Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[mhaze]

It's the conclusion of the IPCC and all of the "well meaning" scientists in the field. Yet, it's also what the global warming "skeptics" are skeptical about. You can debate the minutia all you want, but that simple statement is the heart of the "debate."

Actually what you are doing here is generalizing on the responses by people to a generalization by a small group of the IPCC, based on their selection of groups of articles on aspects of various sciences, which in turn in many cases, have lower level generalizations contained therein.

YOU can debate the merits of generalizing the responses to a generalization all you want, but that isn't science.

It's called organizing the facts around your pre existing conclusion, then marginalizing, stereotyping and ridiculing people that don't agree with your idiotic method of reducto ad absurdum. We might as well debate the assertion "All Jews Are Bad".

That would be equally ridiculous.

 

[DC]

Again very true. They also seem blind to this, they claim ignorance as to why threads are moderated here but they know it's because they're so overbearing they can't be trusted.

I don't know how many times I've said

"I know, it's warmed about +1.5C over the last 150 years, but they don't know how much of that is due to anthropogenic causes"​

"Denier! There's consensus on Global Warming, 95% of scientists say so"

Yah 95% of scientists agree that it's warmed up a bit over the last 150 years, but they don't agree it's been +1.5C or as to what portion is from fossil fuels and what might be natural variation.

They don't realize they basically are calling 95% of scientists deniers. They seem to imagine because they agree that it's warmed up a bit they agree with the results of every paper published. That's why I said pick a website like this :http://www.egu.eu/publications/list-of-publications.html
find a few papers and read them. You're going to get a much better picture of where the science is at and what the scientists are saying if you read their words instead of going to these agenda driven websites and immersing yourself in their bias. You know, skeptical.

the scientific concencus is that the global average temperature is rising and it is mainly do to human activities.
do you accept that or not?

 

[mhaze]

Do you accept that the global average temperature is in a rising trend?
Do you accept that the rise in global temperature in the 20th century is mainly do to human activities?...

I would look at these questions and first ask if they have any scientific meaning whatsoever. You accept "global average temperature" as a valid physical measure, if it is not, then your questions do not have any meaning.

You pursue (not yet proven to be, but likely, dogmatically) a grossly simplified, in fact a bastardized concept of reality. Most scientists would not consider answering this type of question without considerable qualifications and precise definitions. Here is an illustration of your style of questioning:

Are you now, or have you been a card carrying Communist?

 

[DC]

I would look at these questions and first ask if they have any scientific meaning whatsoever. You accept "global average temperature" as a valid physical measure, if it is not, then your questions do not have any meaning.

You pursue (not yet proven to be, but likely, dogmatically) a grossly simplified, in fact a bastardized concept of reality. Most scientists would not consider answering this type of question without considerable qualifications and precise definitions. Here is an illustration of your style of questioning:

Are you now, or have you been a card carrying Communist?

when you do not want to be labeled denier, why don't you simply answer the question?

let me ask you slightly different, maybe you can answer those?
scientists were surely able to do so.

1. When compared with pre-1800s
levels,
do you think that mean global temperatures
have generally risen, fallen, or
remained relatively constant?

2. Do you think human activity is a significant
contributing factor in changing
mean global temperatures?

 

[Furcifer]

It's the conclusion of the IPCC and all of the "well meaning" scientists in the field. Yet, it's also what the global warming "skeptics" are skeptical about. You can debate the minutia all you want, but that simple statement is the heart of the "debate."

Hardly, I have tons and tons of posts that prove you wrong. The problem I find is they like to go just little bit further and infer from that that such and such a study is correct and that's how it's going to be. Oh noes!

The problem with that is you and I can't refute a scientific study. All you can do is point out all the other studies that contradict each other. That and reinforce what scientists are saying, the science is young and the system is very complex, so knowing what's going to happen is a crap shoot. I find a lot of people don't understand that a confidence interval is based on the current science which only reflects part of the picture. Yes, they may be 95% certain that climate sensitivity is +2.8C, but that's based on estimating and and proxies and 10 out of thousands, maybe millions of variables.

 

[Furcifer]

the scientific concencus is that the global average temperature is rising and it is mainly do to human activities.
do you accept that or not?

