How To Be A Global Warming Sceptic

[CapelDodger]

So, you are saying, after all, that I made the list up?

And that the 14 made-up claims that you selected as "Possible" and worth checking against mainstream climate science are, of course, fictitious too?

Yup, I just knew that was coming . A perfect example of the GWS insisting/assuming that they control the conversation. If things aren't going well, change the subject; demand links to support the blindingly obvious; always put the onus on the other guy.

The few GWS exemplars that have shown up here don't seem to have twigged that we're talking about them, not to them (except as part of the demonstration, drawing out their behaviours, so to speak).

I've yet to check the other threads this evening, but I'll update you on the DanishDynamite thing when I can. There should be a third D in there - Delphic .

 

[TrueSceptic]

I just knew that was coming.

I found them all familiar, and I very much doubt I was alone in that.

We could, of course, play the "game" that mhaze loves so much and post a zillion links to examples in my list, and he has to read every one before he can say that I lied!

 

[Dr. Imago]

Which is tantamount to saying we can't validate climate models, so your "the models are unvalidated" comfort-blanket will never get old. Whatever actually happens.

Again, CD, I'm going to state that you don't understand what it means or how validation works.

I've offered one specific example, in dendrochronology, where this could EASILY be done. You simply prospectively look at tree-ring growth over a set of years while measuring temperature, wind, sunlight, moisture, CO2 concentrations, and any other important variables in tree growth at the immediate area, preferably right next to said tree, and they correlate those conditions directly to what happened. You then provide the data in a blinded fashion to indepedent evaluators to determine what actually occurred (i.e., you tell them to make a prediction based on the tree ring for a particular sample and then blindly compare it to what actually happened). This would validate the tree-ring model.

If you are able to correlate this with what actually occurred with high-fidelity, this then validates and allows you to retrospectively apply this "science" to historical records. This really is not a difficult concept to grasp.

Again, in the only instance I know where this was tried, the results were greater than 2 degrees Celsius off the actual recorded observations. This was an experiment done in southern France, and it seriously calls into question the historical temperature records based on this methodology.

Here's a thing : AGW theory predicted a warming effect with increased CO2-load and a warming is what we've been seeing, along with increased CO2-load. That's a good step on the road to validation, don't you think? The next two-to-seven years should confirm the theory or not.

They have continuously moved the goal posts. Even they will admit to that. But, they call it "revising" or "tuning" the models.

Thermo-dynamics, fluid dynamics, radiative science - are they to be considered "unvalidated" now?

Straw man. Show me where the instances where independent variables have been controlled for and the proof-of-principle analysis of them has been performed. You can't. It hasn't been done yet. And, I surmise that no one really wants to do this because they fear they can't correlate them. This leads me to believe that there's more at stake here than just "science".

A rather subjective definition of "unvalidated", don't you think? I got the impression you were rather stricter than that.

I have specifically (before AND above) showed you an example of how one particular model can be objectively validated, yet you continue to suggest that I'm being specious.

It's was real-world events that brought us the Bali Conference, and will (absent massive and abrupt sea-level rise) the Copenhagen Conference. The decision-makers, many with their own scientific advisers and native scientific institutions, have concluded (reluctantly) that there really is something in it.

Real-world events drummed-up by a desire to understand observations. This has lead to a lot of conclusions based on association, not proved causation.

Straw-man; nobody's suggesting that. Look at the list in the OP. How much of that is actually about science?

Yes they are. There have been assertions - threats even - on this very forum that those of us who question the science are dangerous and should be, for example, killed.

Furthermore, that list is essentially a sound-bitesque parsing of individually legitimate concerns about particular areas of this "beyond questioning" science, a term that has been used by the pro-AGW camp. They are certain that they are correct, and they perceive anyone who dares to ask for more proof to be an anti-AGW, earth-hating heretic.

You're pretty transparent yourself. Your prose could do with some tightening up (that bit about dendrochronology is completely opaque), but then it wouldn't reveal so much about you. Given the context of this thread, the latter is more relevant.

