Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[greybeard]

The "denial" tactic is as effective as some religion labeling everyone who doesn't agree with it "heretics", "heathen", "pagans" or "gentiles". It is a feel good unscientific sentiment that makes the religion look bad, and does nothing but increase the ill feelings against those arrogant enough to fall victim to hubris.

It's also as uncivil as repeating the word "racist" as a tactic against anyone who disagrees with you. I can see the defenders of the faith here trying to figure out if each person fits their idea of what is "correct", then reacting to any perceived threat to the great belief with the same sort of verbal violence as a religion uses when it is shown to have flaws. By the advance of science.

It's exactly why I have been trying to get just a single person to define what they will accept as evidence. At first the reaction was mockery and derision, accusations and claims it made no sense. Then when it was obvious the real data was showing things that seem to go against the great belief, it was anomaly, not statistical, too small a sample size, or back to the smear tactics about motives.

Th very thing I brought up, the colder winters, had been mentioned 5 days earlier, and nobody commented on it. It's still a bit of a floaty thing, the temperatures, the trends, how the NH is reacting to higher global temperatures, along with the abundance of other factors that rell seem to be effecting the weather over time. Which is called climate.

Here in the UK we have gone from winters that were getting milder and milder with plants flowering earlier and earlier to very cold winters. These very cold winters coincided with the Arctic sea ice melt. It's not difficult to believe that this might be more than a coincidence. Especially when Australia has just had a summer from hell. What matters is the global average temperature not what the temperature is locally.

 

[r-j]

Perhaps showing that there are areas that are not cold at the moment will show why it's cold where they are...

That is simplistic and wrong, but certainly the entire NH isn't showing a drastic cooling, but that doesn't change the facts that some very large areas are experiencing a trend towards colder winters, with much much greater snow.

The current mythos is trying to explain why the cold is happening, being careful to only blame mankind, and ignore any natural climate change. I understand why that would be the method, as any admission of being wrong is pounced upon by the real deniers as game and match. Yes, there are certainly real deniers, who do what they have always done, and they want fear, confusion and doubt over any and all issues that would cost them a dime when it comes to their bottom line.

It's doubtful any of them are posting in this topic, much less care what anyone here says.

As for the current "climate" (it's weather! not climate) shown in the 2013 graphic, you would be better served looking at the whole picture, not a snapshot in time.

But that is hardly likely.

Here is "now"

and here is how it looks as anomalies

winters are getting warmer. contrary to what you keep claiming.

We are going to have define "colder" it seems.

 

[Pixel42]

Dipping in here after not following the thread for a long time, i see a lot of kerfuffle from rj's assertion that "the winters are getting colder".

Reading weeks of the thread in a shorter time, it appears that at core the heat was about vague terminology. His main assertion boils down to "for some locations, and some time periods, the regression trendline for winter temperature is negative". Actually, nobody really doubts that - with noisy data we would expect it.

BUT, by stating this in vague terms without the qualifiers and limitations, rj appears to be making a much broader statement, which IS strongly disputed by those with stronger mathematical skills. From rj's viewpoint, he is just "stating the facts" and anybody not seeing things that way appears to rj to be wearing blinders of some sort. After all, the website plainly calculates the trendlines (regression slopes) for anybody to see. And thus rj gets frustrated and a bit self-righteous.

From the other side, I see people who understand the topic in more depth and who do not consider a regression slope to be the same thing as a real world "trend" (eg: with some predictive value and/or reflecting some known or unknown physical process). I don't think rj is trying to play games, but that he genuinely does not understand the difference between a calculated trendline, and a real world "trend". And sometimes they get impatient with rj and suspect him of deliberate obtuseness.

Thus the heat. Words like "trend" are not being used the same. For rj a calculated regression slope IS on the face of it a factual trend which cannot be rationally disputed. For others, it's just a regression slope which need further examination for real world relevance.

Note that some here have not dismissed the possibility that there could be some real world negative trend in winter temperatures on some timescale and for some locations - only that rj's level of analysis has failed to distinguish signal from noise well enough to be significant evidence for it.

