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How To Be A Global Warming Sceptic

Thus you show more of your true nature - a radical far left environmentalist. But we knew.

why not help the RC guys out a bit?
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/03/ni...limateorg.html

Realclimate.org continues with its same line of attack. Wishfulclimate.org writers try again and again to concoct what appears to be deep critiques against skeptic arguments, but end up doing a very shallow job. All in the name of saving the world. How gallant of them.

Try a bit of that anti Monckton antipathy? A bit of the old insult? Add some smear in for good measure. Add a sling or two at those darned contrarian peer reviewed journals a la E & E.

Remember when the warmers said skeptics didn't have much in the way of peer review, but relied on "denialist" blogs and a few unimportant illegitimate scientists.

Now that the tables have turned, suddenly peer review isn't that important after all. :D

So to answer Round Robin concerning 'peer review', it was the warmers who set the standard, not us.
 
Remember when the warmers said skeptics didn't have much in the way of peer review, but relied on "denialist" blogs and a few unimportant illegitimate scientists.

Now that the tables have turned, suddenly peer review isn't that important after all. :D

So to answer Round Robin concerning 'peer review', it was the warmers who set the standard, not us.

Dave, what color is the sky in that little world of yours?

PNAS is running a conspiracy against the planet, and EE is the bastian of peer-reviewd truth.

Peer-review is not important to the people who actually submit articles to peer-reviewed journals.

Next thing we'll hear how up is down, and black is actually white...

But one thing is right, we actually set up the standard in this discussion, and you've repeatedly failed to meet it.

Edited by chillzero: 
Edited for civility
 
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Dave, what color is the sky in that little world of yours?

PNAS is running a conspiracy against the planet, and EE is the bastian of peer-reviewd truth.

Peer-review is not important to the people who actually submit articles to peer-reviewed journals.

Next thing we'll hear how up is down, and black is actually white...

But one thing is right, we actually set up the standard in this discussion, and you've repeatedly failed to meet it.

Schmuck...
Can it be assumed you are referring to the Loehle EE paper? It is simply a compilation of articles from other journals which he combined into one paper.

Loehle received much criticism at ClimateAudit for which he made the appropriate corrections, then re-submitted. Even his original detractors such as Judith C and Lucia give it credit now.

Megalodon, is the earth warming?

What do you think about the latest RealClimate gaffe?
 
Can it be assumed you are referring to the Loehle EE paper? It is simply a compilation of articles from other journals which he combined into one paper.

Loehle received much criticism at ClimateAudit for which he made the appropriate corrections, then re-submitted. Even his original detractors such as Judith C and Lucia give it credit now.

Megalodon, is the earth warming?

What do you think about the latest RealClimate gaffe?

No it can't,
Edited by chillzero: 
Edited for civility
. I don't read either ClimateAudit or RealClimate.

I follow the simple "not enough hours in the day" motto and check the articles when I have a question.

And can you even hear yourself? "...Judith C and Lucia give it credit now..."? Are you out of your rockers? (silly question, I know... it's obvious, really)

Why should I care about the opinion of internet posters? Either there is published science or there isn't... again, "not enough hours in the day". I engage you here because JREF is my daily fix, but otherwise I do have a life.
 
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This I construed quite reasonably to mean that the IPCC reports should contain an analysis of every single published paper that might have a bearing on the subject.

Which is, of course, nonsense and I pointed that out.
This you construed quite incorrectly, thereby mischaracterising my argument.

Your words were clear enough. They might no longer be the words you wished you'd used, but there they are.
The words I used were fine. It was your interpretation of words that weren't there that was wrong.

You have no idea.
Good constructive argument as ever.

The IPCC reports are not literature reviews, they are policy reviews. Which makes the rest of your post irrelevant.

IPCC said:
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been established by WMO and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation
My emphasis. It includes policy and science. The reports include a review of scientific literature. Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.

