Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Halsu]

Nonsense. It's completely accurate.

Yet i showed you a web site which A) obviously is not a pseudoscience site and B) where all your qualifiers for pseudoscience site were met.

Nonsense, Nature does not claim to be a climate science site.

First of all, as far as i know, we are not talking about "pseudo climate science", we are talking about "pseudoscience".

Second, you seem to have forgotten that my reference to Nature was a reply to your "What makes RealCrapClimate.com pseudoscience is basically everything you won't find in a reputable science journal."

So Nature's web site content is indeed highly relevant to the discussion.

RealCrapClimate.com does not follow a valid scientific method for presenting climate science.

So you claim - yet you have not been able to provide a single example of such conduct.

Indeed, RealCrapClimate.com claims to be a climate science site, but it is rife with political nonsense. It's pseudoscience.

Political commentary does not make a site a pseudoscience site - as demonstrated by my earlier links to Nature etc.

Distorting or misrepresenting the science could, but you have not provided the slightest shroud of evidence of such behavior at RealClimate.

Indeed, there's more to it than just their selective presentation of climate science that makes it pseudoscience.

I take this as an admission that your argument of selective coverage was bogus. Thank you.

Now, please provide us with evidence that RealClimate is a pseudoscience site.

No I don't. All I have to show is politics being touted in a "scientific website". I've checked in the past few days and there are more political articles on the front page of RealCrapScience.com than science.

Once more, having political content does not make a site a pseudoscience site, as demonstrated by the Nature link etc. But to check it out, right now the headlines in the front page are:

An online model of methane in the atmosphere
An Arctic methane worst-case scenario
Much ado about methane
Unforced variations: Jan 2012
Recycling

Of course, it might just be that you are talking about a different web site: i am talking about RealClimate.org. I tried to go to RealCrapClimate.org, but got a server not found error.

Nonsense. It's a cargo cult of climate science and I don't really expect the followers to see it. They've drank the kool aid.

I do not see the relevance to the part of my post you replied to. Could you elaborate, thanks?

This said, it's worth repeating that saying something is nonsense does not make it so.

You may feel psychics and homeopaths are legitimate science, but I assure you it's hokum.

I think you either misread or misunderstood me. I am asking you to provide us with a link to a psychic or or homeopathic site that compares to RealClimate. Here's the paragraph again, you may wish to re-read it and reply properly.

But while at it, if you want to be taken seriously with that argument, please show us a web site where homeopaths or psychics refer to peer reviewed scientific articles, link to the source papers, then explain their content in layman's terms. Of course, to match RealClimate, the authors also need to be publishing scientists in a relevant field.

More hand waving a denial of the facts. This is the usual rhetoric from those engaged in pseudoscience.

No hand waving commenced here. I am simply trying to get you to back up your claims. Please answer my questions (4th time and counting):

Could you please point out what in that text, which is a commentary about a confrence, and in your own words, has nothing to do with climate science....

- makes science and idology unseparable (and/or)
- misrepresents scientific findings to promote or draw attention for publicity (and/or)
- distorts the facts of science for short-term political gain

...because i can not find anything in that article that would fit any of the above??

 

[Halsu]

He posted up a template for a letter to use to lodge FOI requests, subsequent requests all used different countries in each request - there was little or no duplication between the requests. This is evidence of a directed attack of the CRU:

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/25032/response/66822/attach/2/Response letter 199 100121.pdf

In my opinion, the best FoI request by far was FOI_09-97:

"I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involing the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested1]
1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
..."​

...oops.

 

[CapelDodger]

Comedy relief does serve an occassionally useful function, in the case of climate science denial, however, that particular theater of the absurd has already jumped the shark.

I think the introduction of the swivel-eyed Viscount was the shark-jumping moment. Now we're just getting re-runs of classic episodes - The One With The Broken Hockey-Stick, The One With The FoI Blizzard, the One With The Stolen Emails (Parts I and II).