Short form for rj: Even random noise with no real trend or underlying physical process, will allow one to calculate a trendline by regression, and for inappropriately short periods that trend will rarely be zero. Just calculating a regression slope does not automatically indicate a real "trend" of the sort that's worth discussing. The key is in distinguishing statistical and physical significance. Just using the website to calculate a slope doesn't do that. People are not disputing the numbers (now that you know how to use the website correctly), but the meaning (real world signficance) of the calculated numbers.

Thank you for that excellent summary. Shame it went straight over the head of the person most in need of understanding it.

And, I think that due to dealing with too many deniers, some denizens here are kind of quick on the trigger, suspecting for example that rj is trying to sneakily discredit all of AGW based on this small piece of the problem. It reminds me of cops who tend to assume the worst about human nature, based on the sample of people "not like themselves" which they deal with most. Even people I respect and who have far deeper knowledge than myself, seem to sometimes be a bit quick to impute denialism to every misguided soul who wanders in and says something that sounds similar to others in the past who have worn out the patience of the locals.

I think you're right. I've been following (and occasionally contributing to) the AGW discussions here for years and can well understand why other veterans of it react as they do to yet another person with little or no understanding of the underlying science jumping into the thread to make unsupportable assertions, but the immediate assumption of a hidden agenda is not always warranted.

 

[lomiller]

Let the games begin.

Indeed...

more importantly assert that the science IS perverted inherently by the line of work involved.

Most crackpots complains that the scientific establishment is blocking the truth. This is an extraordinary claim that requires a lot more proof than “I believe...”

so called "alarmists" in the public largely care less about saving the planet than using the issue for political capital or moral posturing, or promoting various ideologies, proven by:

the fact that since the implementation of Kyoto Protocol, GLOBAL GGE have not only risen but seen the rate of their rise increase as well...

How does this prove any thing of the sort? Few countries have actually hit their Kyoto targets, and some, like the US, have decided they will not even agree to try and hit them.

or make cute remarks that it's okay that we allow China and India to pollute and industrialize

Why are you suggesting that only certain countries have the right to industrialize? What makes you so special that your country gets to industrialize and decide that other countries should not be so entitled?

China produces 1/3 the CO2 per person as the US while India produces 1/10, the industrialized countries in Europe produce 1/2. If and when the US gets down to these levels it may be fair to talk about equivalencies but as things are now the equivalency is utterly baseless.

Some arguments were posted here already:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249353

Say what you like I bet you haven't seen these before.

Be more specific. I see no argument I haven’t seen repeatedly in fact I see no argument that isn’t used by every crackpot who doesn’t like science.

 

[uke2se]

The "denial" tactic is as effective as some religion labeling everyone who doesn't agree with it "heretics", "heathen", "pagans" or "gentiles". It is a feel good unscientific sentiment that makes the religion look bad, and does nothing but increase the ill feelings against those arrogant enough to fall victim to hubris.

It's also as uncivil as repeating the word "racist" as a tactic against anyone who disagrees with you. I can see the defenders of the faith here trying to figure out if each person fits their idea of what is "correct", then reacting to any perceived threat to the great belief with the same sort of verbal violence as a religion uses when it is shown to have flaws. By the advance of science.

It's exactly why I have been trying to get just a single person to define what they will accept as evidence. At first the reaction was mockery and derision, accusations and claims it made no sense. Then when it was obvious the real data was showing things that seem to go against the great belief, it was anomaly, not statistical, too small a sample size, or back to the smear tactics about motives.

Th very thing I brought up, the colder winters, had been mentioned 5 days earlier, and nobody commented on it. It's still a bit of a floaty thing, the temperatures, the trends, how the NH is reacting to higher global temperatures, along with the abundance of other factors that rell seem to be effecting the weather over time. Which is called climate.

Why are you trolling this thread when you could troll the holocaust denial thread and get much more vigorous reactions?

 

[r-j]

Thank you for that excellent summary. Shame it went straight over the head of the person most in need of understanding it.

