Global warming

[Pipirr]

I would agree, the MWP alone does not make for an ultimate argument to end AGW. I think the most important part is that it gives us a good idea that very warm temperatures have happened in the past for reasons we can't currently explain and therefore might happen again.

Some people like CD would have us believe that the past climate isn't important to understand. Although I would agree that the modern situation is different, it is silly to ignore the past. If we had an extremely good understanding of what was causing climate changes in the past we could do a better job of figuring out where the climate would be without the influence of manmade GHG and therefore we'd be able to better see just how much warming is natural and how much is caused by us.

I wouldn't presume to speak for CD, but I think his point isn't that past climate is not important, just that it is not adequate to explain present warming / CO2 levels. Any argument along the lines of "yes, but it was warmer in the past!" is surely incomplete, because it ignores the fact that the situation right now is very different.

As I understand it, a lot of research has been done on studying past climate, and that data can be used, for example, to constrain the range of climate sensitivity. This post at RealClimate gives an example of that in practice.

At what point our level of knowledge can be described as "an extremely good understanding" is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I'm more and more impressed at the depth of research that has been done in the field of climate change, and think it is becoming increasingly unlikely the past holds AGW-refuting surprises.

 

[mhaze]

Having read the story, I'd say a more accurate headline for it would be "Scientist fired for deliberately disobeying his boss's instructions".

If there is anything to this story, why did no-one bring it to Black's attention?

By your logic, Hansen should obey the instructions of Bush, his boss.

Got a problem with that?

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

At what point our level of knowledge can be described as "an extremely good understanding" is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I'm more and more impressed at the depth of research that has been done in the field of climate change, and think it is becoming increasingly unlikely the past holds AGW-refuting surprises.

Not so. Each blog entry in ClimateAudit disqualifies points and points of AGW'rs assertions. Data has been cherry picked to accommodate AGW agenda.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

By your logic, Hansen should obey the instructions of Bush, his boss.

Got a problem with that?

Some time ago I posted several stories about scientifics fired or threatened for expressing dissenting views about the AGW dogma. The resident warmers expressed the same arguments to discredit the prosecution.

Anyway, what a retorted logic do you need to reduce the incident to a simple boss/subordinate affair?

 

[Pipirr]

Not so. Each blog entry in ClimateAudit disqualifies points and points of AGW'rs assertions. Data has been cherry picked to accommodate AGW agenda.

ClimateAudit does make for interesting reading, but I won't be taking those blog entries too seriously until they have gone through peer review.

As papers, in journals, obviously, not reviewed on the blog by blog commenters. You know what I mean. I just don't give the same weight to ClimateAudit as I do to the peer reviewed literature. Of which there remains an impressive amount.

 

[Pixel42]

By your logic, Hansen should obey the instructions of Bush, his boss.

Got a problem with that?

I did not express an opinion as to whether the scientist in question should, or should not, have obeyed his boss. I merely pointed out that "Scientist fired for deliberately disobeying his boss" would have been a more accurate headline than "Scientist fired for exposing warming myths". Because despite the obvious bias of the article there is enough information in it to work out that that is what actually happened.

I still want to know why no sceptic offered this case to Black as an example of the bias they insist exists. It suggests to me that the interpretation of the incident given in the article would not actually stand up to examination.

 

[mhaze]

I did not express an opinion as to whether the scientist in question should, or should not, have obeyed his boss. I merely pointed out that "Scientist fired for deliberately disobeying his boss" would have been a more accurate headline than "Scientist fired for exposing warming myths". Because despite the obvious bias of the article there is enough information in it to work out that that is what actually happened.

I still want to know why no sceptic offered this case to Black as an example of the bias they insist exists. It suggests to me that the interpretation of the incident given in the article would not actually stand up to examination.

I have no idea about the issue of why no sceptic offered this case to Black or not, I was just trying to show a similar case from the opposite point of view.

Or to put it in contemporary language:

"Whistleblowers". Good or bad?

Generally most people would say good, I would think.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

AFAICS they are reviewed by fellow statisticians. The process works this way:
They find some bad calculus or data, then send the result to the originator of the paper and wait for the response of the original person or institution. That was what happened when NASA had to correct their temperature ranking.

ClimateAudit does make for interesting reading, but I won't be taking those blog entries too seriously until they have gone through peer review.

As papers, in journals, obviously, not reviewed on the blog by blog commenters. You know what I mean. I just don't give the same weight to ClimateAudit as I do to the peer reviewed literature. Of which there remains an impressive amount.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by Pipirr
ClimateAudit does make for interesting reading, but I won't be taking those blog entries too seriously until they have gone through peer review.

As papers, in journals, obviously, not reviewed on the blog by blog commenters. You know what I mean. I just don't give the same weight to ClimateAudit as I do to the peer reviewed literature. Of which there remains an impressive amount.

​

AFAICS they are reviewed by fellow statisticians. The process works this way:
They find some bad calculus or data, then send the result to the originator of the paper and wait for the response of the original person or institution. That was what happened when NASA had to correct their temperature ranking.

Interesting distinction.