Well for the second time today ""I know, it's warmed about +1.5C over the last 150 years, but they don't know how much of that is due to anthropogenic causes"

Just some clarification, I don't think your 95% consensus is based on it "rising" only that it has "risen". I'm not sure how significant that is, probably not much, but there may be a handful that think it's risen due to human causes but may have tapered off.

Unfortunately that consensus opinion is based on what, a 3 year old survey of American scientists? I think that's the one. I don't know if it's gone up or down since then. The general public opinion is reflected in that change it may have gone down since 2008 or when that survey was. That presents some interesting possibilities.

 

[DC]

Well for the second time today ""I know, it's warmed about +1.5C over the last 150 years, but they don't know how much of that is due to anthropogenic causes"

Just some clarification, I don't think your 95% consensus is based on it "rising" only that it has "risen". I'm not sure how significant that is, probably not much, but there may be a handful that think it's risen due to human causes but may have tapered off.

Unfortunately that consensus opinion is based on what, a 3 year old survey of American scientists? I think that's the one. I don't know if it's gone up or down since then. The general public opinion is reflected in that change it may have gone down since 2008 or when that survey was. That presents some interesting possibilities.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html

 

[Furcifer]

I doubt that I could have paid someone to produce a better example of what I am calling "Cherry-picking," to misrepresent and mislead.

Cherry-pick - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking_(fallacy)

Compare your statement and qualifications quoted above, with the full contextual explanation the proffered reference actually makes:

Now, I'm not saying that you must quote this entire block of textual explanation to avoid "cherry-picking" charges, but if quote merely the selected phrase and then misrepresent the author's intent and qualifications of the phrase (which are easily discerned from the enclosing paragraphs) the "cherry-picking" is the kindest of terms for that blatantly deceptive and misleading behavior.

No, you don't get to shift the goal posts like this, I'm sorry. You said it wasn't "typical", the author said it's "typical" but not exactly accurate so it should be avoided for obvious reasons.
I never said it was the most accurate way of accounting for CO2 emissions, I just said it was commonly used. I've proved that, you're wrong. Just admit it and move on. Unlike some people I don't care if you were wrong, my goal is to educate.

 

[Trakar]

...Yah 95% of scientists agree that it's warmed up a bit over the last 150 years, but they don't agree it's been +1.5C or as to what portion is from fossil fuels and what might be natural variation...

the primary disagreement among climate scientists and the IPCC is that the IPCC produces watered-down concessions to the state-players in the process and thus tends to underestimate and diminish what the actual science states and supports:

Conservative Climate Consensus document may understate the climate change problem
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=conservative-climate

Advancing the Science of Climate Change (2010)
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC)
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12782&page=3

Global Warming Science
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/

Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre -
audio of presentation - (give it a listen while you look at the other references)
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/audio/1-2betts.mp3

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/usp/clearance-draft/USP-3rd-clearance-draft.pdf

Part of the problem is that the IPCC reports which were originally supposed to be updated/released every five years, have gradually slid, due to political foot-dragging, to an apparent 7 year schedule now, and the committees cut-off for new science ends 2 years before the report is released (the 2014 report cutoff for new science is the end of this year). The fact that every member government has to sign off on the statements and descriptions of the science that ends up in the reports further leads to the watering down and politicizing of the science to make it politically acceptable to all the governments which must sign off. Failure to produce politically acceptable language means that the issue is removed from the IPCC reports. What is ironic (or duplicitous - given one's perspective) is the fact that these same political operatives work so diligently to dilute the science and then their compatriots turn around and argue that the diluted statements indicate that there is no significant problem of danger assoicated with what the science indicates!

 

[ThunderChunky]

Hardly, I have tons and tons of posts that prove you wrong. The problem I find is they like to go just little bit further and infer from that that such and such a study is correct and that's how it's going to be. Oh noes!

So Watts accepts the major conclusions of the IPCC? I dont read his blog. I mostly just encounter nuts on the web and nuts of TV. These nuts either dont think warming is happening or dont think it is mostly caused by CO2 emissions. Either way they are nuts. This was the Shermer and Crichton position not too long ago.