They should do a box-set on DVD with bonus material, like all the stolen emails, and out-takes from Wegman's rehearsals for his presentation to Congress. Wring every cent out of the franchise.

 

[bit_pattern]

I think the introduction of the swivel-eyed Viscount was the shark-jumping moment.

Just for you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w833cAs9EN0

 

[Furcifer]

Yet i showed you a web site which A) obviously is not a pseudoscience site and B) where all your qualifiers for pseudoscience site were met.

Nonsense. Nature doesn't claim to be a climate science website.

First of all, as far as i know, we are not talking about "pseudo climate science", we are talking about "pseudoscience".

No we're talking about a pseudoscience website.

It's clear that RealCrapClimate.com is filtering climate science studies to further a biased political agenda.

Second, you seem to have forgotten that my reference to Nature was a reply to your "What makes RealCrapClimate.com pseudoscience is basically everything you won't find in a reputable science journal."

Nature is about nature, not climate science. They present a broad spectrum and don't claim to focus on a specific subject. It's not comparable.

So Nature's web site content is indeed highly relevant to the discussion.

No it really isn't. I suspect if Nature engaged in the same pseudoscience RealCrapClimate.com did they would be called on it immediately.

Political commentary does not make a site a pseudoscience site - as demonstrated by my earlier links to Nature etc.

Not in and of itself.

Distorting or misrepresenting the science could, but you have not provided the slightest shroud of evidence of such behavior at RealClimate.

I've provided sufficient examples of RealCrapClimate.com masquerading as a science site when it clearly only has a political agenda.

I take this as an admission that your argument of selective coverage was bogus. Thank you.

And you'd be wrong yet again.

Now, please provide us with evidence that RealClimate is a pseudoscience site.

It's already been provided. You're using the fact that most of what makes RealCrapClimate.com a pseudoscience is what it omits the arguing point, when you know it's impossible to prove a negative. This is intellectually dishonest.

Once more, having political content does not make a site a pseudoscience site, as demonstrated by the Nature link etc. But to check it out, right now the headlines in the front page are:

An online model of methane in the atmosphere
An Arctic methane worst-case scenario
Much ado about methane
Unforced variations: Jan 2012
Recycling

Of course, it might just be that you are talking about a different web site: i am talking about RealClimate.org. I tried to go to RealCrapClimate.org, but got a server not found error.

So you believe because it occasionally uses some valid science while pushing a politically biased agenda it's not pseudoscience? I'm afraid you've been misled.

I think you either misread or misunderstood me. I am asking you to provide us with a link to a psychic or or homeopathic site that compares to RealClimate. Here's the paragraph again, you may wish to re-read it and reply properly.

I'm not chasing more woo down the rabbit hole. You've been shown specific examples of why RealCrapClimate.com is a pseudoscientific website, that's more than sufficient.

I've reserved myself to accepting that in many cases there is no amount of evidence that will dissuade people from believing in woo. Some people believe in Big Foot, some believe in psychics, some believe RealCrapClimate.com is a reputable website and sometimes not even a million dollars is enough to get them to change their minds.

 

[bit_pattern]

Skeptical Science interviews Dr Natalia Shakhova on the methane outgassing in the E. Siberian shelf.

SkS: In your JGR paper from 2010 you state that methane hydrate in Siberia can occur at depths as shallow as 20 m. Have any such remarkably shallow methane hydrate deposits on the ESAS been directly observed/sampled and if so, how could methane hydrate have formed at such depths?

NS: Yes, such shallow hydrates were sampled in Siberia. They form as a result of the so-called “self-preservation phenomenon” and they are termed “metastable”. This phenomenon has been intensively studied by Russian geologists starting in the late 1980s.



SkS: Your 2011 field season is reported to have located kilometre-diameter plumes of outgassing methane. Are these located in areas visited in previous seasons?

