it says the equivalent of "don't try this at home"/"objects in the mirror are closer than they appear to be," i.e., most of them are nothing but our best WAG. (Wild Ass Guess--and it's not even that, as they are ALL based on corrupted and/or falsified and/or cherry-picked data.)
It's all about
POWER
They're old world, progressivism is old world.
Instead of giving U fuel/food, they give u health care.
They still r the kings & will decide who lives & dies.
That 10:10 No Pressure ad out of England exposed them unintentionally.
IF I knew how to link, I'd put it in.
Hatred of the human species drives them. It is very simple.
The wrong humans - the "other."
"Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face, there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, have free health care and 100% literacy."
John Derbyshire
As for the Maunder minimum, sunspots might have an influence, but Sir Francis Drake got stopped by icebergs around Vancouver in 1598, well before the sunspoy hiatus.
Oh good grief, looking up that quote I found this:
Dear Representative Bachmann,
My name is Amy Myers. I am a Cherry Hill, New Jersey sophomore attending Cherry Hill High School East. As a typical high school student, I have found quite a few of your statements regarding The Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted. The frequency and scope of these comments prompted me to write this letter.
Though I am not in your home district, or even your home state, you are a United States Representative of some prominence who is subject to national media coverage. News outlets and websites across this country profile your causes and viewpoints on a regular basis. As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere. Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.
what hope is there that they will respect scientific findings on other issues.
DON'T EAT THE EGGS!
EAT THE EGGS!
Don't Use Red Dye #3!
OK to use Red Dye #3!
EAT LOW FAT!
LOW FAT MAY KILL U.
EAT MORE GRAINS..
except that the grains may partially be what's making us fat.
Do we really need to review 30 years of "never mind."?
World Fighters of the Sin of co2 is a pagan nature control religion based upon guilty people who, under a religious law, are made to atone for being evil energy users still permitted to be alive on the earth. We must obey and sacrifice or we will all burn in hell! The "science" is theology using faked data, which is why it persuades the media and the RINOs so easily. It takes a good mind that can thinks for itself to see through data deceptions. Without internet to expose true data we would already have been enslaved by this Nature Control Religion that the US Government now spends 14 billion dollars a year on establishing.
Love it. Years of scolding for promoting my view that AGW was fake, and every time I revisit old boards now I have more ammo.
I think one part of computer model worship is that these guys experienced what every new programmer went through - I wrote my first complicated program that *works*! Doesn't even have to be bug-free.
Lots of ego gets attached to that program and you're loath to alter it and in horror that someone else would - and make it work better.
Like many a poor programmer, this also becomes the 'thing you must call Strange Al for'. A cash cow.
Or - as the boomers established,
Never trust the government.
There is no proper science, just curiosity.
What passes as science is various forms of congealing.
When I referred to modern computers above, I was not thinking of the East Anglia U. brouhaha, which is mostly irrelevant, except for the damage they have done to "scientific inquiry," but to deeper investigation of the "Milankovic cycles, which must have to do with the earth wobbling on its axis due to gravitational interaction with multiple bodies, and indeed, possibly the galaxy, variations in the earth's surface geometry and density, etc., etc., as well as variations in the sun's activity, which is something that we just barely have begun to investigate and try to understand.
Guessing, but could it be the AMS received a large infusion of cash from Dr Evil?
PS Seeing Red, that's the little sweetie who wants to debate Mrs Bachmann. To the surprise of no one, Mom and Dad are hard core Lefties with Dad being a Puffington regular.
Thanks for linking to WUWT. I've found it to be a crucially valuable site.
, Mom and Dad are hard core Lefties with Dad being a Puffington regular.
I figured.
OTOH - it's joisey.
rhhardin wrote: What passes as science is various forms of congealing.
That remined me of the old al-chemical dictum: Solve et Coagula — Separate, and Join Together.
"Join together" reminds me of Dino Valenti. Dino Valenti reminds me of Althouse's post on youth at the Capitol.
"They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction."
It really is the height of hubris to think we have the ability to model the climate at our current level of understanding. I absolutely support the continued effort to do so. But to assert that we can do so now just leaves me shaking my head in bemusement. Unfortunately, the costs that will be incurred by the application of the current, primitive results is truly staggering.
You do know, Althouse, that "Watts Up With That?" is a denialist website, right?
Seeing Red:
There you go
I note that our usual AGW proponents are strangely absent of this thread--doubtless they will return once they download the talking points.
"the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity"
And here I am preparing to buy a solar telescope. Great timing, Mike.
re computer modelling, I had some (ugh) experience with covariance strucural modelling in my scholastic days--It may be useful for limited applications; but the more complex the system is you model the more variables and the less useful the exercise.
And here I am preparing to buy a solar telescope. Great timing, Mike.
Can you pivot and concentrate on shovel-ready purchases instead?
Why does everyone, on both sides of the AGW issue, seem to accept the idea that there is anyy warming at all?
Including this guy.
Over the past 120 years the difference between the lowest low and the highest high is less than 0.8 degrees.
The trend line gives even less.
How accurate is that 0.8 degrees? From all I have found it can't be better than +/- 2 degrees and probably more like 4-5 degrees. And this is in a very noisy environment. Most places have more than 10 degree swings daily and 50 -100 in a year.
And from this poorly measured noisy data we are supposed to believe they can pick out less than 1/100th of a degree per year?
Nope.
We may have experienced slight warming. But from the data it is just as likely we have experienced cooling.
It may be useful for limited applications; but the more complex the system is you model the more variables and the less useful the exercise.
What do you want on your internment tattoo and do you prefer searing heat or biting cold for your gulag?
Anyone with a modicum of education and common sense knew/knows this intuitively (and, as the WI Supreme Court would say, ab initio).
It took Larry the Cable Guy on FOX News the other night to put the fine point on it: "How did the ice age end? Had to be global warming. How did that happen? Because dinosaurs were driving SUVs?"
The general environmental movement, of whch the AGW crowd is just a subset, going all the way back to Earth Day 1970 has always been based on fantastic doom and gloom scare-prediction tactics. So along comes Al Gore and AGW, it's really only same old same old, nothing new. There's another feature that has run all the way through it from day one: "saving the planet" on their terms has always required total disruption and dismantling of western market-based economies, particularly ours. That's their real goal. Like someone said, scratch a greenie, and it's all red underneath.
@ScottM: I do have some holes to dig in the backyard (for deck footings) but, unfortunately for the economy, I already own a shovel.
ScottM: am planning on cremation so I suppose I should do something involving flames :)
John asked, "Why does everyone, on both sides of the AGW issue, seem to accept the idea that there is anyy warming at all?"
I'm with you. I've been asking that for years.
The basic "Green House" model for AGW does make a great deal of intuitive sense. And, I've found the empirical evidence for AGW mostly persuasive.