CapelDodger said:
Again with the fixation on the IPCC.
Once again, impugning with no evidence. RoundRobin asked a question about bias in the IPCC. I provided an answer. How am I supposed to answer a question about the IPCC without talking about the IPCC? The IPCC has a role to play, obviously it is not the be all and end all and I have never suggested as such. However it is an important body and is supposed to be independent; yet it really isn't.
CapelDodger said:
The checks and balances are there in the research institutions that provide the IPCC's feedstock.
I have provided clear evidence that the checks and balances are not there. You, once again, provide opinion and assertion. Evidence versus opinion, hmmm...
 
Does the mere existence of a paper in a peer-reviewed journal make it a priori relevant and worthy of inclusion in a "state of the science" literature review like the IPCC reports? I see so many people on both sides of this debate (and many other debates!) tossing out articles published in peer-reviewed journals as though they are pure, distilled, single-malt fact.
I would agree that the existence of a single paper - particularly one in an obscure journal - does not justify coverage; as I'm sure you are aware, until a study is reasonably replicated, it should be viewed with caution. Incidentally, the journals listed in the Pielke article are all mainstream climate science journals, such as Nature, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate etc. I quickly scanned through and did not see one article from Energy and Environment.

The lists I provided included dozens of paper which constituted a substantial debating point within the peer review record. Whether it is compelling or not, I can't see how you can just ignore dozens of papers on one particular aspect. I accept you can choose to report them and argue (for whatever reason) that they do not apply, but to ignore them altogether is a distortion of the record.

One of the problems is - who decides what is compelling and what isn't? Clearly, if this is focussed on just one or two people (i.e. the lead authors) the potential for bias is huge.

I am not necessarily accusing any of the papers mentioned by Pielke, etc. as being discredited or bogus; I'm just curious if their mere presence is compelling, or if they require subsequent evaluation to determine their validity and worthiness to appear in a literature review (and I am ignorant of whether or not they have actually achieved this level of acceptance). The same question applies to any paper authored and successfully published by Mann, Hansen, etc.
Once again, the problem is more just having one or two people deciding what is compelling. Although expert reviewers make comments, they can be simply dismissed. This leaves the gate wide open for bias. A stronger process is required if bias is to be eliminated.
 
This seems to be precisely what he is claiming; he writes:

Roger Pielke Sr. said:
If the papers were neglected because they were redundant, this would be no problem. However, they are ignored specifically because they conflict with the assessment that is presented in the IPCC WG1 Report, and the Lead Authors do not agree with that perspective!
Round Robin, do not fall into the trap of illogical thinking that CapelDodger does; you seem brighter than that to me. From the quote given, you cannot conclude (and in fact it would be incorrect to do so) that Roger Pielke Sr is demanding the lead authors adopt his perspective. Clearly, the more likely position is that Roger Pielke Sr wants them to outline why they do not agree with his perspective, or to recognise there is disagreement within the scientific community, rather than ignore a large swath of papers in mainstream journals.

Roger Pielke Sr. said:
Pielke refers to these papers as "redundant", but could they be just as accurately called "follow-up" or "corroborating" or "refined"? It seems to me that to dismiss papers that agree with consensus as "redundant" is to dismiss the importance of continuous testing of a hypothesis.

Perhaps if the "dissenting" papers are followed by similar "redundant" work, they would appear in the next IPCC WG1 report?
RoundRobin, you seem to be fishing for arguments. Of course anyone can speculate as to whether these papers are truly redundant or not. Do you have any credible evidence to counter Prof Pielke's position? The only responses I've had so far amount to mischaracterisation of arguments, claims about hissy fits, claims that use of exclamation marks proves hysteria, and speculation that the papers don't contain what he claims.

The papers are there, why not find out about them, tell us why you disagree with Roger's view, rather than just speculate about what might be? If we're all just going to give speculative opinions about unread papers then what exactly are we going to learn?
 
A lot of the so called peer reviewed papers are published in a journal called Environment and Energy. It will publish just about any piece of rubbish, usually anything that would never be accepted for publication in a serious journal.
RoundRobin was answering a point I made, with respect to a specific series of papers listed by Roger Pielke Sr. Not one of these papers was published in E&E.

Having provided evidence to support my position, all I seem to have in return are opinions, speculation, arguments against the person, hand-waving and factual errors that should take ten seconds to verify. Is this really the standard level of debate in a supposedly scientific forum?
 