Whatever. More ad hominem. I work over 70 hours a week. My time on this forum is limited. My "prose" is what it is. But, does make me occassionally question what I hope to accomplish as I waste what precious little free time I have arguing with folks like you on an anonymous Internet forum.

-Dr. Imago

 

[varwoche]

There's only so much drivel a chap can take before he cracks.

Bear in mind that the good Dr. has a pipeline to information that is unavailable to those of us grounded in the empirical world -- that the entire field of climate science is corrupt:

everything from this point forward is geared at bolstering that assertion [CO2 = main driver] and making any observations fit that premise, instead of considering alternate possibilities. I've talked about this extensively already. No need to rehash now.

Please don't reply to this post btw. I've talked about this extensively already. No need to rehash now.

 

[TrueSceptic]

Yes they are. There have been assertions - threats even - on this very forum that those of us who question the science are dangerous and should be, for example, killed.

On this forum? Really, and not a joke? Anyway, I thought that mhaze has defined "the science" as the GW sceptical view, so how does this work? Just who are the bad guys?

 

[TrueSceptic]

Furthermore, that list is essentially a sound-bitesque parsing of individually legitimate concerns about particular areas of this "beyond questioning" science, a term that has been used by the pro-AGW camp. They are certain that they are correct, and they perceive anyone who dares to ask for more proof to be an anti-AGW, earth-hating heretic.

So you are a Heretic? Another hit for my list.

Whatever. More ad hominem. I work over 70 hours a week. My time on this forum is limited. My "prose" is what it is. But, does make me occassionally question what I hope to accomplish as I waste what precious little free time I have arguing with folks like you on an anonymous Internet forum.

If this is the case, please stop wasting your precious time here: write some papers, get them reviewed and published. No one that influences national policy reads this stuff (...or do they?): reach the people who matter.

Honestly, please do that.

 

[Dr. Imago]

On this forum? Really, and not a joke?

Nicely summarized here:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3425371&postcount=5

Anyway, I thought that mhaze has defined "the science" as the GW sceptical view, so how does this work? Just who are the bad guys?

This is part of the problem right here. People (in this, I mean you as one of them) want to separate this into a fight between "good guys" versus "bad guys". There are no good guys or bad guys, just folks (like myself) who want good science, and letting the chips fall where they may.

There are a lot of well-intentioned, hard working, good scientists out there who are doing a lot of painstaking work in this field. Some of this is built on premise and supposition, though, that has yet to be independently proven. There is a lot of correlation that is being held out as causation, and this is the main thing I object to. The way around this, to prove the point either way, is to do more fundamental science that isolates and looks at independent variables within the mix.

What happens when you do this, though, is that it often raises more questions than it does in providing answers. This happens all the time in medical science where complex interactions within individual level are also affected by multiple external factors. It's no different here. I fully understand why patients get frustrated with doctors because when they come to us they want certainty. They want us to have the answer. Often, the answer is a list of possibles, not certainties. And, this frustrates people.

I see a lot of the same going on in this debate. People are uncomfortable living in the uncertainty, which is a reasonable human reaction to a complex debate. The core and basis of the pro-AGW argument is simple: increased anthropogenic CO2 emissions are warming the planet. To me, as a medical scientist, that's a lot like people simply believing that if they eat more fiber they will avoid colorectal cancer. Simple. Problem is, it's much more complex than that and when you dig through the complexity, difficult and potentially confusing issues arise.

The point is that the science is not settled, as much as people believe it to be, and I've raised some of my objections here on this very thread as well as others. It's Varwoche's post above (that he doesn't want me to respond to) amply illustrates this natural human reaction and frustration. There's no point in me continually rehashing them, as much as people seem to continually want to do that.

People generally hate the difficult questions. They want certainty and simplicity (in the sense that they want to believe what appears to be the most parsimonious and likely answer to the question). This argument is far from both.

-Dr. Imago

 

[Dr. Imago]

If this is the case, please stop wasting your precious time here: write some papers, get them reviewed and published. No one that influences national policy reads this stuff (...or do they?): reach the people who matter.