For example, there does seem to be a consensus among all sides in the debate that the earth has gotten warmer since the advent of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. AGW advocates attribute this warming to verifiable increases in atmospheric CO2. Add to this NASA images of the polar ice cap that indicate it has shrunk more than 20% just since 1979, quirky flora and fauna effects, rising ocean temperatures, …and the fact that we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED if these folks are correct and we do nothing.
What gives me pause is the zealotry. The perverse pleasure many advocates of AGW seem to get from berating us about our carbon footprints suggests anything but scientific inquiry. Buying an SUV just to piss off these people may be extremely maladaptive (see comment about the possibility of our being ABSOLUTELY SCREWED), but it also is somewhat understandable.
G Joubert,
It is not all "red" underneath; there is also "green" as in "greenbacks."
There are some unbelievable amounts of money involved in carbon offsets trading, etc. which is Al Gore's scam and directly tied to these CO2 climate warming models.
Why does everyone, on both sides of the AGW issue, seem to accept the idea that there is any warming at all?
Link. Pay particular attention to Fig. 2.
The cold years of the 1970s are out. The warm years of the 2000s are in.
I recall in March, 2000, when it was 77 *blissful* degrees, that that high was 40 degrees above normal (using the 1961-1990 normals)! Biggest departure ever! Now that temperature is "only" 38 degrees above normal (still blissful using the 1971-2000 normals), and that will be even less, I suspect, when the "new" normals (1981-2010) come in.
@MM: But are the aughts warmer or the 70s cooler with respect to the longer term norm?
And how well has the urban heat island effect been controlled for in the data presented? There's been a lot of development over the last 30 years.
Just askin'.
and the fact that we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED if these folks are correct and we do nothing.
This is the part that I think has by far the shakiest evidence.
"ABSOLUTELY" screwed? Can you quantify that?
For example, there does seem to be a consensus among all sides in the debate that the earth has gotten warmer since the advent of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century.
Which was inevitable, as we left the Little Ice Age (and likely, the last Maunder minimum).
And how well has the urban heat island effect been controlled for in the data presented? There's been a lot of development over the last 30 years.
Maybe, but that is also highly contested. The major databases, and esp. the one from East Anglia, appear to systematically underestimate this phenomenon by ignoring it if the relative temperature of a site does not increase faster than a certain rate.
SCREWED if these folks are correct and we do nothing.
This is the part that I think has by far the shakiest evidence.
I agree with the later, and think that the former is ludicrous. Besides, what do we do? Eliminate our carbon based economy? Fine, the ChiComs are building a coal powered plant a week. The Indians aren't far behind, and anything we do to mitigate this "threat" is swamped by what the 2nd and 3rd world are doing to industrialize.
How many more trillions of our grand children's money do you want to spend on the chance that AGW is not just a statistical fluke (aided and abetted by lousy statisticians)?
Hagar @11:22
I agree, the carbon offset scam will line many pockets, not the least of which belong to Al Gore. But this is just a massive wealth divestment and redistribution scheme in itself, crippling traditional industry and enriching others who were heretofore not competitive. Like I say, disrupting and dismantling the economy.
Moreover, coveting the filthy lucre for personal gain as a motivator is a relatively new and recent trait for "environmentalists." It took the likes of Al Gore, et al., to devise that. If you go back to the origins of the movement, people like Barry Commoner and Paul Ehrlich were True Believers, and its hard to argue that their personal gain (other than their careers) was part of it. But they definitely wanted to derail economic progress. That was part and parcel of the deal.
The dirty little secret is that the climatologists can't know what they claim to know. The systems and mechanisms they are studying are too complex and the period of time which we have been studying them has been too short for them to draw any reliable conclusions. You don't look at a system that has a time scale in the billions of years for a few decades and think you know the first thing about it... unless you are a fool.
Amongst all of the engineers I have known in my professional life I have never run into one who buys into this stuff. Heck, we are only able to design the things that we do because we carefully control every aspect of what goes into it. Only then can we have any idea how that system is going to act. Things like climates, human bodies, stock markets etc... are not predictable. They are too nonlinear and chaotic. Even our weather is still mainly forecast by looking out the window. Now that window includes doppler radar, satellites and weather stations upwind but it is still just guesswork expressed in percentages based on what happened in previous similar situations. Half the time it did this and the other half it did that.
So the way you tell who is a scientist and who is a propagandist is by how certain they are. A scientist will say we think this, or that might be a result, or a really good scientist might say our models stink and we don't know squat. A propagandist will say IF YOU DON"T ALL DO WHAT I SAY YOU WILL BURN TO DEATH!!! ELEVENTY!! ELEVENTY!!! Then they will get on the plane and fly back from whatever exotic locale they are vacationing in that week.
At least the guys who carry around the cardboard signs claiming the world is coming to an end have the conviction to give away all of their stuff. Like everything else, the older religions were built better than the new ones.
"and the fact that we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED if these folks are correct and we do nothing."
Actually, if these folks are correct, we are absolutley screwed, period. It is my understanding that the decrease in projected warming is trivial for any practical reduction in emissions.
One of my favorite features on WUWT? is the pictures of poorly sited weather stations. My favorite was the one set up at the end of an airport runway; in the back wash of the launching jets.
"systems and mechanisms they are studying are too complex and the period of time which we have been studying them has been too short for them to draw any reliable conclusions."
This. That's why they are clutching the Hockey Stick stuff so tightly. Unfortunately, if you look at that body of work it is not pretty.
@Seeing Red
If you want to learn how to put links in your posts go here
The section headed "HTML Link Syntax" explains it all. It takes some cutting-and-pasting and a little typing. It's easy.
"Governments are prepared to spend trillions on this issue without even truly understanding what is going on."
No, they understand what's going on: they get to spend trillions of dollars. Enough said.*
* Well, I'll be a little more specific. Did the Stimulus go to where it was needed and would create the most jobs? No, it went to allies of the Democratic Party. Being in charge of spending trillions of dollars is a powerful motivator.
When I heard about this hypothesis, my first thought was, "This is tailor-made for the green movement. Every living thing produces CO2. They'll be able to raise money on this forever!"
It was too good to fact check. Early claims were that we were headed toward becoming like Venus.
The environmental movement has always been based on the thesis that mankind is destroying the earth and AGW looked like the smoking gun. It was taken out of the hands of science before it could be peer-reviewed.
It never seems to have occurred to anybody that computer models are nothing more than somebody's idea of how things work. Their predictions aren't proof of anything. They are what requires proof. Only after they have been born out by experience, can you claim they're reliable.
wv: chilin
I said: "Actually, if these folks are correct, we are absolutley screwed, period. It is my understanding that the decrease in projected warming is trivial for any practical reduction in emissions."