Obviously there was no "published peer reviewed paper" when McIntyre found the NASA temperature errors. What would have been the point of it?

Let's say the divergence problem is noted in a critical tree ring series used in the Mann reconstruction (the "hockey stick"). Climateaudit on their own has updated the proxies by going into the field and taking tree ring cores, sending them to labs, using the same trees as in the Mann work.

McIntyre simply posts the results on his website along with all supporting documentation and evidence.

What is the point of a published, peer reviewed article in this case?

 

[Pipirr]

Interesting distinction.

Obviously there was no "published peer reviewed paper" when McIntyre found the NASA temperature errors. What would have been the point of it?

Let's say the divergence problem is noted in a critical tree ring series used in the Mann reconstruction (the "hockey stick"). Climateaudit on their own has updated the proxies by going into the field and taking tree ring cores, sending them to labs, using the same trees as in the Mann work.

McIntyre simply posts the results on his website along with all supporting documentation and evidence.

What is the point of a published, peer reviewed article in this case?

They could publish a paper titled " An independent evaluation of tree ring proxies of historical CO2 levels in the Pacific north west".

Which then, having been published, would have to be considered by climatologists, climate modellers and even such institutions as the IPCC and may then lead to a re-assessment of hockey sticks.

Because right now, what McIntyre posts on his blog won't carry as much weight in the scientific community as getting things peer reviewed and published.

Seriously, is any of this really contentious? It seems bloody obvious to me. If ClimateAudit finds something that refutes AGW, publish it. Why confine the findings to a blog?

 

[Pipirr]

Interesting distinction.

Obviously there was no "published peer reviewed paper" when McIntyre found the NASA temperature errors. What would have been the point of it?

Maybe not much point publishing a paper that only pointed out a calculation error in a temperature data set.

I suppose the distinction relates to the significance of the finding. If the NASA temperature errors were really key to some pillar of AGW, then one could take that key paper, run the new data through and publish a re-analysis.

In point of fact, there's nothing to stop anybody doing just that, if the NASA temperature error really is key to some aspect of AGW.

 

[mhaze]

They could publish a paper titled " An independent evaluation of tree ring proxies of historical CO2 levels in the Pacific north west".

Which then, having been published, would have to be considered by climatologists, climate modellers and even such institutions as the IPCC and may then lead to a re-assessment of hockey sticks.

Because right now, what McIntyre posts on his blog won't carry as much weight in the scientific community as getting things peer reviewed and published.

Seriously, is any of this really contentious? It seems bloody obvious to me. If ClimateAudit finds something that refutes AGW, publish it. Why confine the findings to a blog?

Just to be sure we are on track on the same issue.

The "divergence problem" 1960 to present (approximately) with tree ring proxy?

 

[Pipirr]

Whatever. Make up your own title. The point being, if it is a significant finding, its publishable, and should be published if you want it to be taken seriously.

Why the aversion to peer review?

Blogging isn't going to replace it anytime soon.

 

[Locri]

Whatever. Make up your own title. The point being, if it is a significant finding, its publishable, and should be published if you want it to be taken seriously.

Why the aversion to peer review?

Blogging isn't going to replace it anytime soon.

Well, at the very least McIntyre has done some peer review papers in the past (relating to the Mann et al reconstruction) and his work was even doubly verified by two independent reviews and yet many still hang on to the Mann reconstruction.

I would agree that he should publish more papers, but it seems that even having peer reviewed papers specifically pointing out something as being wrong doesn't change peoples minds sometimes.

 

[Locri]

*snip*

Right... so, I was going to reply to the rest of your post, but from your initial reply I can already tell you aren't actually interested in a reasoned discussion and apparently have trouble doing things as simple as reading a clearly written sentence. No sense wasting anymore time on that part of the thread.

 

[mhaze]

Whatever. Make up your own title. The point being, if it is a significant finding, its publishable, and should be published if you want it to be taken seriously.

Why the aversion to peer review?

Blogging isn't going to replace it anytime soon.

I do not agree with you on this specific matter. That is, for this issue of the updating of the tree rings.

Presume that McIntyre publishes the results from the dendro lab on his website.

Presume that the results clearly indicate that the historical reconstruction of temperature using tree rings as a proxy are wrong.

The published, peer reviewed papers on the subject which asserted that use of tree rings was a way of finding historical temperature just shot into File 13.....

It does not get any simpler than that.

 

[Schneibster]

Right... so, I was going to reply to the rest of your post, but from your initial reply I can already tell you aren't actually interested in a reasoned discussion and apparently have trouble doing things as simple as reading a clearly written sentence. No sense wasting anymore time on that part of the thread.

I didn't see any point in the first place, but since you insisted on having it reviewed, I did. If you weren't going to like the review in the first place, why ask? You were perfectly capable of seeing what I saw, if you had thought critically. If you can't think critically, why post on a science forum on a skeptical web site?

 

[Locri]

As long as the sense of uncertainty remains, but given that's at the 10-% uncertainty level (90+% certainty) - and the uncertainty does remain in the actual papers the IPCC collates, which the more important governments have their own scientific staff to evaluate - I wonder just what you're asking for. The point of the IPCC reports is to act as an interface between the scientific world and the political one.