NS: These were new sites from that part of the ESAS that was investigated very sparsely before. In our previous investigations we mainly focused on the shallower part of the ESAS, which composes about 70% of the total area and provides a very short conduit for methane to escape to the atmosphere. Besides, because we worked mostly on small vessels, we were not allowed to navigate far enough from the coasts to reach the mid-outer shelf where water is relatively deep on the scale of the shallow ESAS (>50 m depth). That is why deeper waters were under-represented and were considered a minor contributor to annual emissions. Last summer’s findings made us re-consider our previous constraint on the annual emission budget; they highlight the need to further assess underestimated components of annual fluxes from the ESAS.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/arctic-methane-outgassing-e-siberian-shelf-part2.html

 

[Halsu]

Nonsense. Nature doesn't claim to be a climate science website.

The site i was referring to was the knitting one. It (along with every other non-science related site) met your definition of pseudoscience, as outlined in the paragraph it was a reply to.

Read the website and ask yourself "Is this science? Would I find any of this in peer reviewed literature? Does this contribute in any way to the scientific understanding of climate science?" If the answer to any of these questions is "No" then it's pseudoscience riding on the coat tails of actual science.

It's clear that RealCrapClimate.com is filtering climate science studies to further a biased political agenda.

So you claim. But repeating your claim does not make it true. Once more, please provide some evidence or retract your claim. For example, show us that the percentage of cited "critical" papers is lower at RealClimate than in the literature.

Nature is about nature, not climate science. They present a broad spectrum and don't claim to focus on a specific subject. It's not comparable.

Of course they are comparable. Why wouldn't they be? Focusing on one science or another or all of them is totally irrelevant to deciding whether a site is pseudoscience or not.

No it really isn't. I suspect if Nature engaged in the same pseudoscience RealCrapClimate.com did they would be called on it immediately.

The climate related links i gave to Nature and other science journals were just as "biased" towards the mainstream scientific view as RealClimate's articles are.

I've provided sufficient examples of RealCrapClimate.com masquerading as a science site when it clearly only has a political agenda.

Actually, you have provided exactly ZERO examples of said behaviour.

It's already been provided. You're using the fact that most of what makes RealCrapClimate.com a pseudoscience is what it omits the arguing point, when you know it's impossible to prove a negative. This is intellectually dishonest.

No, you have provided nothing. Those headlines were a reply to a very specific comment by you:

I've checked in the past few days and there are more political articles on the front page of RealCrapScience.com than science.

...which they proved patently false.

So you believe because it occasionally uses some valid science while pushing a politically biased agenda it's not pseudoscience? I'm afraid you've been misled.

Show us even one (1) example where the science at RealClimate is NOT valid. And while at it, please show us even one (1) example where they push a political agenda for that matter...

I'm not chasing more woo down the rabbit hole.

That's because you can't. There are no homeopathy or psychic sites that are comparable to RealClimate. Homeopathy and psychism are pseudosciences, there simply cannot be web sites that show scientific content by publishing scientists in those "fields".

In the other hand, climate science is a valid scientific discipline and RealClimate is a valid popular science site run by publishing climate scientists.

You've been shown specific examples of why RealCrapClimate.com is a pseudoscientific website, that's more than sufficient.

No we have not. You have not provided ANY such examples, despite multiple requests for doing so.

And for the fifth time, could you please try to answer these questions or retract your claims:

Could you please point out what in that text, which is a commentary about a confrence, and in your own words, has nothing to do with climate science....

- makes science and idology unseparable (and/or)
- misrepresents scientific findings to promote or draw attention for publicity (and/or)
- distorts the facts of science for short-term political gain

...because i can not find anything in that article that would fit any of the above??

 

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Furcifer
...
I've checked in the past few days and there are more political articles on the front page of RealCrapScience.com than science.

Just to emphasis how wrong that assertion is.
Firstly RealCrapScience.com does not exist. You need to learn how to spell Furcifer .
There is a blog about climate science run by climate scientists called RealClimate.com. So how many political articles are there on their front page?
The dog is the weather (educational cartoon)
Open Climate 101 Online (education)
An online model of methane in the atmosphere (science education)
An Arctic methane worst-case scenario (science)
Much ado about methane (science)

A totol of zero articles about politics.