To expand on this a bit, I have a cousin who has a Ph.D. in the climate field. Until recently, she worked on the Greenland ice cap collecting ice cores. During a long conversation, and a few beers, she became quite honest about what she believed would be necessary to make a real dent in projected warming. As an example; Want to take a plane to get to a vacation destination? Forget about it. Air travel will have to be severely restricted to just "official" purposes.
"ABSOLUTELY" screwed? Can you quantify that?
That's a fair question.
We'll likely lose large sections of the coasts to rising ocean, although I don't know if that qualifies as "ABSOLUTELY SCREWED." Perhaps we can learn to live with coastal flooding, balmy winters, scorching summers, and devastating weather. Even when considered together, these effects do seem somewhat less than apocalyptic.
World food supplies may be another matter.
The long-term effects of global warning on flora and fauna are unknown, but I don't know of anyone who has suggested that they will be positive. There already is evidence that rising temperatures have adversely affected cereal crop yields (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/1/014002). If global food supplies take a major hit, we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED, …don't ya think?
We've been listening to the "debate is over" crap from liars and those who don't know for years now. I link to this guy because he is one who doesn't know, doesn't have a college degree although he chides Ann Coulter for having an opinion while not being a climatologist, etc. But, he's a progressive leftie so he must be right.
It's hate of mankind. Many don't seem to realize that humans are native to the Earth also.
It's desire for power and wanting to find ways to grab more power.
It's Chicken Little panic.
It's stupidity in believing that the climate isn't in a state of constant change and flux. (Isn't there a big air HVAX unit in the sky somewhere that controls all this?)
"They do not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction."
I am reminded of this.
If global food supplies take a major hit, we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED, …don't ya think?
I suppose, but there is just no evidence for believing that to be the case. None. Even evidence that warmer weather negatively affects this or that particular crop tells us nothing about total agricultural output.
We'll likely lose large sections of the coasts to rising ocean, although I don't know if that qualifies as "ABSOLUTELY SCREWED." Perhaps we can learn to live with coastal flooding, balmy winters, scorching summers, and devastating weather.
I think it's actually pretty likely we could learn to live with those things, since we have been doing so for around 10,000 years at least.
In fact, there is a "consensus" that the Earth has warmed appreciably over the past several decades, right?
Have you taken a look at global agricultural output over the same period? Is it still so crazy to suggest that the overall effect might not be negative?
I thought crops liked CO2.
The long-term effects of global warning on flora and fauna are unknown, but I don't know of anyone who has suggested that they will be positive. There already is evidence that rising temperatures have adversely affected cereal crop yields (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/1/014002). If global food supplies take a major hit, we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED, …don't ya think
Let's see if I understand this. Plants seem to do better in warmer climes, and global warming would open up large swaths of Canada and Russia to farming. Plants also, on average, thrive on higher concentrations of CO2. Therefore, the complete consensus is that CO2 driven AGW will cause massive starvation. Makes sense to me.
Of course, it all depends on how much of our crops around the world are diverted from food to fuel.
In any case, two things should be taken into account here. First, the models that show lowered crop yields worldwide assume massive drought caused by the climate change. And, that is in serious debate, esp. this year where we have had massive flooding across much of the country.
Secondly, it does not appear to take into account that different crops thrive in different climates. If the climates shift geographically through AGW, then people will just have to plant different crops. We are not talking massive heat increases or drought over a couple of years, but, if AGW is true, then we are talking generations, which gives farmers plenty of opportunity to move to more suitable crops.
And, keep in mind, when you are talking grains, that all that farmland opened up in Canada and Russia/Siberia would likely be planted in cereal grains. Wheat, etc. will likely do much better there than will, for example, rice.
The long-term effects of global warning on flora and fauna are unknown, but I don't know of anyone who has suggested that they will be positive. ... If global food supplies take a major hit, we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED, …don't ya think?
Ethanol subsidies have done far more damage to crop levels and food costs/availability than AGW has or will.
and the fact that we are ABSOLUTELY SCREWED if these folks are correct and we do nothing.
Are we? This is one I don’t accept. I think we need to be ready to roll with hotter and colder temps, and the medieval warm period sounded a hell of a lot more confortable to humans than the little ice age (which we came out of right about the time temperatures started rising, so is that natural or not?)
But are the aughts warmer or the 70s cooler with respect to the longer term norm?
Both, I think. There were some famously cold Januarys in the 1970s. And some wicked warm in the 2000s.
By the way, if you want to really geek out on weather, check out this.
@JohnJ
Are you aware there are areas of this planet that are currently lush with growth, that were previously uninhabitable? Alternatively, there are desert areas that were previously lush with growth?
The only constant, IS change.
When so-called 'climatologists' and other well-funded 'predictors' start taking things into consideration like solar cycles, global tectonics, volcanic activity, diffraction/refraction/reflection, and a plethora of other variables, maybe I'll listen.
But, even then, with the introduction of these variables, their predictions and computer models become less and less believable/accurate.
AGW and its 'hypothesis' is utter bullshit.
There already is evidence that rising temperatures have adversely affected cereal crop yields (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/2/1/014002).
You know what also adversely affected cereal crop yields? Global Cooling.
We'll likely lose large sections of the coasts to rising ocean, although I don't know if that qualifies as "ABSOLUTELY SCREWED." Perhaps we can learn to live with coastal flooding, balmy winters, scorching summers, and devastating weather.
First, I don't care about people dumb enough to live that low down. Contrary to what AlGore claimed, we are talking a couple of feet, max, not hundreds of feet. I have spent most of my life a mile or more above sea level, and if NOLA goes under water, then that is just fine with me.
And, no, much of the country is not going to be under water, and if it does, then Alaska will probably be temperate enough to live there.
If anything, AGW is more likely to reduce weather variations, than to increase them. Much of the weather we see is the result of the interaction between cold air and warm air. The warm air isn't going to get much warmer, but the cool air sure could - and that would be the primary effect of AGW if it exists. And, so, with less variation between the arctic/antarctic and the tropics, there will likely be less extreme weather, not more extreme.
But, you are correct, maybe we can panic because your horribles just might, almost somewhat plausibly, maybe happen. So, we should sped trillions of dollars ineffectually addressing CO2 based AGW.
Much of the weather we see is the result of the interaction between cold air and warm air. The warm air isn't going to get much warmer, but the cool air sure could - and that would be the primary effect of AGW if it exists. And, so, with less variation between the arctic/antarctic and the tropics, there will likely be less extreme weather, not more extreme.
You are focusing on one type of weather system -- baroclinically driven -- when others can give extreme weather just as easily (depending on how you define extreme weather, of course).
"By the way, if you want to really geek out on weather, check out this."
Show-off.
"I have spent most of my life a mile or more above sea level, and if NOLA goes under water, then that is just fine with me."
Let's see. Let NOLA flood or go back to the stone age.