From the quote given, you cannot conclude (and in fact it would be incorrect to do so) that Roger Pielke Sr is demanding the lead authors adopt his perspective. Clearly, the more likely position is that Roger Pielke Sr wants them to outline why they do not agree with his perspective, or to recognise there is disagreement within the scientific community, rather than ignore a large swath of papers in mainstream journals.

My question was not so much in regard to the quality of journals; clearly, Nature, Science, et al, represent among the finest in the world. My question was whether the mere fact of being published in a respected journal bestows "fact" upon a paper, or if--as I had always suspected--a paper must survive the brutal attack of the readership before granted importance. You are a working scientist, so I hoped that you might have a good answer to that question.

Many of the papers Roger Pielke Sr. puts forth as "ignored" are relatively new; is it not possible that these papers were too new to be considered relevant to the IPCC (CD suggested nothing newer than 2005 publication was considered to the IPCC). He calls the Hansen, et al, papers (also newer than 2005) "redundant", while his own "ignored". How would he know one way or the other?

I think that it is entirely appropriate to question how long a paper must survive in the wild before it becomes part of a "state of the science" report. Prof. Pielke Sr. refers to these papers merely as "peer-reviewed", but that means only that they are published. To me, "peer-reviewed" can just as easily mean, "peer-reviewed and ultimately discredited". Therefore, claiming a paper was ignored simply because it was "peer-reviewed" carries little weight with me. How about "peer-reviewed and independently repeated and verified"?

And I do believe that Roger Pielke Sr. is making a rather serious accusation in that article you linked:
Roger Pielke Sr. said:
However, they are ignored specifically because they conflict with the assessment that is presented in the IPCC WG1 Report, and the Lead Authors do not agree with that perspective!
An accusation like that is provocative and sounds more like a "hissy fit" than anything else I've heard in this thread. Indeed you accuse me of subscribing to "illogical thinking" if I do not see this issue your and Roger Pielke's way; that implies that you have certainty that I lack.

RoundRobin, you seem to be fishing for arguments. Of course anyone can speculate as to whether these papers are truly redundant or not. Do you have any credible evidence to counter Prof Pielke's position? The only responses I've had so far amount to mischaracterisation of arguments, claims about hissy fits, claims that use of exclamation marks proves hysteria, and speculation that the papers don't contain what he claims.

Certainly not--I have no proof to Counter Prof. Pielke's position. But I did not make the accusation that his and other papers were "ignored." The burden of proof is on him, and he has provided only lists of articles and accusations of conspiracy. I am not so much "fishing for arguments", but rather am "fishing for information". Perhaps his papers were too new to be included (as were Hansen's) or were seminal (good, but lacking follow-up, refinement or corroboration). Or, perhaps they were simply discredited. I have no knowledge of any of this; I am asking the question to those who read more of the primary literature and follow the debate within the scientific circles.

Prof. Pielke appears, by my reading, to be claiming a conspiracy. To be sure, there may be a real element of "groupthink" within the IPCC authors, but making the accusation doesn't necessarily make it so. I am still reading through all the links you have provided, and am not convinced one way or the other; but I have thus far not discovered a compelling argument for conspiracy or bias toward anything other than "consensus".
 
And I do believe that Roger Pielke Sr. is making a rather serious accusation in that article you linked:

Originally Posted by Roger Pielke Sr.
If the papers were neglected because they were redundant, this would be no problem. However, they are ignored specifically because they conflict with the assessment that is presented in the IPCC WG1 Report, and the Lead Authors do not agree with that perspective!

An accusation like that is provocative and sounds more like a "hissy fit" than anything else I've heard in this thread. Indeed you accuse me of subscribing to "illogical thinking" if I do not see this issue your and Roger Pielke's way; that implies that you have certainty that I lack.

Pielke Sr does come across as very certain, yet how can he know what he professes to know? I find it hard to see his position as being a reasonable one.