 

[Trakar]

...Thanks for the response. Actually, it's a not just my understanding; it's a quote from a UCSD online course on climate change and CO₂.
It is little wonder that you have such bizarre perspective.

original quote:

So many processes have to be considered in the carbon cycle that it is extremely difficult to keep them in mind, and impossible to calculate without building a computer model to simulate them. Scientists interested in the carbon cycle have built a number of such models over the years. Such models can have between 50 and 100 interacting equations describing all the different processes of the carbon cycle that are relevant to the problem of how carbon dioxide changes through geologic time.
To what extent should the answers generated from such models be trusted? Consider this: if there are a dozen processes which we need to understand, and we only grasp each process within an error of 20 percent, the sum-total of the error adds to more than 200 percent! That is, if we now state that the content of carbon dioxide in the air so many million years ago had to be X, the true answer could be anywhere between 3 times X (200% more than stated) and X divided by 3 (200% less). Even if we make the reasonable assumption that half of the errors will cancel, we still get roughly a factor of two error on either side of the uncertainty statement. Thus, at the present state of knowledge, computing the answers will get us ballpark estimates and overall trends but not much more.

This page has now been updated to reflect a more accurate and less subject to distorted misinterpretation reflection of computer climate modelling:

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/07_1.shtml

...Carbon Cycle and Computer Models
So many processes have to be considered in the carbon cycle that it is extremely difficult to keep them in mind, and impossible to calculate without building a computer model to simulate them. Scientists interested in the carbon cycle have built a number of such models over the years. Such models can have between 50 and 100 interacting equations describing all the different processes of the carbon cycle that are relevant to the problem of how carbon dioxide changes through geologic time.

To what extent should the answers generated from such models be trusted? All one can say is this: Models are the best we can do, everything else is ballpark back-of the envelope stuff. This means we should use models to educate ourselves about possibilities, realizing that their output produces probabilities not measurements.

 

[CapelDodger]

Skeptical Science interviews Dr Natalia Shakhova on the methane outgassing in the E. Siberian shelf.

Dr Natalia Shakova naturally says some very sensible things about methane. Very much the same sensible things, of course, as have been said recently on RealClimate http://www.realclimate.org/ . Indeed, much the same has been said on this very thread.

New observations in a poorly-sampled area are no big deal. Large-scale rapid release of subsea methane is extremely unlikely on any sensible time-scale. Not a subject to get greatly exercised about. Another ten years' data and we'll know more.

There's not much else going on at the moment. No pseudoscience filtered through McIntyre or Curry to respond to (the old guys that make it are running out of ideas and energy), just personal attacks. No conferences to report on. Might as well walk the dog ... http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/the-dog-is-the-weather/

 

[Furcifer]

Just to emphasis how wrong that assertion is.
Firstly RealCrapScience.com does not exist. You need to learn how to spell Furcifer .

What's spelled wrong? I think the wrong assertion here might be yours?

There is a blog about climate science run by climate scientists called RealClimate.com. So how many political articles are there on their front page?

I don't follow these pseudoscience websites. If you want to get your climate science through them or Fox News or Rush Limbaugh go right ahead. For those who are truly interested there are science journals available online in their unadulterated scientific goodness.

 

[Furcifer]

So you claim. But repeating your claim does not make it true. Once more, please provide some evidence or retract your claim. For example, show us that the percentage of cited "critical" papers is lower at RealClimate than in the literature.

I've provided several links to the politically biased ramblings at RealCrapClimate.com. They're filtering climate science to further their political agenda. It's pseudoscience.

Of course they are comparable. Why wouldn't they be? Focusing on one science or another or all of them is totally irrelevant to deciding whether a site is pseudoscience or not.

