How To Be A Global Warming Sceptic

[Alric]

Quick question for mhaze and others. What are the contrarian talking points about these data?

From:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/borehole/core.html

 

[CapelDodger]

A golden-oldie thread .

Good question, Alric, but it's in the nature of GWSceptics that they're entitled to demand answers to soda-straw questions. If you simply ask about one that hasn't been handled by Steve McIntyre yet, expect to be referred to Google. If it has been handled by McIntyre, expect a reference to ClimateAudit. Or you might be ignored completely. Or (most likely) mhaze will post about something else entirely, then point you to ClimateAudit, then suggest you Google to educate yourself, and finally ignore it completely.

Or he might just cut to the chase and not respond in the first place.


That aside, how does borehole temperature reconstruction work, in purely physical terms? It's not something I'm familiar with. Surface temperature on rock will obviously propagate a low-frequency signal downwards, and the heat-conducting properties of rock-types can be measured in labs, but the dominant heat-flux is upwards, so boreholes are measuring the history of what's been happening down there, not up here.

There's an active volcano in Antarctica, and evidence of explosive eruptions in the depths of the Arctic Ocean that scientists previously regarded as impossible. So what credibility can boreholes have?

(Yup, I know how to be a Global Warming Sceptic .)

 

[lomiller]

A golden-oldie thread .

Good question, Alric, but it's in the nature of GWSceptics that they're entitled to demand answers to soda-straw questions. If you simply ask about one that hasn't been handled by Steve McIntyre yet, expect to be referred to Google. If it has been handled by McIntyre, expect a reference to ClimateAudit. Or you might be ignored completely. Or (most likely) mhaze will post about something else entirely, then point you to ClimateAudit, then suggest you Google to educate yourself, and finally ignore it completely.

That’s not entirely true…


Sometimes they link to Watts site instead.

 

[CapelDodger]

That’s not entirely true…


Sometimes they link to Watts site instead.

Good point. McIntyre and Watts do seem to have drawn quite close to each other. Is this an early sign of factionalism in the cult? Quite possibly.

Do I think McIntyre resents Munchkin's sudden prominence? Yes, I do.

There'll be a struggle for ascendency as the walls close in - there always is.

 

[CapelDodger]

TrueSceptic : Your original list was comprehensive at the time, but does it pre-date "AGW is not falsifiable"?

If it's in there already, kudos; if not, I move that it be considered included in spirit.

The sudden recruitment of a 50,000-member marching-band of scientists is also in there, in spirit. We know we can expect that sort of thing. We've all seen it before.

 

[TrueSceptic]

TrueSceptic : Your original list was comprehensive at the time, but does it pre-date "AGW is not falsifiable"?

If it's in there already, kudos; if not, I move that it be considered included in spirit.

The rule I followed was that these had to be common claims/beliefs. I became aware of this one after I made the list so it is not included, unless you want to be generous. It seems to be a recent theme, e.g. this thread in a forum I used to take part in.

The sudden recruitment of a 50,000-member marching-band of scientists is also in there, in spirit. We know we can expect that sort of thing. We've all seen it before.

Quite. Not new. It pollutes the whole history of knowledge.

 

[TrueSceptic]

The Skeptic's Dictionary

I notice that, in his latest piece, an attack on Caspar Ammann, Steve McIntyre cites the excellent Bob Carroll for a definition of The Texas Sharpshooter, a term new to me.

Dr. Carroll is, of course a real (true!) sceptic. It's a shame that McIntyre's followers are unlikely to read Carroll's entries for Climate Skeptics and Contrarian. I suppose that they would claim that, no, it doesn't apply to them!

 

[TrueSceptic]

The Ultimate GWSceptic?

We've all seen some weird stuff. Some wacko, some dishonest, some insulting, but can anyone beat this? (And if anyone asks, of course I'm quote mining!)
Graeme Bird. Go to the bottom of that thread. Look for The Best Of Graeme Bird.

 

[CapelDodger]

We've all seen some weird stuff. Some wacko, some dishonest, some insulting, but can anyone beat this? (And if anyone asks, of course I'm quote mining!)
Graeme Bird. Go to the bottom of that thread. Look for The Best Of Graeme Bird.