RP Sr and two others recently tried to publish the results of a questionaire that they had sent to climate scientists (Link). It was to gauge the level of agreement with the IPCC reports. I found the results quite unsurprising: they showed a broad level of agreement, with some people agreeing less and some agreeing more. However the IPCC did what it did, I haven't seen much evidence that the reports are somehow outside the mainstream or seriously flawed.

I said 'tried to publish'. RP Sr's paper was declined twice, prompting him to make this (bizarre) comment:

"From this experience, it is clear that the AGU EOS and Nature Precedings Editors are using their positions to suppress evidence that there is more diversity of views on climate, and the human role in altering climate, than is represented in the narrowly focused 2007 IPCC report."

:rolleyes:

Some more discussion here at Nature Blogs.
 
Thus you show more of your true nature - a radical far left environmentalist. But we knew.

why not help the RC guys out a bit?
http://motls.blogspot.com/2008/03/ni...limateorg.html

Realclimate.org continues with its same line of attack. Wishfulclimate.org writers try again and again to concoct what appears to be deep critiques against skeptic arguments, but end up doing a very shallow job. All in the name of saving the world. How gallant of them.

Try a bit of that anti Monckton antipathy? A bit of the old insult? Add some smear in for good measure. Add a sling or two at those darned contrarian peer reviewed journals a la E & E.

Rubbish is rubbish. If you want the Anti-AGW arguments to be taken seriously, then the arguments have to be serious. Monckton is a fool. He has no formal training in climate science, yet he is quite prepared to tell people he has mastered it in a few years, and knows more than the experts. E&E will publish just about any piece of rubbish that comes along (they did reject one paper, amazingly enough). The Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, is another black mark, a prime piece of insanity. Piers Corbyn, another crank.

The minute the denier side becomes disciplined enough to reject the rubbish and stick to the science, I will quite happily take it more seriously.
 
Rubbish is rubbish. If you want the Anti-AGW arguments to be taken seriously, then the arguments have to be serious. Monckton is a fool. He has no formal training in climate science, yet he is quite prepared to tell people he has mastered it in a few years, and knows more than the experts.

I've gone through Monckton's 23 errors of Trenberth. Monckton did pretty good, you had no effective rebuttal, so the ad homs started.

Of Course. But that was expected.
 
My question was not so much in regard to the quality of journals; clearly, Nature, Science, et al, represent among the finest in the world. My question was whether the mere fact of being published in a respected journal bestows "fact" upon a paper, or if--as I had always suspected--a paper must survive the brutal attack of the readership before granted importance. You are a working scientist, so I hoped that you might have a good answer to that question.
I don't know what the relevance of "one paper" is here. I didn't count them but we are talking about something like three dozen papers in high profile journals, by dozens of different authors, debating an important point. Your question is interesting but irrelevant to this point. Clearly, with so many scientists on both sides of an important issue, with no clear resolution at the end of it, it must be of some interest.

Many of the papers Roger Pielke Sr. puts forth as "ignored" are relatively new; is it not possible that these papers were too new to be considered relevant to the IPCC (CD suggested nothing newer than 2005 publication was considered to the IPCC). He calls the Hansen, et al, papers (also newer than 2005) "redundant", while his own "ignored". How would he know one way or the other?
No, the IPCC had a clear deadline, and its purpose is to present the current state of science. I believe the cut off date was February 28th 2006 for a paper to be in press. But that means most papers published prior to around June-July 06 could be included. In fact, Wahl and Amman (climatic change) was included and published (finally) in late 2007 - some 18 months after the cut off. So your point here is (with evidence) simply wrong.

I think that it is entirely appropriate to question how long a paper must survive in the wild before it becomes part of a "state of the science" report. Prof. Pielke Sr. refers to these papers merely as "peer-reviewed", but that means only that they are published. To me, "peer-reviewed" can just as easily mean, "peer-reviewed and ultimately discredited". Therefore, claiming a paper was ignored simply because it was "peer-reviewed" carries little weight with me. How about "peer-reviewed and independently repeated and verified"?
Again you are missing the point completely. We are not talking about one peer-reviewed paper on one topic. We are talking about dozens on one specific topic, with contradictory viewpoints. This is not about being "discredited", this is about a debate in the scientific literature. Plus, you are speculating - if you think the papers have been "discredited", show us where. And the suggestion RPSr is demanding his viewpoint is promoted as the prevailing truth is just wrong and a strawman. RPSr is just asking for a balanced position, covering all viewpoints. Interpret the consequences, sure, but don't just leave out inconvenient material if it doesn't fit your worldview.