I'll tell you what, I'll give you an example of the political agenda driven pieces at RealCrapClimate.com and then you try to find similar ones at Nature? How does that sound?

The climate related links i gave to Nature and other science journals were just as "biased" towards the mainstream scientific view as RealClimate's articles are.

Pure nonsense and a deliberate misrepresentation of fact.

Actually, you have provided exactly ZERO examples of said behaviour.

The last time I checked 2 of 3 on the front page had nothing to do with actual climate science.

Show us even one (1) example where the science at RealClimate is NOT valid. And while at it, please show us even one (1) example where they push a political agenda for that matter...

I've cited 2 examples and I don't intend on reading any more garbage from that site. It's political nonsense and it has no place in an actual science based website.

That's because you can't. There are no homeopathy or psychic sites that are comparable to RealClimate. Homeopathy and psychism are pseudosciences, there simply cannot be web sites that show scientific content by publishing scientists in those "fields".

Which makes the pseudoscience that much more egregious.

In the other hand, climate science is a valid scientific discipline and RealClimate is a valid popular science site run by publishing climate scientists.

Yes, and it's unfortunate their using that science to push a political agenda.

No we have not. You have not provided ANY such examples, despite multiple requests for doing so.

And for the fifth time, could you please try to answer these questions or retract your claims:

​

More goal post moving. I've provided the examples and you've ignored them and demanded more. I would suggest sticking to legitimate scientific publications and avoiding these pseudoscience sites in the future if you want to have a serious discussion about climate science.

 

[uke2se]

@Malcolm:

I never did get an answer in the closed thread as to why you chose to put your trust in the vast minority of people - most of whom have no climate science related credentials whatsoever.

Please don't answer that the climate scientists have witheld data as we both know by now that they haven't.

 

[lomiller]

Just to emphasis how wrong that assertion is.
Firstly RealCrapScience.com does not exist. You need to learn how to spell Furcifer .
There is a blog about climate science run by climate scientists called RealClimate.com. So how many political articles are there on their front page?
The dog is the weather (educational cartoon)
Open Climate 101 Online (education)
An online model of methane in the atmosphere (science education)
An Arctic methane worst-case scenario (science)
Much ado about methane (science)

A totol of zero articles about politics.

It’s also worth nothing that 3 of the articles take the stance that Methane released by a warming arctic is not a major concern for future climate change. Clearly they have no problem downplaying potential climate change when that stance is appropriate.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...There's not much else going on at the moment. No pseudoscience filtered through McIntyre or Curry to respond to (the old guys that make it are running out of ideas and energy), just personal attacks...

In the same sentence, no less. Anyhoo, contrary to the oft-repeated claim that all pro-AGW are now available, McIntyre demonstrates that this claim is currently false.

 

[bit_pattern]

A totol of zero articles about politics.

Unsurprising, considering that "(T)he discussion (at RC) is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science.

But furcifer is still tilting at those windmills without the slightest skerrick of evidence.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

@Malcolm:...I never did get an answer in the closed thread as to why you chose to put your trust in the vast minority of people1 - most of whom have no climate science related credentials whatsoever². Please don't answer that the climate scientists have witheld data as we both know by now that they haven't³.

1. Deportment.
2. McIntyre has a B.Sc. in Math, an MA in economics, and considerable statistical expertise. Those are "climate science related".
3. As McIntyre demonstrates in his most recent post, AGW theorists still withhold data.

(Trakar): "This page has now been updated to reflect a more accurate and less subject to distorted misinterpretation reflection of computer climate modelling:"...http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...ge2/07_1.shtml

...models can have between 50 and 100 interacting equations describing all the different processes of the carbon cycle that are relevant to the problem of how carbon dioxide changes through geologic time.

To what extent should the answers generated from such models be trusted? All one can say is this: Models are the best we can do, everything else is ballpark back-of the envelope stuff.

