How To Be A Global Warming Sceptic

[a_unique_person]

Aerosols are also the favorite tool for climate modelers to adjust at their pleasure to force, errr, "tune" their models to match observations.

Do you just make things up because it amuses you?

 

[mhaze]

Thanks for demonstrating once more that you would rather evade the question and hurl insults than discuss the subject.

My, my, not at all.

You have persisted in posting a link to the judgment, after having already been apprised of the fact that is not the transcript. And you continue to call it the transcript. Moreover you persist in asserting I am in error in saying the transcript was 500+ pages. So you not only err, but revel in it like a pig in Sh**. If you might like to (once again) ask if I or someone wants to discuss the court transcript, kindly actually get the link to it and review it first.

Then you can start by apologizing to me about the length of the document.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by David Rodale
Aerosols are also the favorite tool for climate modelers to adjust at their pleasure to force, errr, "tune" their models to match observations.

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Do you just make things up because it amuses you?

Whoaaa!!!

You've just accussed David Rodale of stooping to the depths of a climate modeler!

A low, low blow.

 

[TrueSceptic]

My, my, not at all.

You have persisted in posting a link to the judgment, after having already been apprised of the fact that is not the transcript. And you continue to call it the transcript. Moreover you persist in asserting I am in error in saying the transcript was 500+ pages. So you not only err, but revel in it like a pig in Sh**. If you might like to (once again) ask if I or someone wants to discuss the court transcript, kindly actually get the link to it and review it first.

Then you can start by apologizing to me about the length of the document.

You are right. I should have referred to the "written judgement", not the "transcript" (I thought it was the transcript of the spoken judgement). Apologies.

But I do not "persist" in saying you are in error. I only said that once, and I was wrong.

Should we look at the judgement or the entire transcript? Which would be more useful?

 

[TrueSceptic]

Whoaaa!!!

You've just accussed David Rodale of stooping to the depths of a climate modeler!

A low, low blow.

Is that anything other than an illustration of a GWS bereft of anything but childish and ignorant insults?

 

[CapelDodger]

My apologies if I have derailed the thread away from the OP, but I personally think that exploring why GWS reject scientific consensus is highly relevant to the OP. I am not arguing the science; I am questioning why there is so much distrust of scientific consensus in this particular incidence

I can't speak for TrueSceptic (his gaff, his rules), but I think that's in the spirit of the thread. This where we talk about GW Sceptics, and they're free to talk about themselves.

They often reveal more by not talking about themselves, IMO. You can tell a lot from the things they want to talk about.

 

[CapelDodger]

Is that anything other than an illustration of a GWS bereft of anything but childish and ignorant insults?

That's what passes for "clever" in some circles. Go figure.

 

[TrueSceptic]

You are right. I should have referred to the "written judgement", not the "transcript" (I thought it was the transcript of the spoken judgement). Apologies.

But I do not "persist" in saying you are in error. I only said that once, and I was wrong.

Should we look at the judgement or the entire transcript? Which would be more useful?

Just for the record: you first said that the transcript is 2000+ pages, then 500+. It
is 235 pages.

 

[CapelDodger]

Should we look at the judgement or the entire transcript? Which would be more useful?

From mhaze's perspective, the transcript would be much more useful because he can play lawyer with it (just as real lawyers did in the first place). The aspiring GW Sceptic must know when to simplify ("British Judge Condemns Al Gore"; well, a few British judges condemned George Washington but let's not get into that) and when to complicate (re-run the court case without the judge present).

You'll surely have noticed how the GW Sceptics have taken to talking amongst themselves on this thread. That's another common trait.

 

[a_unique_person]

Whoaaa!!!

You've just accussed David Rodale of stooping to the depths of a climate modeler!

A low, low blow.

I'm saying he has made a claim that is pure fiction. Is there any evidence to back it up?

 

[TrueSceptic]

I can't speak for TrueSceptic (his gaff, his rules), but I think that's in the spirit of the thread. This where we talk about GW Sceptics, and they're free to talk about themselves.

They often reveal more by not talking about themselves, IMO. You can tell a lot from the things they want to talk about.

This is pretty much right.