An accusation like that is provocative and sounds more like a "hissy fit" than anything else I've heard in this thread. Indeed you accuse me of subscribing to "illogical thinking" if I do not see this issue your and Roger Pielke's way; that implies that you have certainty that I lack.
Both you and CapelDodger are acting as if Roger Pielke is demanding his view as truth. This is absurd. He has not demanded that. He has pointed out that, in his view, an important debate in the literature has been ignored. He is suggesting it should be seen in parallel to the lead authors view. How hard is this to understand?

Certainly not--I have no proof to Counter Prof. Pielke's position. But I did not make the accusation that his and other papers were "ignored." The burden of proof is on him, and he has provided only lists of articles
The articles are evidence. Go and see how the articles read, and how the AR4 chapter 3 reads and note the difference. If you can show those articles have, in your words, been "discredited", then go do it. Otherwise we can sit here all day speculating about which papers have been "discredited" from complete ignorance.

and accusations of conspiracy.
OK it is at this point that I see no point in going further. Conspiracy? Roger Pielke Sr accuses bias, not conspiracy. If you can't tell the difference between the two then you really don't understand the point. If you believe conspiracy, please show me the exact line and how this could not just be bias.

The reason it is bias rather than conspiracy is because of the weak process in the IPCC. Lead authors present their own work and their own views and can simply dismiss reviewers comments without reason. This system is almost guaranteed to cause bias. Not conspiracy.
 
Triplepost!!! :(:(:( (I had a bugger of a time getting my reply to upload; the server kept locking up. guess it got farther than I thought!)
 
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I don't know what the relevance of "one paper" is here. I didn't count them but we are talking about something like three dozen papers in high profile journals, by dozens of different authors, debating an important point.

Forgive me if I was unclear; I was not talking about one paper. I was talking about any one paper: Does any paper's presence in a high-profile journal mean anything in and of itself? i.e. It got past the first peer review process. RPSr was only enumerating the papers, identified as "peer-reviewed". Well, sure. They were reviewed by the--what--three or so reviewers and the editor to get into Nature (I'm by no means diminishing this achievement, btw). Then the real fun begins, as the rest of the field reads and comments on the work, perhaps tries to reproduce the results, suggests changes, refinements, etc. My point was the RPSr was only counting papers, not weighing their importance. Remember your accusation of me "counting scientists" when I said that I generally trust a consensus to even out the "quirkiness" of individual scientists?

I don't know the importance of the papers he listed, which is why I asked the question. I was not making an accusation that one paper was ignored because it was discredited. I was asking a sincere question of whether or not RPSr's enumeration of ignored papers was evidence enough of bias. I have doubts there, but am willing to be corrected.

Again you are missing the point completely. We are not talking about one peer-reviewed paper on one topic. We are talking about dozens on one specific topic, with contradictory viewpoints. This is not about being "discredited", this is about a debate in the scientific literature. Plus, you are speculating - if you think the papers have been "discredited", show us where.

I have never said that any of these papers were discredited; please do not misrepresent me. I said that the papers enumerated by RPSr were identified only as "peer-reviewed", which says nothing about how they survived in the wild. I am curious about what has happened to them out there--I made no speculation. What happened to these papers? Were they accepted? repeated? verified? met with the sound of crickets? I am not a working climate scientist, so I do not read the whole of the primary literature; I was hoping that someone here was more familiar with the status of these papers.

Both you and CapelDodger are acting as if Roger Pielke is demanding his view as truth. This is absurd. He has not demanded that. He has pointed out that, in his view, an important debate in the literature has been ignored. He is suggesting it should be seen in parallel to the lead authors view. How hard is this to understand?