Which does not contradict the earlier assertion about uncertainty and errors compounding as the computations built into the models procede. As the quote from the updated course description indicates, confidence in projecting changes in the direction and magnitude of climate extremes depends on many factors, including the type of extreme, the region and season, the amount and quality of observational data, the level of understanding of the underlying processes, and the reliability of their simulation in models. Seems to me, if you overlay natural variation onto a trend as small as the projected mean temperature increase for the 21st century, projected changes in climate extremes under different emissions scenarios generally will not strongly diverge in an interval as small as two to three decades, since these signals (trends in high and low points of various phenomena) are relatively small compared to natural climate variability over just a few decades. Even the sign of projected changes in some climate extremes over this time frame will be uncertain. For projected changes by the end of the 21st century, either model uncertainty or uncertainties associated with emissions scenarios used becomes dominant, depending on the extreme. Low-probability high-impact changes associated with the crossing of poorly understood climate thresholds cannot be excluded, given the transient and complex nature of the climate system.

 

[Trakar]

(Trakar): "This page has now been updated to reflect a more accurate and less subject to distorted misinterpretation reflection of computer climate modelling:"...http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmu...ge2/07_1.shtmlWhich does not contradict the earlier assertion about uncertainty and errors compounding as the computations built into the models procede. As the quote from the updated course description indicates,...

As I said "more accurate and less subject to distorted misinterpretation." Obviously, the proper conservative qualification of science always leaves room for those who find joy in the disingenuous twisting and misrepresentation of science, room to play.

This is not a course description, it is the course itself. This is an intorductory familiarization course intended for elementary and middle school students. As the statement clearly indicates;"...Models are the best we can do, everything else is ballpark back-of the envelope stuff. This means we should use models to educate ourselves about possibilities, realizing that their output produces probabilities not measurements." Similar models help us to locate oil deposits, are the foundation of MRI imaging, not to mention nuclear reactor and weapon design.

Some may try to muddy the waters on the issue of computer modelling, but the main ones who seem to expect prophecy instead of a calculated probability analysis are those who seem to eschew facts (that are not in accord with their druthers) and critical analysis in thier decision making processes in the first place.

No model is going to be better than the considerations of its design and the quality of the data being modelled, that said, modern climate science understandings constitute an extensive, in-depth body of work integrating and built upon the solid foundations of a broad cross-range of physical sciences (e.g. chemistry, physics, geology, paleontology, astronomy, meteorology, oceanography etc.,). As understandings and our ability to model them improve, so do the nature of our models, this is no less true of climate modelling.

 

[Trakar]

It’s also worth nothing that 3 of the articles take the stance that Methane released by a warming arctic is not a major concern for future climate change. Clearly they have no problem downplaying potential climate change when that stance is appropriate.

I haven't read the three articles in question (that blog thing), but, to my general take on this issue a more accurate wording of the understanding of the mainstream perspective (at this time) is that this particular study of arctic methane emissions doesn't seem to be anything extraordinary nor does it significantly alter mainstream considerations of current/future Arctic methane emissions. You are correct, however, that this argues well for both the scientifically conservative nature of mainstream climate science and against the assertions of "chicken little alarmism" rampant among this community of researchers.

(the primary issue is that in fairly short order - atmospheric methane decomposes with O2 and becomes CO2 and water vapor)

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

... the proper conservative qualification of science always leaves room for those who find joy in the disingenuous twisting and misrepresentation of science, room to play¹...No model is going to be better than the considerations of its design and the quality of the data being modelled, that said, modern climate science understandings constitute an extensive, in-depth body of work integrating and built upon the solid foundations of a broad cross-range of physical sciences (e.g. chemistry, physics, geology, paleontology, astronomy, meteorology, oceanography etc.,). As understandings and our ability to model them improve, so do the nature of our models, this is no less true of climate modelling².

1.As does a process that allows people who make alarming predictions to hide their raw data and calculations. As do people who make excuses for them.
2. We agree, here. Uncertainties compound, as the original UCSD course quote indicated.