There we see more of what passes as "science" in the thread, and from the very person who claimed this is a thread about global warming science. Instead of answering the questions about trends, rather than talk about the trend graphs from SkS, just more personal commentary. I despise hypocrites. Just like you do. I checked my history in this thread, and I brought up several issue early on, science issues.

http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20110331-34095.html

snip from the dissection by actual climate scientists

http://www.realclimate.org/

The link should be
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedback/

Let's look at what real scientists say instead.

The study of climate and climate change is hindered by a lack of information on the effect of clouds on the radiation balance of the earth, referred to as the cloud-radiative forcing.

Quantitative estimates of the global distributions of cloud-radiative forcing have been obtained from the spaceborne Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) launched in 1984. ...

The monthly averaged longwave cloud forcing reached maximum values of 50 to 100 W/m2 over the convectively disturbed regions of the tropics.

However, this heating effect is nearly canceled by a correspondingly large negative shortwave cloud forcing, which indicates the delicately balanced state of the tropics.

The size of the observed net cloud forcing is about four times as large as the expected value of radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2. The shortwave and longwave components of cloud forcing are about ten times as large as those for a CO2 doubling.

Hence, small changes in the cloud-radiative forcing fields can play a significant role as a climate feedback mechanism. .

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/243/4887/57.short

I also pointed out the obvious, which probably earned me the religious label of "denier", which was a hoot.

No claims of actual misbehavior have stood up to investigation.

"In a statement, the deputy information commissioner Graham Smith said emails between scientists at the university's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) that were hacked and placed on the internet in November revealed that FOI requests were 'not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation'. Some of the hacked emails reveal scientists encouraging their colleagues to delete emails, apparently to prevent them from being revealed to people making FOI requests. Such a breach of the act could carry an unlimited fine, but Smith said no action could be taken against the university because the specific request they had looked at happened in May 2008, well outside the six-month limit for such prosecutions under the act."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/27/uea-hacked-climate-emails-foi

not that it matters, but years ago I also brought up the cold and snowy winters, as well as why it was of interest, in regards to global warming. Dismissing science, facts, data and the like, because you think it it is some kind of threat, that isn't science. Nor is the response "we dealt with that already".

I doubt you will ever explain, in clear terms, what you consider evidence. If you do, then you have to look at all of it, and can't simply pick that which supports your belief.

 

[uke2se]

Dipping in here after not following the thread for a long time, i see a lot of kerfuffle from rj's assertion that "the winters are getting colder".

Reading weeks of the thread in a shorter time, it appears that at core the heat was about vague terminology. His main assertion boils down to "for some locations, and some time periods, the regression trendline for winter temperature is negative". Actually, nobody really doubts that - with noisy data we would expect it.

BUT, by stating this in vague terms without the qualifiers and limitations, rj appears to be making a much broader statement, which IS strongly disputed by those with stronger mathematical skills. From rj's viewpoint, he is just "stating the facts" and anybody not seeing things that way appears to rj to be wearing blinders of some sort. After all, the website plainly calculates the trendlines (regression slopes) for anybody to see. And thus rj gets frustrated and a bit self-righteous.

From the other side, I see people who understand the topic in more depth and who do not consider a regression slope to be the same thing as a real world "trend" (eg: with some predictive value and/or reflecting some known or unknown physical process). I don't think rj is trying to play games, but that he genuinely does not understand the difference between a calculated trendline, and a real world "trend". And sometimes they get impatient with rj and suspect him of deliberate obtuseness.

Thus the heat. Words like "trend" are not being used the same. For rj a calculated regression slope IS on the face of it a factual trend which cannot be rationally disputed. For others, it's just a regression slope which need further examination for real world relevance.

Note that some here have not dismissed the possibility that there could be some real world negative trend in winter temperatures on some timescale and for some locations - only that rj's level of analysis has failed to distinguish signal from noise well enough to be significant evidence for it.