Ok. I'll accept that he is asking for balance. I never actually held the position that he was "demanding his view as truth", but I can see how my exchange with CapelDodger might give that impression. I have, however, held (and still do) that he is demanding that his view be included. The articles that you linked read to me like a child not picked for the team. Yes, that was an ad hom. Yes, I should argue his message, not his voice. His voice, however, in these articles at least, was a bit strident and accusatory. He might persuade more people to his point of view if he did not preach so loudly to his choir. He certainly didn't persuade me (for what that's worth! :))

The articles are evidence. Go and see how the articles read, and how the AR4 chapter 3 reads and note the difference. If you can show those articles have, in your words, been "discredited", then go do it. Otherwise we can sit here all day speculating about which papers have been "discredited" from complete ignorance.
Again, I never accused these articles of being discredited. I stated that identifying them only as "peer-reviewed", as RPSr does, says nothing about their veracity or weight. I asked the question to you and other working scientists if their mere publication made them more important than I am giving them credit for. I still contend (please correct me if I'm wrong) that a paper is not verified or considered relevant to a discussion until it has undergone some degree of vetting by other independent groups, either by repeating, or otherwise corroborating the experiments and results.

OK it is at this point that I see no point in going further. Conspiracy? Roger Pielke Sr accuses bias, not conspiracy.
Easy tiger :) There is a fine line between believing that the IPCC WG1 writers all got together and decided to exclude RPSr's (and others') work (conspiracy) and all of the writers independently deciding to exclude RPSr's (and others') work (bias). I will however retract the word "conspiracy". He is not, however, doing himself any favors by writing in the tone of the articles you linked.
 
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Round Robin, do not fall into the trap of illogical thinking that CapelDodger does; you seem brighter than that to me.

I forgot to mention: I flatly disagree with the framing of this point. To suggest that if I am "bright" I will align with your logic rather than CapelDodger's suggests that you hold your opinion with much greater certainty than is ever warranted in a scientific discussion.

If science must always be tentative, so then must our views of it. I assure you that my mind will follow a persuasive logical argument--with a personal bias toward scientific consensus (NAS, Royal Society, AAAS, etc.)

I do not always agree with you, but you have earned my respect in this discussion. CapelDodger also has earned my respect, so please do not use me to insult him.
 
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I've gone through Monckton's 23 errors of Trenberth. Monckton did pretty good, you had no effective rebuttal, so the ad homs started.

Of Course. But that was expected.

Would you expect anything less?

A special mention for AUP:

This a very important paper, and yet another example of an issue concerning climate change that was mostly ignored by the IPCC assessment.
http://climatesci.org/2008/01/25/mo...cover-change-on-australia’s-regional-climate/
The abstract reads “The Australian landscape has been transformed extensively since European settlement. However, the potential impact of historical land cover change (LCC) on regional climate has been a secondary consideration in the climate change projections. In this study, we analyzed data from a pair of ensembles (10 members each) for the period 1951–2003 to quantify changes in regional climate by comparing results from pre-European and modern-day land cover characteristics. The results of the sensitivity simulations showed the following: a statistically significant warming of the surface temperature, especially for summer in eastern Australia (0.4–2C) and southwest Western Australia (0.4–0.8C); a statistically significant decrease in summer rainfall in southeast Australia; and increased surface temperature in eastern regions during the 2002/ 2003 El Nino drought event. The simulated magnitude and pattern of change indicates that LCC has potentially been an important contributing factor to the observed changes in regional climate of Australia.”

The conclusions read,
“The findings of our sensitivity experiment indicate that replacing the native woody vegetation with crops and grazing in southwest Western Australia and eastern Australia has resulted in significant changes in regional climate, with a shift to warmer and drier conditions, especially in southeast Australia, the nation’s major agricultural region. The simulated changes in Australia’s regional climate suggest that LCC is likely a contributing factor to the observed trends in surface temperature and rainfall at the regional scale. While formal attribution studies are required, the outcomes raise important questions about the impact of LCC on Australia’s regional climate, and highlight a strong feedback effect between LCC and the severity of recent droughts impacting on Australia’s already stressed natural resources and agriculture.”
 

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