I'm a medical doctor and scientist who has and continues to conduct research and publishes peer-reviewed articles in my own field. I am open to questioning of my research by anyone who purports that I've misunderstood a basic tenet of science within a particular area of publication, be they a PhD biochemist, a physiologist, a biostatistician, a sociologist, or anyone else who understands the scientific process and may be able to shed some light on a misconception I might have had. The publication process in medical literature appears to be much more rigorous and open to criticism than it does here, and yet there are clearly a multitude of examples of bad "peer-reviewed" articles in medical science journals that get published every year.

I'm also trained to be able to review those articles and make a determination as either valid and rigorous or substandard regardless as to whether or not they were published. Sometimes even very heated debates arise when people disagree on the importance of a particular study. I always see this as an opportunity to learn, not as an attempt to quash debate and dissent. The truth somehow always ends up winning in the end, not always with the alacrity that some would wish though. It doesn't compel me, though, to go off in some other direction and begin studying and publishing in another field. The ability to review and criticize science does not require that you are an expert in that field, just that you understand and have the ability to comprehend the particular methodology used.

Same rules apply in this debate.

-Dr. Imago

 

[DanishDynamite]

What is the purpose of this thread? Is it to show the many views of people who are not convinced, or who won't accept, or who are convinced but won't accept or who just don't care that Global Warming is due to man-made CO2? If so, how is that a Science topic? Shouldn't this be in Humor or Social Sciences?


ETA: I say this as apparently discussion on the pros and cons of various theories regarding GW is not accepted here.

 

[CapelDodger]

Again, CD, I'm going to state that you don't understand what it means or how validation works.

I used to be paid handsomely for doing exactly that. In its proper context.

You don't seem to understand the role of context.

Whatever. More ad hominem. I work over 70 hours a week.

No ad hominem, just disparagement. And no amount of whining will stop that. Quite the reverse.

My time on this forum is limited. My "prose" is what it is.

Woolly talk reflects woolly thinking. Tighten up your prose (at least stop changing subject in the course of a sentence) and it might just tighten up your thinking,

But, does make me occassionally question what I hope to accomplish as I waste what precious little free time I have arguing with folks like you on an anonymous Internet forum.

-Dr. Imago

What did you expect to accomplish on this thread? In this context, you're a specimen in a controlled environment.

 

[DanishDynamite]

What did you expect to accomplish on this thread? In this context, you're a specimen in a controlled environment.

What did you hope to accomplish in this thread?

 

[CapelDodger]

What is the purpose of this thread?

"Dictate the course of the conversation". GWS trait.

Is it to show the many views of people who are not convinced, or who won't accept, or who are convinced but won't accept or who just don't care that Global Warming is due to man-made CO2? If so, how is that a Science topic? Shouldn't this be in Humor or Social Sciences?

This is where we comment on GWS behaviour in an analytical manner. Check out the OP.

ETA: I say this as apparently discussion on the pros and cons of various theories regarding GW is apparently not accepted here.

It's not appropriate to this thread. Here, we're talking about you, not to you.

 

[DanishDynamite]

"Dictate the course of the conversation". GWS trait.

Not understood. Could you elaborate? Thanks.

This is where we comment on GWS behaviour in an analytical manner. Check out the OP.

So shouldn't this be in Humor or Social Sciences? It certainly has nothing to do with Science. It is about as related to Science as a blog making fun of Galileo's clothes.

It's not appropriate to this thread. Here, we're talking about you, not to you.

QED.

 

[mhaze]

....prose could do with some tightening up (that bit about dendrochronology is completely opaque), but then it wouldn't reveal so much....

Dendro withstood the test of Capeldodger's obfuscation quite nicely.

Reality check = Warmology Debunking time.

Dr. Imagio:

Again, CD, I'm going to state that you don't understand what it means or how validation works.

I've offered one specific example, in dendrochronology, where this could EASILY be done. You simply prospectively look at tree-ring growth over a set of years while measuring temperature, wind, sunlight, moisture, CO2 concentrations, and any other important variables in tree growth at the immediate area, preferably right next to said tree, and they correlate those conditions directly to what happened. You then provide the data in a blinded fashion to indepedent evaluators to determine what actually occurred (i.e., you tell them to make a prediction based on the tree ring for a particular sample and then blindly compare it to what actually happened). This would validate the tree-ring model.