 

[Furcifer]

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html

No. I wouldn't play semantics on this if it wasn't such a big deal, but the number of scientists that agree is closer to 67% and not 97%. They use the qualifier "actively publishing" to get the figure. You know this, we've discussed it before. Why does this always seem to slip people's minds?

PS- you can have your "consensus", just not the 95%, at least from that survey.

 

[Furcifer]

So Watts accepts the major conclusions of the IPCC? I dont read his blog. I mostly just encounter nuts on the web and nuts of TV. These nuts either dont think warming is happening or dont think it is mostly caused by CO2 emissions. Either way they are nuts. This was the Shermer and Crichton position not too long ago.

Er, I meant posts of my own.

I don't read enough of WUWT to know either, but I'm pretty sure he acknowledges it but questions things like how they're getting temps etc. YMMV

 

[Furcifer]

the primary disagreement among climate scientists and the IPCC is that the IPCC produces watered-down concessions to the state-players in the process and thus tends to underestimate and diminish what the actual science states and supports:

Conservative Climate Consensus document may understate the climate change problem
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=conservative-climate

Advancing the Science of Climate Change (2010)
Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC)
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12782&page=3

Global Warming Science
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/

Dr Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre -
audio of presentation - (give it a listen while you look at the other references)
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/audio/1-2betts.mp3

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/usp/clearance-draft/USP-3rd-clearance-draft.pdf

Part of the problem is that the IPCC reports which were originally supposed to be updated/released every five years, have gradually slid, due to political foot-dragging, to an apparent 7 year schedule now, and the committees cut-off for new science ends 2 years before the report is released (the 2014 report cutoff for new science is the end of this year). The fact that every member government has to sign off on the statements and descriptions of the science that ends up in the reports further leads to the watering down and politicizing of the science to make it politically acceptable to all the governments which must sign off. Failure to produce politically acceptable language means that the issue is removed from the IPCC reports. What is ironic (or duplicitous - given one's perspective) is the fact that these same political operatives work so diligently to dilute the science and then their compatriots turn around and argue that the diluted statements indicate that there is no significant problem of danger assoicated with what the science indicates!

I'll take your word for it, it's watered down. That still doesn't address the problem, and probably accounts for the watering down; the science isn't advanced enough. It all comes with the asterisk *as far as we know
Newtonian mechanics might come with *as far as we know
but that usually implies there may be some region of space where the laws of physics are completely different. Climate science is still going "Oh gawd, we forgot about that" "Hey what about clouds?"

I wouldn't want to sign on to something that isn't entirely complete either.

 

[mhaze]

....the IPCC reports which were originally supposed to be updated/released every five years, have gradually slid, due to political foot-dragging, to an apparent 7 year schedule now, and the committees cut-off for new science ends 2 years before the report is released (the 2014 report cutoff for new science is the end of this year). The fact that every member government has to sign off on the statements and descriptions of the science that ends up in the reports further leads to the watering down and politicizing of the science to make it politically acceptable to all the governments which must sign off....

Interesting that you'd note this problem, but use it in an apology for the IPCC.

"Government approved science" might just not be science at all.

Had that occurred to you?

 

[Trakar]

No. I wouldn't play semantics on this if it wasn't such a big deal, but the number of scientists that agree is closer to 67% and not 97%. They use the qualifier "actively publishing" to get the figure. You know this, we've discussed it before. Why does this always seem to slip people's minds?

PS- you can have your "consensus", just not the 95%, at least from that survey.

And what did you decide?

If you aren't "actively publishing" you generally aren't actively researching or involved in the field. Especially in actively evolving sciences, if you aren't actively researching or otherwise involved in the field, then your expertise and considered qualifications to authoritatively assess the state of current understandings and considerations.

This isn't to say that there is a black and white cut-off between those who are actively publishing, and those who haven't published anything in the last 5 years or so, but we can certainly say that those who have authored and co-authored an average of four or five papers a year and whose ideas and contributions are generally accepted and respected throughout the field (the number of times their works are cited in the works of their peers) should account for a heavier weighting of their consideration, than those who have at best published a handful of papers over the last several decades and whose work generally doesn't hold the same respect and acceptance.