Sorry, Beth.
In fact, there is a "consensus" that the Earth has warmed appreciably over the past several decades, right?
Actually, no. The consensus is that it warmed through the later 1980s and through most of the 1990s. That is where the consensus ends. There is a lot of evidence that temperatures flattened out throughout the first decade of the new millennium.
The AGW scare going going during the 1990s, arguably because of that warming stretch. But, part of why I think the models started exploding and failing to track or predict what was going on, is that the scientists utilizing those models tried harder and harder to get the data to match their models. And hence, all the strained editing of data at East Anglia. And, then there was just plain lousy statistics (i.e. Mann's hockey stick).
Pretty sure NOLA going under water has nothing to do with global warming, it's because the levees on the Mississippi aren't letting any silt get down to the delta.
Let's see. Let NOLA flood or go back to the stone age.
No - it isn't going to sink back to the stone age. But, rather, the parts that are at or below sea level now will continue to sink, as the ocean may rise, and will ultimately go under water.
Look - it would be far, far cheaper to just move the historic portions of the city than to try to prevent the inevitable. With or without AGW and a (very slowly) rising ocean, the city is sinking. It has been sinking for a long time, and will continue to do so.
Hey, MM. Are you familiar with this site? I use it a lot to plan observing sessions. It's also fun to click through to the cloud cover prediction maps.
Original Mike said...
I thought crops liked CO2.
If you overfeed crops it'll lead to crop obesity which leads to an overabundance of food and to heavier people. Heavier people leads to greater healthcare costs.
See how that all ties together? ;)
That's not a link I'd seen before. Very cool! Thanks!
No, Bruce, we would have to stop generating energy in order to "save" NOLA. Not a good cost/benefit trade off.
The historic parts of the city are on (relatively) high ground. They weren't stupid back then.
It has been sinking for a long time, and will continue to do so.
NOLA is our Venice.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I find the "darkness" forecast particularly accurate.
“The basic "Green House" model for AGW does make a great deal of intuitive sense.”
I don’t think anyone who’s informed denies that more CO2 should produce a greenhouse effect that tends to lead to higher temperatures. But that still begs the question, “How much higher?”
In order to get large warming from greenhouse effect, the computer models have to assume positive feedback cycles; that is, that more warming will itself cause still more warming.
“For example, there does seem to be a consensus among all sides in the debate that the earth has gotten warmer since the advent of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. AGW advocates attribute this warming to verifiable increases in atmospheric CO2.”
The problem here is, atmospheric C02 does not begin to incre ase sharply untisl after WWII. From the beginning of the industrial revolution until 1960, atm. CO2 increased from 280ppm to 320ppm, yet today it is 394ppm. Yet the 1930s- when CO2 was much closer to the pre-industrial value than today- were among the hottest years of the 20th century.
In short, the correlation between CO2 and temperature rise does not seem to be all that good.
In order to get large warming from greenhouse effect, the computer models have to assume positive feedback cycles; that is, that more warming will itself cause still more warming.
And, surely, when the CO2 content of our atmosphere was higher than it is today, we had a Venus like climate.
I think that the operative word there is "assume". And, these models invariably break down on the assumptions. GIGO. The model is only as good as its assumptions, and if you assume run-away feedback, you will get serious AGW.
But, the problem here is that it does not appear now that the feedback is all that positive. Maybe a tiny bit, or maybe a bit negative. The problem appears to be due to a lack of empirical testing along with a weak understanding of the physics involved. Yes, CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas (and methane a much stronger one), but there appear to be physical limits to the amount of radiation that can be retained by the CO2 greenhouse effect.
The problem with jumping in and spending trillions of dollars based on these models is that this is one of those places where a lot of good research is being done, and a lot of it through the last decade seems to indicate that CO2 is not that much of a problem. Surely, we can wait until we have at least a better understanding of how CO2 concentrations interact with temperature, esp. since assumptions based on this is crucial to all of the models that show such terrible effects of CO2 caused AGW.
The historic parts of the city are on (relatively) high ground. They weren't stupid back then.
At least there was a reason to try to save the historic portions of the city. But the rest of it? Far cheaper to just move the people. Why should the rest of us have to pay for people who want to live below sea level?
"In short, the correlation between CO2 and temperature rise does not seem to be all that good."
A quick check of Google Scholar found that the 1987 Nature article by Barnola el al. describing an analysis of the atmospheric CO2 and temperature indicators in the Vostok Ice Core is the most frequently cited.
From the conclusions:
"An atmospheric CO2 record over the past 160Kyr has been obtained from the Vostok ice core. This CO2 record is probably the purest available, covering the last climatic cycle. The CO2 changes thus revealed, which are of global significance, are well correlated with the Antarctic temperature record derived from the ice isotopic profile measured on the same core. Such a high correlation would be expected if CO2 plays an important role in forcing the climate."
Science needs to be science. It is a great violation of ethics to make it politics or religion.
Yet, there you go, Althouse, politicizing science and selectively quoting only one tiny faction of deniers.
Like the time you accused global warming researchers of fabricating the concept just to win research grants. A scurrilous charge.
His peers do not care for his denialism on gl;obal warming.
"Bill, for some very good reasons, has been the go-to man on hurricanes for the last 35 years," says Webster. "All of a sudden there are a lot of people saying things Bill doesn't agree with. And they're getting a lot of press—more press than I like, actually. I like the ivory tower. But he's become more and more radical."
"Why should the rest of us have to pay for people who want to live below sea level?"
You'll get no argument from me.
I've had dozens of debates with people on this web site regarding global warming and the level of ignorance from the deniers is appalling.
Most people, Ann Althouse included, who deny global warming don't even understand it. Many people here don't even agree that there is a greenhouse effect, yet they are the ones hurling the insults.
Yes, Virginia, there is a greenhouse effect, there are such things as greenhouse gases and adding more of them traps more energy in the Earth's atmosphere.
And we are adding more of them.
So, yes, it is a bit of a hoot to hear people who don't even grasp the simplest parts of global warming science openly attacking and insulting people who do understand it and who are capable of a rational discussion on it.
Now, can someone please link to a peer-reviewed paper by Professor Bill Gray on global warming? I don't believe it exists.
What's your scientific training AL (sincere question, no snark intended).
What's your scientific training AL (sincere question, no snark intended)?
That training certainly didn't contain anything about professional broadcasting (snark intended).
Here is your wise professor, William Gray:
“Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews.”
Well, doesn't he sound scientific!!!
Watching Ann these days reminds me of those Sci Fi movies where someone's tether is cut and they just keep drifting and drifting into outer space.
Mike, at two universities.
"I've had dozens of debates with people on this web site regarding global warming and the level of ignorance from the deniers is appalling."
That'll persuade 'em.
What discipline? What degree(s)?