If you are able to correlate this with what actually occurred with high-fidelity, this then validates and allows you to retrospectively apply this "science" to historical records. This really is not a difficult concept to grasp.

Again, in the only instance I know where this was tried, the results were greater than 2 degrees Celsius off the actual recorded observations. This was an experiment done in southern France, and it seriously calls into question the historical temperature records based on this methodology.

 

[TrueSceptic]

Okay, please provide date, time and place where some AGW skeptic made each of the claims that you claim AGW skeptics have made.

Again, are you suggesting that no one has made any of the claims I listed?

What would be your response if I provide what you request (which is easy enough, just tedious). Would it just be a fool's errand?

 

[mhaze]

Again, CD, I'm going to state that you don't understand what it means or how validation works.

I've offered one specific example, in dendrochronology, where this could EASILY be done. You simply prospectively look at tree-ring growth over a set of years while measuring temperature, wind, sunlight, moisture, CO2 concentrations, and any other important variables in tree growth at the immediate area, preferably right next to said tree, and they correlate those conditions directly to what happened. You then provide the data in a blinded fashion to indepedent evaluators to determine what actually occurred (i.e., you tell them to make a prediction based on the tree ring for a particular sample and then blindly compare it to what actually happened). This would validate the tree-ring model.

If you are able to correlate this with what actually occurred with high-fidelity, this then validates and allows you to retrospectively apply this "science" to historical records. This really is not a difficult concept to grasp.

Again, in the only instance I know where this was tried, the results were greater than 2 degrees Celsius off the actual recorded observations. This was an experiment done in southern France, and it seriously calls into question the historical temperature records based on this methodology.

-Dr. Imago

I add to your excellent note on dendro this actual atmospheric study -

A semi-empirical study that looked at the effects of more than 2 x CO2 in the real world.

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/subject/u/summaries/uhigener
In a study designed to answer this question, Balling et al. (2002) obtained vertical profiles of atmospheric CO2 concentration, temperature and humidity over Phoenix, Arizona from measurements made in association with once-daily aircraft flights conducted over a 14-day period in January 2000 that extended through, and far above, the top of the city's urban CO2 dome during the times of its maximum manifestation. They then employed a one-dimensional infrared radiation simulation model to determine the thermal impact of the urban CO2 dome on the near-surface temperature of the city. These exercises revealed that the CO2 concentration of the air over Phoenix dropped off rapidly with altitude, returning from a central-city surface value on the order of 600 ppm to a normal non-urban background value of approximately 378 ppm at an air pressure of 800 hPa, creating a calculated surface warming of only 0.12°C at the time of maximum CO2-induced warming potential, which is about an order of magnitude less than the urban heat island effect of cities the size of Phoenix. In fact, the authors concluded that the warming induced by the urban CO2 dome of Phoenix is possibly two orders of magnitude smaller than that produced by other sources of the city's urban heat island. Hence, although the doings of man are indeed responsible for high urban air temperatures (which can sometimes rise 10°C or more above those of surrounding rural areas), these high values are not the result of a local CO2-enhanced greenhouse effect.

 

[jsfisher]

TrueSceptic,

Just as a point of clarification, with respect to global warming you are not a skeptic, correct? You are not a global warming skeptic.

 

[TrueSceptic]

TrueSceptic,

Just as a point of clarification, with respect to global warming you are not a skeptic, correct? You are not a global warming skeptic.

I certainly am, in its true sense.

My contention is that most GW "sceptics" misuse the term, and my list is intended to show that.

 

[jsfisher]

I certainly am, in its true sense.

My contention is that most GW "sceptics" misuse the term, and my list is intended to show that.

Then why is your list so one-sided?

 

[TrueSceptic]

Then why is your list so one-sided?

How is it one-sided? It is a list of claims made and beliefs held by people who call themselves sceptics but show little sign of real scepticism.