Short form for rj: Even random noise with no real trend or underlying physical process, will allow one to calculate a trendline by regression, and for inappropriately short periods that trend will rarely be zero. Just calculating a regression slope does not automatically indicate a real "trend" of the sort that's worth discussing. The key is in distinguishing statistical and physical significance. Just using the website to calculate a slope doesn't do that. People are not disputing the numbers (now that you know how to use the website correctly), but the meaning (real world signficance) of the calculated numbers.

And, I think that due to dealing with too many deniers, some denizens here are kind of quick on the trigger, suspecting for example that rj is trying to sneakily discredit all of AGW based on this small piece of the problem. It reminds me of cops who tend to assume the worst about human nature, based on the sample of people "not like themselves" which they deal with most. Even people I respect and who have far deeper knowledge than myself, seem to sometimes be a bit quick to impute denialism to every misguided soul who wanders in and says something that sounds similar to others in the past who have worn out the patience of the locals.

You are giving r-j way too much credit, in my opinion. This isn't a simple misunderstanding. This is a deliberate misunderstanding. This is evidenced by the fact that many, myself included, have explained to r-j multiple times the difference between global and local, and even acknowledged that locally (that is, weather) winters may be colder, but globally they aren't.

R-j is trolling.

 

[Pixel42]

I doubt you will ever explain, in clear terms, what you consider evidence.

I have told you twice what I would consider evidence of the trend towards colder winters you are claiming exists in certain regions. Here is my answer yet again: statistical significance at the 95% level.

 

[r-j]

My views on the unexplained and obvious contradictions to the "OMG! The world is going to burn up!" crowd should have been obvious from my first posts, years ago.

And yet it was the Coldest summer in 20 years in England, which wipes out two-thirds of the common blue butterfly

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...years-wipes-thirds-common-blue-butterfly.html

I know this is supposed to be a "omg global warming" only thread, but when faced with an alarming report of "one of the warmest years", AND with a record cold summer, in the same year, inquiring minds would like to know more.

Oh my gosh! more victims like those poor Bolivian fishes! (see yesterday's posts)

I saw your commentary, and it sounded great. Then I went and read the news story and found turtles, dolphins and other animals also died in record numbers from the record cold. People also died from the extreme cold. Not that such a record amount of people and animals means anything, unless it can be blamed on global warming, then it's catastrophic.

It's astounding to now see global warming is now supposed to make it colder. It seems the critics of the hype were right after all. I remember jokes about how global warming can do anything. If it can make it colder, more snow, then it really can do anything. It's pseudo science. It can not be refuted.

Like the commentary that tries to convince it wasn't actually that cold in July 2010 in Bolivia. It reads like a pseudo science piece. In reality it was extremely cold, and not just in Bolivia. Even Penguins died in record numbers in Antarctica, people died, all kinds of deaths were due to extreme unusual cold.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10679088
Even cows died from the cold!
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article524911.ece
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0720/Deadly-cold-snap-hits-Argentina-Uruguay-Chile

But if I believe your tale, it wasn't really cold. Something else caused the 3 million fish to die. At the same time all the other animals and people did.

Of course the news about what really happened make your fairy tale ridiculous, when you look at the big picture. That you want the facts to be some sort of 'deniers' conspiracy shows how out of touch the global warming crowd really and truly is.

My views on your insane POVs and moaning about the problem also should be evident. But they are not based on any love of fossil fuels (hate them), big business (hate most of them), politics (hate all of them), or denial of problem. I would actually be in that camp that thinks things will be a lot worse than the IPCC ever said. But not in the ways the warmer crowd thinks will happen.

 

[uke2se]

I have told you twice what I would consider evidence of the trend towards colder winters you are claiming exists in certain regions. Here is my answer yet again: statistical significance at the 95% level.

Watch him not acknowledge this.

 

[r-j]

I have told you twice what I would consider evidence of the trend towards colder winters you are claiming exists in certain regions. Here is my answer yet again: statistical significance at the 95% level.

Here again is what you (and everyone else) has avoided answering.