Such a high correlation would be expected if CO2 plays an important role in forcing the climate.
You could just as easily reverse that: ...would be expected if climate plays an important role in forcing the CO2.
"In just the past 2 decades two professions, science and comedians, have not been honorable. "
I was walking the Venice Beach last weekend where millions of t-shirts are on sale. A large portion of them are political. Not a single one attacks Obama. Every other President going back thru Carter is represented but not Saint Obama. They did have many that honored him. It must be nice to be above ridicule and a President. They do still sell ones smearing Bush. You know, the guy that had the same policies the current guy.
You could just as easily reverse that: ...would be expected if climate plays an important role in forcing the CO2.
Particularly since CO2 levels have historically lagged temperatures.
Bill Gray, the alleged scientist, also has a habit of charging that people who advocate for global warming solutions are doing so out of greed:
"This is because nearly 20 years of gross exaggeration on the part of scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and media; most of whom wish to profit in some way from the public’s lack of knowledge on the topic-have distorted the subject of human-induced global warming out of all sensible proportion. "
Does that sound like the statement of a scientist? Or of a political attack dog? (OK, it's both).
He is not being a scientist, when he arrives at his conclusions regarding the motivations of people he has never met. He offers no data to substantiate this insulting charge.
The guy is a crank. At one point he made contributions on hurricane forecasting. Now, he's crotchety old fart.
Ann Althouse constantly maligns the idea of global warming. Please, Ann, tell us why you think the science behind AGW is wrong. Do you reject the greenhouse effect? The warming effect of greenhouse gases? What? Explain yourself.
The reason we all know that AGW proponents are full of shit is that the solutions to the alleged problem are all to implement leftwing economic policies, which make people and nations poorer. We also know that poorer nations have a harder time cleaning up pollution than rich ones.
We also know that they won't debate the issue, they will only name call and hide their data or claim it was 'destroyed'. Anyone who has raised a child knows when they are being lied to and most Warmistas are obviously lying through their teeth. You can tell by the fingerpointing,name calling and other obfuscatory bullshit.
Oh that and fact that their models are crap that cannot even predict known temperature trends of the past.
The ignorant ones are the leftists and kooks who believe that less than 1/10 of 1% of all greenhouse gasses drives climate change as opposed to the 95+5 of water vaopr that are ignored by these dopes.
"Such a high correlation would be expected if CO2 plays an important role in forcing the climate."
Except that the rise in CO2 follows the rise in temperature, rather than leads it. Correlation? Perhaps. Cause? Unlikely. Many believe it's the natural rise in temperature that increases CO2. And if CO2 and temperatures have both been higher before than now, then how do we know it's not natural, unstoppable, and simply cyclical. That would seem the natural conclusion from the data.
Its really simple Alpha. The models are NOT observations of the actual world we live on. Gray describes this succinctly, but like all religious folk, you ignore it. He has more authority than you do thats for certain.
Like, I said, I know when I'm being lied to.
Alpha; just another deluded liberal with no facts, no evidence, only cherry-picked 'observations' that fit his narrative.
The AGW 'model' does nothing to explain historical changes that occurred before man postulated that it must, MUST be he and his brethren were causing the climate to 'change'.
Alpha follows the liberal model, however, perfectly, in that everything can be explained by CERTAIN liberals, definitely not non-liberals (i.e. 'deniers') and he surely doesn't feel any particular need to challenge assertions put forth by those with he agrees. No, incurious as he is, he would fail miserably as one who is serious about claims, for those that truly ARE, test their theories over and over to ensure there are no stones left unturned. I concur, we are in a veritable valley of scree in terms of the study of climate dynamics.
At best, we are in the (relative) infancy of the arrogance of modern liberal man, a creature of faith and convenient 'truth'; a 'truth' saturated by political ideology and a hatred of mankind in general.
Everyone would be best served to meet these claims with a very jaundiced eye indeed.
Yeah, on the topic of global warming Bill Gray is full of many opinions but very few actual facts, observations and, you know, science.
Where does he produce actual science on global warming?
Where are his peer-reviewed papers on global warming?
Fine with me if he wants to air his opinions, but don't claim that's the same thing as science. Those are 2 very different things.
Most people, Ann Althouse included, who deny global warming don't even understand it. Many people here don't even agree that there is a greenhouse effect, yet they are the ones hurling the insults.
Yes, Virginia, there is a greenhouse effect, there are such things as greenhouse gases and adding more of them traps more energy in the Earth's atmosphere.
Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? But, is the atmosphere more or less sensitive to increased concentrations of CO2? In other words, what is the shape of the sensitivity curve? As I noted above, the assumption in most of the models seems to be more sensitive, but the recent empirical research seems to be less sensitive.
Oh, and calling Ann a denier is like calling her a conservative. She apparently has voted for precisely two Republicans for President. She throws us red meat to get the discussions going, and is most likely moderate in terms of AGW, as she is politically.
But, we did need one of our resident alarmists to chime in here to spice things up.
D Tread, question for you:
Do you also deny the existence of the greenhouse effect?
Or of greenhouse gases?
And, I hope you know your post was just one long insult. NO fact or reason, just scorn and emotion.
What's your scientific background, AL? If you don't want to answer, just say so.
Bruce, Ann rejects global warming. She has been clear on that point, if not clear on why.
She demands "science" but her attacks are entirely political and non-scientific.
My advice to most, but not all of you, if you don't know what greenhouse effect is, you have absolutely no business denouncing people on an issue that you are so ignorant about.
Where are his peer-reviewed papers on global warming?
Fine with me if he wants to air his opinions, but don't claim that's the same thing as science. Those are 2 very different things.
Where are yours? It's fine with me if you want to air your opinion, but your opinion is no where near science.
I daresay Gray is more informed about the strengths and weaknesses of climate modeling than just about anyone who posts on althouse.
Mike, you're pretty arrogant to think I have to subject myself to your interrogation. You do that often, even though the subject may vary.
It's just plain strange. Odd.
MadisonMan:
Where are yours? It's fine with me if you want to air your opinion, but your opinion is no where near science.
I don't have any. I am not the subject of the post.
Again, Bill Gray's arguments against global warming, like Althouse's, are not scientific. They are "views" and opinions with no data to substantiate them. Like Althouse.
For example, Gray doesn't point out where the increased energy int atmosphere has come from.
You are aggressively pushing your viewpoint, and I am trying to gauge how seriously I should take you.
Where are his peer-reviewed papers on global warming?
I don't want "peer-reviewed."
I want the actual experiments performed.
I want the original calculations gone over like a fly over flypaper.
Michael Mann won't give his up.
Reviewed means "sounds good to me."
AlphaLiberal wrote about Prof. Bill Gray, the subject of Althouse's post:
The guy is a crank. At one point he made contributions on hurricane forecasting. Now, he's crotchety old fart.