That's one serious case-study you've done there. How To Be is just guidelines compared to that.

Not much from Munchkin recently. The price you pay for engaging in debate via a quarterly newsletter. Rather Victorian, don't you think?

 

[a_unique_person]

We've all seen some weird stuff. Some wacko, some dishonest, some insulting, but can anyone beat this? (And if anyone asks, of course I'm quote mining!)
Graeme Bird. Go to the bottom of that thread. Look for The Best Of Graeme Bird.

Hey, you leave a fellow Australian alone. He might be a raving lunatic, but he's one of our raving lunatics. I bet your a leftist, aren't you? Come on admit it.

 

[TrueSceptic]

Hey, you leave a fellow Australian alone. He might be a raving lunatic, but he's one of our raving lunatics. I bet your a leftist, aren't you? Come on admit it.

TBH I thought he might be a Yank. He reads just like some I've come across.

Of course, compared with Bird, most people on the planet are raving leftist commie bastards. Notice that for some reason he decided I was female, and then the insults got really nice.

He's new to me. Not for you, I take it?

 

[Alric]

And it gets harder and harder to be a global warming contrarian. Turns out the medieval warming period wasn't that warm after all.

http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/09/past_decade_is_warmest_in_at_l.php

These are 16 independent lines of evidence all pointing to the same conclusion.

 

[lomiller]

And it gets harder and harder to be a global warming contrarian. Turns out the medieval warming period wasn't that warm after all.

http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/09/past_decade_is_warmest_in_at_l.php

You would think…

To the denailist, all that means is that all those scientists are part of the same conspiracy. To them the lack of a MWP that exceeds today’s temperature proves the paper is wrong.

 

[Pipirr]

Yep. When I first started participating in this debate, I got hit with 'hockey stick debunked' all the damn time. But when I looked into that, I just couldn't see that Steve M had made a convincing case. And still people parroted that nonsense about it being 'debunked'.

Hopefully this new paper puts that particular piece of desperate overreaching to rest.

So what's left for the deniers?

 

[TrueSceptic]

And it gets harder and harder to be a global warming contrarian. Turns out the medieval warming period wasn't that warm after all.

http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/09/past_decade_is_warmest_in_at_l.php


[qimg]http://www.cobybeck.com/illconsidered/20080901-pnas-temp-recon.jpg[/qimg]

These are 16 independent lines of evidence all pointing to the same conclusion.

Don't you see? That is the work of Satan's spawn, the same evil one who created the Evil Stick Of Hockey but 10 years ago. Does your tribe not recognise him? He is a clever demon but surely you remember, or he will seduce you again with his evil sophistry!

 

[TrueSceptic]

You would think…

To the denailist, all that means is that all those scientists are part of the same conspiracy. To them the lack of a MWP that exceeds today’s temperature proves the paper is wrong.

Um, yes.

Now you have to show that the global network of measurements showing a MWP is somehow wrong.

 

[TrueSceptic]

Yep. When I first started participating in this debate, I got hit with 'hockey stick debunked' all the damn time. But when I looked into that, I just couldn't see that Steve M had made a convincing case. And still people parroted that nonsense about it being 'debunked'.

Hopefully this new paper puts that particular piece of desperate overreaching to rest.

So what's left for the deniers?

Have you read Tamino's explanation on how PCA works, with particular reference to MBH98?

 

[Pipirr]

Have you read Tamino's explanation on how PCA works, with particular reference to MBH98?

Yes - I thought he gave it a very thorough treatment. And with so much less of the bitching that makes ClimateAudit all but unreadable.

 

[George 152]

Of course we have climate change.
Otherwise most of Europe and North America would still be covered in the Wurm Glacitation.

 

[Wangler]

And it gets harder and harder to be a global warming contrarian. Turns out the medieval warming period wasn't that warm after all.

http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/09/past_decade_is_warmest_in_at_l.php


[qimg]http://www.cobybeck.com/illconsidered/20080901-pnas-temp-recon.jpg[/qimg]

These are 16 independent lines of evidence all pointing to the same conclusion.

Alric,

What is the meaning of "Temperature Anomaly" in those charts?