Notice how frequently the small subset of GWS here repeat variations of the claims in my OP list whilst accusing me of strawman attacks and listing only the poor GWS arguments?

How do they get to be like this?

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

You'll surely have noticed how the GW Sceptics have taken to talking amongst themselves on this thread. That's another common trait.

this is hilarious......we just need to look back some pages to se AGW evangelists mainly talking among themselves.

 

[The Gnomon]

Too many issues to make a black/white separation

My apologies if I have derailed the thread away from the OP, but I personally think that exploring why GWS reject scientific consensus is highly relevant to the OP. I am not arguing the science; I am questioning why there is so much distrust of scientific consensus in this particular incidence

Finally, I hear a serious, legitimate and important question! This one is worthy of discussion which could conceivablly lead to some understanding.
I suspect the reasons are multiple, and the doubts entertained by the GWSs are likely to fall into several groups; additionally, not only the item questioned, but the degree of skepticism, are complex variables.
As an example: Person A asserts that there has been global warming, that it is the result of solar radiation long-term cycles, and that the CO2 rise is secondary, not causal. I personally would evaluate these three items separately, and not immediate rush to categorize Person A in the same bucket as a conspiracy-buff, paranoid, and "rebelling against the 'scientific establishment'" kook.

As with many such debates, I doubt if all who consider themselves to be Anti-GWS are necessarily in complete agreement with every reputable scientfiic organizational consensus. There are many important questions. In any "natural" study, cause-effect relationships are hard to nail down. In the case of GW, identifying the point in the complex chain most susceptible to influence at least cost is critical to dealing with the problem. If we devote resources to treating a supposed cause which turns out to be a "marker" and not a "cause," we may do more harm than good.

The con-fusion of GW with other environmental issues only serves to cloud the issue. Yes, they are related, but No, the relationship is not necessarily "first order" in every case.

This is a serious, complex issue. Nothing is served by choosing up sides and painting the other side as dogmatic, quasi-religious, fanatical, and guided by nefarious purpose.

 

[fsol]

Whoaaa!!!

You've just accussed David Rodale of stooping to the depths of a climate modeler!

A low, low blow.

Like OMG you made a funny! How witty, how...oh hang on. Nevermind.

 

[CapelDodger]

Just to correct you on one point: I'm not a GW sceptic per se, but an AGW sceptic; the nuance here is important.

You're a GW Sceptic within the terms of the OP.

Yes, I am aware that the IPCC is essentially a literature review. And a literature review should review all of the literature, not just the bits that support one side of an argument. If the IPCC disagree with the contents of a paper, then fine, report it and explain it.

What you're demanding here (it's a GW Sceptic trait that they're very demanding) is that the IPCC reports mention every single published paper that might have any bearing, with full analysis. This is by no means the mandate of the IPCC. The whole point of the IPCC is that it collates and condenses the current science for the benefit of decision-makers who are not themselves climate scientists. They're mostly politicians.

That's what a literature review should do. What a literature review should not do is completely ignore (without reference) papers in the peer-review record that bring into question the IPCC position.

IPCC reports are not literature reviews. They are what the IPCC was mandated to produce, for the benefit of the people that mandated it.

(Note that I did not propose, at any point, that the IPCC should be conducting original research, so your point in this regard is a straw man.)

Far from it. You said the IPCC swept stuff under the carpet; I pointed out that this was a ridiculous notion because the IPCC only deals with what's already in the open : published papers. The IPCC doesn't even have a brush, let alone jurisdiction over a carpet.

I'm not sure what "a few individuals storming off in a hissy fit" is supposed to mean, but it sounds awfully ad-hom ish.

I regard it as descriptive. It doesn't work for you but there it is. I'm sure it's struck a chord elsewhere. I'm mocking these people, true, but why not?

These individuals made cases with regard to errors in the IPCC analysis, with reference to the peer-reviewed record. If you want to call that a "hissy fit", then fine, but if you want to persuade people, perhaps addressing the issues raised might be more constructive? I apologise for not posting direct links to the arguments raised, which is an unfortunate result of my newbie status.