I just happened to pick up the June 3 issue of Science in which Ismail Serageldin writes in the lead editorial:
Science demands rationality and promotes civility in discourse. Ad hominem attacks are not accepted
One of these things doesn't belong.
Having been a reviewer for many, many papers let me tell you, it is not even close to the imprimatur that lay people think it is.
And that's not arrogance, AL. Just first-hand experience.
Even Obama downgraded global warming
now it's climate disruption.
Of course the climate will be disrupted.
A.W. Montford's book "The Hockey Stick Illusion", is a very informative book regarding one of the primary arguments supporting the existence of AGW. I recommend it for anyone interested in this portion of the science.
Alpha Liberal,
In your opinion, are the various Michael Mann et al. "hockey stick" graphs accurate or inaccurate?
In your opinion, was the reference, in the Climategate emails, to using "Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline," an instance of honest data presentation or of purposely misleading data presentation?
In your opinion, is the withholding of raw data from examination by those who question your favored hypothesis or theory appropriate behavior? Is continued secrecy regarding the actual programming of most "global climate models" appropriate behavior?
And, in your opinion, do responsible participants in scientific controversies refer to those who criticize their views as "deniers"—obviously intending an analogy with those who claim that Hitler and the Nazis never killed large numbers of Jews?
@Original Mike:And how well has the urban heat island effect been controlled for in the data presented? There's been a lot of development over the last 30 years.
The difference between controlling for it and not controlling for it is hundredths of a degree. The ocean temperatures show the same trend even though there are no urban heat islands in the ocean.
Doesn;t matter how often I post it, the deniers pretend it ain't there--and that's why I say "denier" and not skeptic. All you had to do, guys, was look at the link for yourself. And you would see that you have been repeating lies.
http://clearclimatecode.org/gistemp-urban-adjustment/
Not one of the denialist commenters here has a new point. They deal only with a cartoon of climates science, like for instance Hagar, just the first of many to say the same thing:
That is, we know that the global climate has changed in the past, and there is strong indications that the variations have been cyclical.
Every single climate scientist on earth already KNOWS that. And the work that Hagar calls for, figuring out what the climate would be absent human CO2 emissions--has been done for decades. What the hell do you think the models are FOR? That's what they've BEEN doing. Figuring out what the climate would be if you did different things to the climate.
Futhermore, of climate is really "cyclical", then what natural cycle is it tied to? Tides are cyclical, they are tide tot he Moon's orbit. Saying that variation in climate is "cyclical" or "natural" is hogwash unless you can tie it to the physical CAUSE.
The denislist commmenters here have no idea what the actual state of climate science is--they only repeat misrepresntations and caricatures.
And since many of them, like traditionalguy, are also creationists they have a lot of practice using the same tactics.
Like creationists, climate deniers make no models to show us what the REAL climate should be like. They compile no temperature records from the publicly available data to show the "cooling" that some of the claim exists. They do no actual science themselves, just spread disinformation. They can;t agree with each other on what the climate is doing or why, just like creationists can't agree on how old the earth is or how much evolution God allowed to happen.
@sorepaw:
Is continued secrecy regarding the actual programming of most "global climate models" appropriate behavior?
NASA's code and temperature data is and always has been available for public download. Another denialist lie.
Don't take my word for it.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
http://clearclimatecode.org/code/
Is it appropraite for you to continue beating your wife?
"Is it appropraite for you to continue beating your wife?"
That'll persuade 'em.
Like creationists, climate deniers make no models to show us what the REAL climate should be like.
Ah...so the warmalists get extra credit for creating climate models that don't work and making predictions that haven't come true.
It's the effort that counts, I guess.
Look at this denialist volte face:
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2991
"The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) Project aims to do what needs to be done: That is, to develop an independent analysis of the data from land stations, which would include many more stations than had been considered by the Global Historic Climatology Network. The Project is in the hands of a group of recognized scientists, who are not at all “climate skeptics”—which should enhance their credibility. The Project is mainly directed by physicists, chaired by Professor Richard Muller (UC Berkeley), with a steering group that includes Professor Judith Curry (Georgia Tech) and Arthur Rosenfeld (UC Santa Barbara and Georgia Tech)."
Uh huh. And when they found the EXACT SAME THING NASA and NOAA and CRU found, the denialist is rounded up here:
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/10426/Climate-Depot-Round-Up-on-Richard-Muller-Scientists-trashing-Mullers-workMuller-stands-accused-of-being-front-man-for-geoengineering-org--Muller-Responds-to-Climate-Depot
JOhnJ wrote a pretty good post. Yes, the evidence does show we are in a warming cycle. No, we don't know how much CO2 or methane contributes (or going from 1.2 billion people most not using significant fossil fuel to 10 billion by 2050 burning any fossil fuel they can afford to try to get to Western levels of consumerist bounty).
====================
It seems the sensible approach is we should acknowledge human overpopulation, resource and spare arable land depletion, and the earth is warming and humans may be a factor. That all three may be significant long term problems we should start serious planning and proposed mitigation measures for.
We don't need this from the Right:
1. " The global warming crisis is a ginned up scam."
2. "The more people the better because it grows any nation's GNP"
3. "I ain't seen no global warming in my back yard..had snow in Alabama in 2009! Hyuck, hyuck."
4. "We will never run out of any resource because Jesus and technology will ensure we have all the oil, whales, arable land,lithium we need for any sized population using as much as they can get. The invisible hand of the Market backs up Jesus's endless resources and new technology to tap it."
Or the Green Nazis:
1. "The majority of expert scientists paid by Global Ruling Elites have spoken! Anyone who opposes the truth is a Denial paid by evil interests - and they need to be purged from power and academia as traitors."
2. "Only laws will force the ignorant masses to save the Earth from deserts and rising seas flooding most cities. The masses must be told what to do by college-educated progressives."
3. "If there is only a tiny chance that catastrophic AGW is a possibility then we are morally justified imposing socialist controls on ever facet of a citizens life - to serve the higher cause and only we Green Nazis are best positioned to ensure wise implementation of those controls."
Love, BTW how the Green Nazis and Progressive Jews of the media plucked what they saw as the Universal Alinskyite condemnation of opprobrium of "Holocaust Denier!!" and borrowed it for "Global Warming Denier!!"
(Holocaust Denier was of course borrowed from the Marxist methodology of making some accusation so grave and potentially career ending, even Gulag or execution worthy..that harmful counter-revolutionary thoughts and speech could be suppressed.)
With, they hope, laws, job dismissals, and prosecution directed at Deniers!! and collective intimidation on the masses to follow.
@Ceadrford:
"Denier" is an appropriate label. Notice how many here were so happy to spread the lie that "climate scientists keep their code secret".
It's easily debunked by using Google for 2 seconds and downloading the code for yourself.