I think part of the problem is confusing is language, and the mystery of statistics, in which anything is possible, or possible to dismiss. The following data could be illustrative, and educational.

Trend: 0.145 ±0.157 °C/decade (2σ)
β=0.014526 σw=0.0019048 ν=17.050 σc=σw√ν=0.0078651

Does that show global temperatures are warmer?

Trend: 0.134 ±0.089 °C/decade (2σ)
β=0.013430 σw=0.0010786 ν=16.855 σc=σw√ν=0.0044281
Does that show warming?

http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php

The first one is 20 years, the second 30 years.

It's all quite complicated, but a concise explanation of what is considered valid, and what is not, would go a long way towards educating us normal folk about what the experts are trying to say. Or dismiss as meaningless.

If you don't understand it, or can't explain, just say so.

 

[lomiller]

I have a couple of big problems with the AGW discussion: First there is the use of terms like denialist which makes it seem like people not convinced are the same as those who deny the Holocaust, which seems a bit unfair.

Denier is a general term for people who disagree with established fact or science without valid reason. Holocaust deniers are one example, aids deniers are another. “Birthers” and “Truthers” are deniers in their respective areas. There is little question at this point that most or all of the movement against climate science is denial based and coming from deniers.

Secondly there is the notion espoused by many that those who deny AGW should be silenced.

You seem to be equating saying these people are wrong, crackpots, and are taking positions with no scientific support as “silencing”. Free speech doesn’t imply no one else gets to point out that you are a crackpot.

Worse still there seems to be a smear campaighn on against those with solid credentials in science to make it seems as if they not same or they are schills.

Which people are these? There almost no publishing climate scientists who oppose the consensus and those that do reach far beyond their published science in their public comments.
Are you talking about people with credentials in other fields? If so it’s a known phenomenon that scientists, often ageing scientists turn into crackpots when commenting outside their specialization. In fact it’s so common that many people use it as a red flag for crackpots.

Let's not forget that in the UK the Al Gore film is considered to be so full of errors that it has been banned from being shown in classrooms.

You seem to have been mislead. While there are a few relatively minor errors in the film these have long since been acknowledged and corrected. In contrast there is a litany of complaints that are full of errors. Any attempted banning seems to be more related to the politics of the people requesting the ban, not errors in the film. See the links below for some commentary on it by some publishing climate scientists.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/al-gores-movie/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/convenient-untruths/

 

[Pixel42]

Does that show global temperatures are warmer?

The statistical significance isn't given, so I can't tell.

Does that show warming?

The statistical significance isn't given, so I can't tell.

a concise explanation of what is considered valid, and what is not, would go a long way towards educating us normal folk about what the experts are trying to say.

As I said, the wiki article is a reasonable primer. Here is the link again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trend_estimation

ETA: Oops, I followed the link to have a closer look at the tool that generated these graphs and I was wrong: the statistical significance is given. The '2σ' (which I missed) indicates statistical significance at the 95% level. So yes, both these graphs show warming.

 

[r-j]

Give us an example of what you consider valid. Global, regional, state, anything at all. Show us a single example of why you consider global temperatures rising, and why.

There must be at least one source of data you consider worthy of being real.

 

[uke2se]

Give us an example of what you consider valid. Global, regional, state, anything at all. Show us a single example of why you consider global temperatures rising, and why.

There must be at least one source of data you consider worthy of being real.

Jesus Christ...

See what I mean?

 

[r-j]

One particular special case of great interest, the (global) temperature time series, is known not to be homogeneous in time: apart from anything else, the number of weather observations has (generally) increased with time, and thus the error associated with estimating the global temperature from a limited set of observations has decreased with time. Though many people do attempt to fit a "trend" to climate data the climate trend is clearly not a straight line and the idea of attributing a straight line is not mathematically correct because the assumptions of the method are not valid in this context.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trend_estimation

What is happening with a "global temperature" is very much different than with a verified climate research station in a single location, with a solid set of data for over a hundred years. Or even a region of data centers.