I don't know what your experience with science is, but the overwhelming majority of researchers I know are always in the process of working on multiple studies/papers (even those that are heavily involved with field studies have noted that getting out of the office - and away from family/friends - actually gives them more time with their laptops to catch up on their writing). To me and my experiences, while it is certainly possible to find exceptions, it is proper and reasonable to distinguish between "Scientists" in general, and "actively publishing" field specific researchers.

It would be normal to expect that as one moves outward from the core of field-active climatologists that the understanding levels and potential misunderstandings expands. This isn't to say that you need to be a climatologist to hold a valid consideration of the subject matter, just that in general people who devote their lives to the study and investigation of a subject are much more likely to have a better understanding of that topic than individuals with much less devotion and experience.

 

[a_unique_person]

So Watts accepts the major conclusions of the IPCC? I dont read his blog. I mostly just encounter nuts on the web and nuts of TV. These nuts either dont think warming is happening or dont think it is mostly caused by CO2 emissions. Either way they are nuts. This was the Shermer and Crichton position not too long ago.

Watts' main line is making implications and suggestions, smears, allegations, lots of rhetorical questions, but no substance. His results are out now. After years of accusing the scientists of fraud with respect to the temperature record, he now has to admit it's pretty well correct. Except that he won't admit it. Too much of a coward.

 

[Trakar]

I'll take your word for it, it's watered down. That still doesn't address the problem, and probably accounts for the watering down; the science isn't advanced enough. It all comes with the asterisk *as far as we know
Newtonian mechanics might come with *as far as we know
but that usually implies there may be some region of space where the laws of physics are completely different. Climate science is still going "Oh gawd, we forgot about that" "Hey what about clouds?"

got a "for instance?"

Arrhenius talked about sulfate aerosols and cloud feedbacks involved with anthropogenic CO2 driven climate change more than a hundred years ago.

 

[Mikemcc]

No, the percentage increase is linear, the ppm increase isn't.



True, but I'm talking about the percentage increase every year. It's linear. That's all there is too it.



The percentage increase is linear.



Do I really need to make the graph or do you understand that the increase has been linear? Just a yes or no answer will suffice.

The fact that I have been talking percentage and you don't have a graph with percentage on it would indeed make a school child raise there hand and say "But this isn't a percentage increase, it's a ppm increase"

I've already posted a link (twice) that shows that it isn't. It's doubled since the 1960s.

 

[Joey McGee]

As I mentioned, I think AGW denial is the better known these days. Holocaust denial had its arc, but it really went away by the 21stCE. Even European Nazis have given up on it (in public, and who knows from Lithunia anyway?), and with Moslems being the new Jews, why harp on about all that?

This "offence" line is painfully fabricated, but this is where the deniers are going as reality inexorably cuts the ground from under them. All that bile is going to get turned inwards, mark my words. That always happens with European Nazis, so why not with AGW deniers?

Or even the Cancer deniers who seem to self-destruct when rationally analysed. Yes it's a good point that it's an unsustainable position that will only lead to tears for them.

Absolutely, playing the victim. This is the community which has dedicated itself to calling named individuals corrupt liars and entire scientific disciplines fraudulent "junk-science"; many members of said community have been involved in denying other environmental hazards; but they want to be the victims. Just like any failing cult.

Exactly no one pro-AGW I've heard is crying about being called C02 Jihadists or whatever, it's really just terribly sad, you feel sorry for them because they really believe in it. I mean you're angry that they are taking up so much political oxygen but in reality it's just poor epistemology and perhaps some bad luck (dropped on head, strange gene expressions, ptsd from being debunked over and over their whole lives...)

 

[ThunderChunky]

Er, I meant posts of my own.

I don't read enough of WUWT to know either, but I'm pretty sure he acknowledges it but questions things like how they're getting temps etc. YMMV

FWIW, I do not think you are a denier. More of a devil's advocate type.

But the public opinion polls shows a grossly misinformed public. http://people-press.org/2009/10/22/fewer-americans-see-solid-evidence-of-global-warming/

Perhaps, overstatements by alarmists would account for the bottom half of the poll (how serious a problem is warming), but I would suggest that anti-science propaganda better explains the top part of the poll (is warming happening).