When people who don't beleive in evolution, or the Holocaust, or climate science and the repeat the same falsehoods over and over, what else is there to call them?
I'm not a denialist. I'm agnostic.
When people who don't beleive in evolution, or the Holocaust, or climate science and the repeat the same falsehoods over and over, what else is there to call them?
Hee hee, don't get Cedarford started on the Holocaust.
But to your point, catastrophic climate change, unlike the Holocaust, is something the hasn't happened yet and isn't even predicted to happen for tens or hundreds of years, so I can't see how the two are comparable at all.
Ultimately this argument boils down to a lack of trust.
The vast majority of climate researchers are directly employed by, or very closely associated with, institutions that are extremely politically biased to the left. There is no serious dispute about this; it is well-documented. Now, you not only have scientific pronouncements from members of these extremely biased institutions being made that conveniently suggest solutions exactly in line with the political goals of that very same left, but they are pushed in a very aggressive and hostile way. Couple that with a distressing number of scientists turning into political activists themselves, throw the UN in the mix, and you have a crisis of confidence. It's certainly no secret that academia loathes conservatives, and capitalism and the West in general, so is it really so surprising that their scientific findings are met with some skepticism from their ideological opponents when that science just so happens to support their preferred policies? Leaving aside the fact that many scientists do not seem to realize that their expertise on science does not necessarily translate into expertise on policy.
Why does everyone, on both sides of the AGW issue, seem to accept the idea that there is anyy warming at all?
Because there is tons of evidence that we've warmed significantly since the Little Ice Age. That's how we know it was the Little Ice Age.
Gabriel Hanna,
1. Is your dissertation research on questions or problems related to climate and its causes?
2. If the Goddard Institute for Space Studies has revealed all concerning the inner workings of its GCMs, why are experts outside of GISS still trying to reverse-engineer them?
(For that matter, do all GCMs come from GISS?)
3. Are you satisfied that GISS has collected and maintained a large enough set of temperature data, using reliable enough observations, drawn from enough locations on the surface of this planet, for a long enough period of time?
4. Are you satisfied that GISS has not then applied improper or misleading transformations to those data, before drawing the conclusions that its top people have announced in public?
5. Who, in your view, are the leading "deniers"? (This is not a climate site, so it is most unlikely that any of those whom you consider leading deniers have been hanging around here.) Are any of these "deniers" honest scientists, from your standpoint?
Gabriel Hanna,
You're making awfully broad generalizations about everyone who comments here:
The denislist [sic] commmenters [sic] here have no idea what the actual state of climate science is--they only repeat misrepresntations [sic] and caricatures.
And since many of them, like traditionalguy, are also creationists they have a lot of practice using the same tactics.
I teach my students regularly about the development of modern evolutionary theory and its impact on psychology. I do this in a state known for its high density of Confederate war memorials. In many cases, I get the feeling that their high schools didn't help them get up to speed on the underlying principles.
Do you really think that Stephen McIntyre or Henrik Svensmark approaches climatology the same way that a believer in the literal truth of Genesis 1 approaches biology?
It's politics or what again? What's that?
I CAN'T HEAR YOU?!?
One of these days the truth of all this is going to come out and the consensus, then, will be "they tried to drive that man crazy" - for being right-on-the-money.
I have been living under the umbrella of extreme cultism - coming at me on multiple fronts - and I stood firm in the face of delusion.
I remember my wife saying, "We're in the hospitals - we're getting legit - you'd better 'get' it before it's too late!" and that's when I knew:
They think they're going to overturn science,...
This should be the end game, people.
If we've got any sense, it should be the end game for us all.
Gabriel Hanna - "When people who don't beleive in evolution, or the Holocaust, or climate science and the repeat the same falsehoods over and over, what else is there to call them?"
There is a difference between having a compelling widely accepted "fact" of science or history and being mightily pissed at any skeptic that questions any facet of the set in stone "narrative" - and becoming a Persecutor of any dissent.
Sometimes the skeptics are right. The Copernican model was correct and those advocating killing heretic Deniers of "God's Cosmos" were wrong. Those lucky surviving "Deniers! and Counterrevolutionaries!" that challenged the Bolsheviks 'absolute scientific proof and validity of Marxist theory and societal justice".
In present circumstances we are confronted by many Intimidators like Hanna who want us to accept their gift-wrapped with a bow tie narrative, sometimes backed with threats and reality of career harm even imprisonment and financial loss - for Narrative Deniers.
The problem with these Intimidators is they cannot accept even the slightest questioning of their Incontrovertable Truth.
Examples:
1. It is unacceptable to have any theory other than evolution to explain life and the history of life. Intelligent design, Panspermia arguments to be rejected. People that say stress adaptations and not random mutations can cause species differentiation.
2. Those that say race is real and not a pure social construct are not to be hired or given tenure as Denialist racists. And such Equality deniers need to be shouted down and even physically attacked if necessary to promote the unchallengable truth of equality of all Humankind in every aspect!
3. The Jews have said 6 million killed by Nazis. That is it. Any who say that the number is different are Deniers who deserve to be arrested and imprisoned if they are subject to Canadian, European, the Soviet law still on the books. The Jews alone know and have the moral authority to say how many existed before WWII, how many were lost and who killed them. Any talk of Stalin's military policies killing one Jew for every 3 the Nazis did, the role of typhus is a Holocaust Denier!
@sorepaw:
1. Is your dissertation research on questions or problems related to climate and its causes?
No. My degrees are in physics, atomic and condensed matter.
2. If the Goddard Institute for Space Studies has revealed all concerning the inner workings of its GCMs, why are experts outside of GISS still trying to reverse-engineer them?
You can download the code at the link I provided. Compile it and run it yourself.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
Furthermore, the Clear Climate Code project REDID all the climate code (hat tip to Charlie Martin), with GISS's full cooperation, whicn you may download at the OTHER link I provided.
http://clearclimatecode.org/
"The Clear Climate Code project writes and maintains software for climate science, with an emphasis on clarity and correctness.
The results of some climate-related software are used as the basis for important public policy decisions. If the software is not clearly correct, decision-making will be obscured by debates about it. The project goals are to clear away that obscurity, to increase the clarity and correctness of climate science software.
We are starting with GISTEMP: the best-known climate science answer to the question “How quickly is the world warming up?”
The Clear Climate Code project is carried out by various contributors. It was started by Ravenbrook Limited and its staff, after its co-founder Nick Barnes had the original project idea in 2007. Nobody has commissioned this work from us, or paid us for it. All the code and documentation written as part of the project is available at no charge under an open source license.
If you’d like to help (see the Contribute page), join the discussion e-mail list, and tell us who you are and what you think you can contribute."
Download it yourself and quit repeating the falsehoods.
(For that matter, do all GCMs come from GISS?)
Of course not. Yet they get the same answers.