There is almost no doubt about the values, much less what they represent. You seem to be avoiding answering a straight question. For a regional dataset, is there anything you accept as valid in regards to determining if the average temperatures of a given time period, a year, season, month, is there anything you won't dismiss as meaningless?

And if so, that you accept none of it, how can you, or anyone else, claim winters are warming. Or temperatures are warming? Or anything? If you can't answer, just say so;.

 

[Pixel42]

Give us an example of what you consider valid. Global, regional, state, anything at all. Show us a single example of why you consider global temperatures rising, and why.

There must be at least one source of data you consider worthy of being real.

Please read my edit to my previous post.

The notes on the SkS tool, which I've now (somewhat belatedly) read, actually explains the concept of statistical significance quite well:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/temperature_trend_calculator.html

Background

Temperature trends are often quoted in the global warming debate. As with any statistic, it is important to understand the basis of the statistic in order to avoid being misled. To this end, Skeptical Science is providing a tool to estimate temperature trends and uncertainties, along with an introduction to the concepts involved.

Not all trends are equal - some of the figures quoted in the press and on blogs are completely meaningless. Many come with no indication of whether they are statistically significant or not.

Furthermore, the term ‘statistically significant’ is a source of confusion. To someone who doesn’t know the term, ‘no statistically significant trend’ can easily be misinterpreted as ‘no trend’, when in fact it can equally well mean that the calculation has been performed over too short a time frame to detect any real trend.

Trend and Uncertainty

Whenever we calculate a trend from a set of data, the value we obtain is an estimate. It is not a single value, but a range of possible values, some of which are more likely than others. So temperature trends are usually expressed something like this: β±ε °C/decade. β is the trend, and ε is the uncertainty. If you see a trend without an uncertainty, you should consider whether the trend is likely to be meaningful.

There is a second issue: The form β±ε °C/decade is ambiguous without an additional piece of information: the definition of uncertainty. There are two common forms. If you see an uncertainty quotes as ‘one sigma’ (1σ), then this means that according to the statistics there is a roughly 70% chance of the true trend lying between β-ε and β+ε. If you see an uncertainty quoted as ‘two sigma’ (2σ), then this means that according to the statistics there is a roughly 95% chance of the true trend lying between β-ε and β+ε. If the trend differs from some ‘null hypothesis’ by more than 2σ, then we say that the trend is statistically significant.

How does this uncertainty arise? The problem is that every observation contains both the signal we are looking for, and spurious influences which we are not - noise. Sometimes we may have a good estimate of the level of noise, sometimes we do not. However, when we determine a trend of a set of data which are expected to lie on a straight line, we can estimate the size of the noise contributions from how close the actual data lie to the line.

 

[r-j]

I know what it says there. I linked you to the source when I first posted the global anomalies graphics, as well as the data.

Can you see why I said you were avoiding answering?

 

[r-j]

Your edit, which clearly came after my following post, is making me look bad.

ETA: Oops, I followed the link to have a closer look at the tool that generated these graphs and I was wrong: the statistical significance is given. The '2σ' (which I missed) indicates statistical significance at the 95% level. So yes, both these graphs show warming.

Now please explain why you accept those graphs, and reject a hundred years of good data on temperature. or 30 years. or whatever it is you keep claiming is meaningless about the NCDC data.

 

[Pixel42]

I know what it says there. I linked you to the source when I first posted the global anomalies graphics, as well as the data.

Then why are you having so much trouble grasping the idea of statistical significance?

Can you see why I said you were avoiding answering?

Not really, no. I ignored the original post giving the graphs because I didn't realise they included the statistical significance.

Your edit, which clearly came after my following post, is making me look bad.

My edit was at 8:14, your post at 8:16, so you were still composing it when I edited.

Now please explain why you accept those graphs, and reject a hundred years of good data on temperature. or 30 years. or whatever it is you keep claiming is meaningless about the NCDC data.

The tool on the NCDC site doesn't calculate the statistical signficance, so it's impossible to tell whether the trends it shows are meaningful are not. Once again: read the quoted explanation from the SkS site.