I suggest going through and reading at least the first few pages of the paper I linked to. It talks about some of the policy decisions that were made in terms of how the IPCC reports on the scientific reports and this basically is breaking one of their own rules in how they report things.

Have you considered the possibility that the quotes have been presented misleadingly? Have you considered that the science you've read may not be science at all? There's a lot more pseudo-science than science out there, because the science can be stated simply and succintly.

Yes, I have considered that actually. From what I can tell, the story told by McIntyre and others is far more logical than doing things like citing unpublished papers in order to back up the Mann et al reconstruction.

Well, there's your flag properly nailed to a mast. The "mythical" scientific consensus.

*yawn* Right... see here: Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory

Who's being muffled? You've read enough "science" to have a cock-eyed view of reality, and that's the stuff you claim is being muffled. It's not mainstream because it's bollocks. It used to be mainstream, but unfolding reality has demoted it. That doesn't keep them off Fox News or out of WSJ editorials, of course, but that's a subtle form of muffling known as "loss of cred".

Have I EVER referenced Fox News or a WSJ editorial? No. I've cited peer-reviewed papers and documents from people that have been actively correcting mistakes made in the climate science field.

Nobody has ever claimed that's the case, but it's a popular strawman. There are those who claim climate doesn't respond at all to CO2 because CO2 responds to climate (the notorious 800-year lag refuge). You may have come across them in your reading.

You missed the point of that comment completely... it was a joke because you said (probably off the cuff):

That's because the climate only responds to the accumulated CO2, not to human attitudes towards it.

I was joking about nit-picking it because I know you didn't mean it like that... I guess jokes don't fly to well here.

Do you mean the IPCC was not a political entity when the thread started, or that I've changed my position? I strongly suspect the latter, but if that's the case it's not so. I have long ploughed the furrow that explains the IPCC as a body set up by governments under the auspices of the UN to collate the current science of climate and report on it. Naturally politicians and diplomats made sure they had some control over it. What they don't have control over, of course, is climate change.

Yes, I meant that you must have changed your position. I seem to recall you arguing that IPCC was a scientific organization and therefore we could trust it. I can't recall the exact post and I hope you'll forgive me if I don't dig through 3000 posts to find the right one. But we agree that the IPCC is a political organization then (regardless of the correctness of what they report)?

Just another refuge from the real world - which, you may have noticed, has continued to get warmer since the IPCC was established.

And you keep on going back to this red herring, I am not arguing that it's not gotten warmer. That's a pointless statement that has no relevance to what I was saying.

 

[mhaze]

Whatever. Make up your own title. The point being, if it is a significant finding, its publishable, and should be published if you want it to be taken seriously.

Why the aversion to peer review?

Blogging isn't going to replace it anytime soon.

For your reading enjoyment, here is my summary of key concepts from a recent Hansen peer reviewed publication. This is the state of the art in modern peer reviewed, published Climate Science -

Unproved hypothesis, wild assertions, conjectures with NO supporting data, on and on and on. One could simply not make this stuff up.

Climate Change and Trace Gases Hansen et al 2007
doi:10.1098/rsta.2007.2052

thick ice sheets provide not only a positive feedback... potential for cataclysmic collapse.....projected warmings under BAU would initiate albdeo-flip changes...

possible to save the Arctic from complete loss of ice...if absolute reduction of air pollutant forcings is achieved along with a reduction of CO2 growth...most rapid feasible slowdown of CO2 emissions, coupled with a forced reductions of other forcings, may just have a chance of avoiding disastrous climate change.....albedo feedback whipped the planet to hellish hothouse conditions...whipsaw between cold and warm.........imminent peril is initiation of dynamical and thermodynamical processess on the West Antartic and Greenland ice sheets....devastating sea-level rise will inevitably occur....activate the albedo-flip trigger....BAU GHG scenarios would cause large sea-level rise this century......best chance for averting ice sheet disintegration seems to be intense simultaneous efforts to reduce both co2 emissions and non-co2 climate forcings...

...feasible strategy for planetary rescue....

 

[Pipirr]

I do not agree with you on this specific matter. That is, for this issue of the updating of the tree rings.

Presume that McIntyre publishes the results from the dendro lab on his website.

Presume that the results clearly indicate that the historical reconstruction of temperature using tree rings as a proxy are wrong.

The published, peer reviewed papers on the subject which asserted that use of tree rings was a way of finding historical temperature just shot into File 13.....

It does not get any simpler than that.

And these lab results will forever be just something on some guy's website.

It's not like every climate scientist in the world has membership at ClimateAudit, and breathlessly awaits each and every blog post. Do you think that the scientific community gives a lot of credence to a blog?

Its really simple. If you have a significant finding with tree rings that indicates that historical reconstructions are wrong, then publish it. Otherwise, what was the point in doing the analysis? Just to provide succour and comfort to AGW skeptics?

Because if it isn't published, the historical reconstructions will continue to be used, unchallenged. You can all sit there and mutter to yourselves about how you are sure its all wrong, but that won't change anything. Although it might give you heartburn.