Are you seriously going to tell me that if one climate group doesn't release its code then every single group everywhere that did--and always has--is somehow compromised?
3. Are you satisfied that GISS has collected and maintained a large enough set of temperature data, using reliable enough observations, drawn from enough locations on the surface of this planet, for a long enough period of time?
Of course I think so. The denialist tactic here is to mantain that no amount of time is ever long enough. It's the "if we don't know everything we might as well know nothing" tactic beloved of creationists.
4. Are you satisfied that GISS has not then applied improper or misleading transformations to those data, before drawing the conclusions that its top people have announced in public?
Why don't you download it for yourself and judge? And then you can do Clear Climate Code's for comparison and see that they come out the same? Why don't you do that instead of repeating falsehoods?
5. Who, in your view, are the leading "deniers"? (This is not a climate site, so it is most unlikely that any of those whom you consider leading deniers have been hanging around here.) Are any of these "deniers" honest scientists, from your standpoint?
It is perfectly appropriate to argue about what, if anything, should be done about global warming. I myself don't think that there is anything that can reasonably be done without unacceptable human costs. For example, building thousands of nuclear plants is going to cause worse economic disruption than the warming it would avoid.
Deniers are people who spread lies and misinformation--like your #2 above, that no one can reproduce the code. They've made it available AND helped people rewrite it!
If you didn't know that, and repeated the claim, you did not do due diligence and you are doing the denier's work for them: if you knew and said it anyway, you are a denier yourself.
When people who don't beleive in evolution, or the Holocaust, or climate science and the repeat the same falsehoods over and over, what else is there to call them?
There's no way you can compare evolution, the Holocaust and climate science. Gabriel, don't be stupid.
Hey, I just noticed Althouse has a "religion substitutes" tag on this. That's funny.
"There's no way you can compare evolution, the Holocaust and climate science. Gabriel, don't be stupid."
He's not being stupid. This is a prime example of their strategy. GW skeptic = Creationist = Holocaust Denier. That's not how you do science.
The mathematical models on which AGW are based may appear to be complex, but in fact they are at heart relatively crude.
For example the original models did not account for variation in the output of the sun. We know that the sun is not only variable in its output, but it is irregularly variable, with other cycles apparently imposed on the eleven year sunspot cycle. Will the coming period of low sunspot activity cause another mini Ice Age? All we know is that the last lengthy period of low sunspot activity (the Maunder Minimum) coincided very well with the "Little Ice Age." I realize that correlation is not causation, but then the entire AGW theory rests on the notion that correlation of increasing CO2 with rising global temperatures implies that rising CO2 is causing the rising temperatures.
There are other problems with the AGW model. Its authors seemed to have overlooked that rising temperatures will lead to increased atmospheric moisture, resulting in more snow in winter. But snow has a high albedo effect -- it reflects sunlight back into space. And at bottom, it is sunlight that heats our atmosphere. So there is feedback loop that helps cool things off when the atmosphere does warm up (thankfully, I might add).
And anyone who thinks that the math is well-understood needs to acquaint themselves with the Navier-Stokes equation. AGW proponents assume that N-S is linear right where they need it to be linear for their theory to work. Mathematicians, being a higher form of thinker when compared to physicists and lesser riff-raff like climatologists, know that we simply don't know that.
No, you don't get points for guessing what my degree is in.
Romney sucks on this issue.
Therefore he is not trustworthy. Or easily duped.
I mean, Algore endorsed him?
Why is Greenland called Greenland?
I am waiting for the AGW guys to explain that.
Who was that weather chickie who was real important on the Weather Channel who wanted to de-certify all those weather folks who questioned AGW?
Gabrial...I have only met one or two folks who denied the Holocaust and they were seriously deranged. I have only met one or two folks who denied the earth is 4.54 billion years old. They were seriously deceived by a religious hoax. But I have never met an Alarmist claiming co2 is an emergency threat who had any better claim to back their beliefs than those Holocaust deniers and those 7000 year old earth guys seemed to have. All three of those categories have impressed me as false religions relying on belief in preaching of very clever lies. If you believe in AGW stories, you can still get help. The key is to examine factual reports from scientists who are not members of the AGW Religion.
Gabriel Hanna puffed: "(A really long, condescending logical fallacy)"
Never read a bigger, steamier pile of bullshit on this site before. Quite the accomplishment. You read like Ritmo, only less entertaining.
Yep, C-fudd blames global warming on da Joooos. That helped him get the ol' jackoff going good after tonight's beefaroni dinner.
" Any talk of Stalin's military policies killing one Jew for every 3 the Nazis did"
I always figured C-fudd for a Stalinist.
Science needs to be science. It is a great violation of ethics to make it politics or religion.
Someone better tell Gore and his money making AGW scam artists about this, post haste.
Why is Greenland called Greenland?
As a marketing gimmick by the Viking explorers/colonizers who discovered it, and as a contast to “Iceland,” to encourage folk to decide to move there.
However, there was not a significantly less extent of ice in Greenland a thousand years ago during the Viking era (or its opposite during the Little Ice Age half a millennium later for that matter) than there is there now.
Then as now Greenland was 80% covered by a thick mantle of ice a mile deep, but with some peripheral areas left free of ice where men and women could settle down and make a life for themselves.
The Norse colonies in Greenland didn't disappear until the 1400's, nearly the time of Columbus, as a result of worstening climate making it more difficult to raise cattle, not because (Little Ice Age) ice overrode the territory of the settlements. (The Little Ice Age was a very little ice age, not even an ice age at all, by real ice age standards.)
The intelligent global warming skeptics (including Professor Mueller)--ie, not the Rush Limbozo-Fox-tard/A-house AGW sorts of deniers-- grant that temperatures have increased slightly over the last few decades, and the man-made AGW accounts for part of that--whether it's owing to CO2, water vapor, CH4, other GHGs (ie, industrial pollutants), or combinations thereof has not been completely resolved (ie its a bio-chemical question, not strictly statistical). Gray should know that. Questions remain regarding the reliability of the temp. data--yet, the IPCC had granted that from the start. Wild erratic weather in fact was predicted in 80-90s.
Then do the great minds of Ahouse--Re-tread, Fred, Fentard, Alexis, Pogo the Clown, ..Shouting Assclown, the Amazing Cracki, Herr Doktor Hayden, etc-- know margin of error (not to say atmospheric physics) from Mitt Romeneyoid's hair-do??? Unlikely. (ok Herr Doktor Hayden might, as part of his Dronetech studies)
C-loo
Cedarford's not merely a nazi ( most of the Gumphouse are that). He's the ... Reichmarshall of Ahouse combox. Goeringford also has some solid research, from like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to support his AGW views.
Don't you think Gabriel Hanna's puffing also sounds a lot like Alpha Liberal's puffing?
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