"Errors ... with reference to ..." The issue is the hissy-fits and why you focus on them. The "IPCC analysis" with its "errors" demonstrated by single individuals whose ideosyncratic papers had already been swamped by the mainstream. They can always be heard outside the mainstream.

This thread isn't about science or the IPCC dancing to your tune, it's about behaviour. There are always active climate science threads on the Science Forum (too many to keep track of, to my mind, but they spring up like poppies).

PS. Thanks, Lucifuge

Lucy has a "sister" thread, "How to be an AGW Evangelist"; it's gone a bit quiet lately but you could wake it up. It's where you guys talk about us, instead of us talking about you.

 

[mhaze]

Like OMG you made a funny! How witty, how...oh hang on. Nevermind.

Your turn!

 

[CapelDodger]

this is hilarious......we just need to look back some pages to se AGW evangelists mainly talking among themselves.

It's explicitly a thread where we talk about you, so it's no surprise that we're talking amongst ourselves. About the likes of you.

What are you here to talk about? Don't you have a thread to call your own?

 

[mhaze]

You are right. I should have referred to the "written judgement", not the "transcript" (I thought it was the transcript of the spoken judgement). Apologies.

But I do not "persist" in saying you are in error. I only said that once, and I was wrong.

Should we look at the judgement or the entire transcript? Which would be more useful?

You seek, I take it, to make The Defense of Gore.

Wheeee!!!

 

[CapelDodger]

This is pretty much right.

Notice how frequently the small subset of GWS here repeat variations of the claims in my OP list whilst accusing me of strawman attacks and listing only the poor GWS arguments?

How do they get to be like this?

That's a personal question that only each individual can answer, if they care to address it. We can pick out types and trends but there's no way we can encapsulate the whole GW Sceptic clan. For some it's just a phase they go through, for other's it's a lifetime commitment.

Ideology is a big influence. Not on everybody, but there's a lot of it about. Predominantly far-right laissez-faire ideology, but that just happens to be currently dominant; far-left ideology has proved no better. Such ideology has no place-holder for natural limits, let alone the Law of Unintended Consequences.

 

[David Rodale]

Do you just make things up because it amuses you?

Oops
Twentieth century climate model response and climate sensitivity

Abstract Climate forcing and climate sensitivity are two key factors in understanding Earth's climate. There is considerable interest in decreasing our uncertainty in climate sensitivity. This study explores the role of these two factors in climate simulations of the 20th century. It is found that the total anthropogenic forcing for a wide range of climate models differs by a factor of two and that the total forcing is inversely correlated to climate sensitivity. Much of the uncertainty in total anthropogenic forcing derives from a threefold range of uncertainty in the aerosol forcing used in the simulations.

These results explain to a large degree why models with such diverse climate sensitivities can all simulate the global anomaly in surface temperature. The magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing compensates for the model sensitivity.

Climate model simulations of the 20th century can be compared in terms of their ability to reproduce this temperature record. This is now an established necessary test for global climate models. Of course this is not a sufficient test of these models and other metrics should be used to test models, for example the ability to simulate the evolution of ocean heat uptake over the later part of the 20th century [Levitus et al., 2001; Barnett et al., 2001], or a models ability to simulate trends in various modes of variability. All of these can be viewed as necessary test for climate models. For example all models simulate a global warming of 0.5 to 0.7 deg C over this time period to within 25% accuracy.

Note that the range in total anthropogenic forcing is slightly over a factor of 2, which is the same order as the uncertainty in climate sensitivity. These results explain to a large degree why models with such diverse climate sensitivities can all simulate the global anomaly in surface temperature. The magnitude of applied anthropogenic total forcing compensates for the model sensitivity.
This strongly suggests that the scatter among the models is mostly due to the range in modeled change in ocean heat storage.
These results indicate that the range of uncertainty in anthropogenic forcing of the past century is as large as the uncertainty in climate sensitivity and that much of forcing uncertainty is due to aerosols. In many models aerosol forcing is not applied as an external forcing, but is calculated as an integral component of the system. Many current models predict aerosol concentrations interactively within the climate model and this concentration is then used to predict the direct and indirect forcing effects on the climate system.
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