You are right, my bad. But I think we have different meanings regarding “new independent finding”. You are using it to indicate research on something new. Rereading what I wrote, I see that I meant new findings regarding their research.
You said:
There’s no satisfying you. First you claim it’s only three sentences. I post the article, three quarters of a page in Nature Magazine, and you are like, so what, only seven paragraphs? Another thing you may not know is that there is a strict word limit on submissions to Nature, my work was as long as it could possibly be.
I suspect I’m the only person participating in this discussion to have anything published on climate science in Nature Magazine. So I may be wrong, but I’m no fool, and I have published peer-reviewed climate science, both in Nature and E&E.
Right, because it looks like only three sentences on Nature’s website, which is why I asked you if there was any more.
Who said anything about “so what, only” seven paragraphs? I was acknowledging that the full publication was indeed substantially longer than the three sentences I originally saw of it.
Probably, but so what? According to you, publication records don’t matter:
You seem to be flipflopping a bit on whether or not things like scientific reputation and publication success and so on should be taken into account when evaluating the credibility of someone’s opinions on climate science.
You’re awfully proud of a litany of nitpicks less than a page long that got refuted soundly by the original authors. It really seems like claiming a peer reviewed article on climate science for that is bordering on fantasy.
But none of that matters, because even if you had any expertise in climate science you’d still be just one of a handful of experts against the vast majority of the working experts in the field.
Most of that was true, up until the end of the century. Since then … no cookies. None of the models predicted the current flat-lining of the temperature for the past decade. In specific …
**“If we seek even more confidence, there is another way to test a model’s predictive power over long time periods: hindcasting.” **The models are not bad at reproducing the past. This is no surprise, as they are tuned to reproduce the past. Your citation, and you, seem to think this proves something. But if I build a model and tune it to reproduce the past, are we supposed to be impressed that it reproduces the past? If you are, you don’t understand tuned models. This claim is a joke. The key issue is that in chaotic systems, being able to predict the past means nothing about the future, as many people have found out with stock market models. Or as the stock broker’s ad says, “Keep in mind that past success does not guarantee future performance.” …
“models predict continuing and accelerating warming of the surface, and so far they are correct.” Well, except for the last decade, when warming has neither continued nor accelerated. So no, so far they are not correct. And while there was warming, there was no “accelerated warming” over the last fifty years.
** “models predict warming of ocean surface waters, as is now observed”**. Not so. The Reynolds v2 SST is available at KNMI. It shows the same thing as the air temperature, which rose until 1998, and has been flat since then. So the models were wrong.
“models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid, and upper troposphere, even while satellite readings seemed to disagree – but it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors and on correction, this warming has been observed” Same problem. The models looked great last century. But in the 21st century, they kept rising, and the atmospheric temperature went flat.
“models predict that surface warming should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere, and this has indeed been observed” This relationship is basic science, and is predictable without any model at all. It would only be surprising if the models didn’t show this.
“models predict an energy imbalance between incoming sunlight and outgoing infrared radiation, which has been detected;” This is hogwash. There is no way to measure either incoming sunlight nor outgoing IR to an accuracy that would enable us to make this statement. The errors are far too large.
“models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region, and this is indeed happening”. Well, it was happening in the 20th century. Since 2001, it has been cooling. The models also predict warming in the Antarctic, and it has been cooling since 1979 (start of the satellite records). Antarctic ice coverage is currently at an all time high. Again not predicted by the models.
“models predict sharp and short-lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions, and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this” Again, this has been known since not too long after the “Year without a summer” after the eruption of Tambora.
So other than the simplest things (temperature drop after volcanic eruption), the models did well up to the turn of the century, and have done abysmally in the last decade.
Do you call that a success? Because I sure don’t. We are currently way below the range that James Hansen predicted in 1988. And it’s not only his models that were wrong. From a 1989 interview:
We had discussed “alarmist” above, and his claims are as good an example of “alarmist” as any.
So no, I’m not ready to give Jim Hansen a prognosticator’s medal. As your article noted, “Twelve years later [up to 2000], he was proven remarkably correct” … but since then, he has been proven remarkably wrong. There is a good discussion of various temperature projections here. In general, CO2 based models don’t do well.
Regarding the claims above, you would do well to check the data at KNMI before making easily disproven assertions. KNMI (cited above) is an excellent source, you can download a variety of data (sea ice, surface temperature, atmospheric temperature, model results, sea surface temperature, and a host more). You can pick the area of the world you want the results for. It is a surperb resource.
Now, you guys are all about “who said it”, not “what was said”. So let me cover that as well. As I noted above, this is not just my opinion. There are 60 climate scientists who signed on to the letter. You have provided the opinion of a self-described “Former musician, turned tree planter, turned software engineer” who ignored everything since the year 2000. His assertions are easily disproven by a casual examination of the KNMI data. Your choice … my point was simply that there is no “consensus”.
My apologies, as you say that was not your meaning. I took it incorrectly. I get attacked here so much I fear I read it the wrong way, I’m a bit touchy after being repeatedly accused of everything from being a conspiracy theorist to being a flat out liar to mopery on the skyways and a host of other sins of commission and omission. Mea culpa, I struck back and you were not attacking.
You are 100% right that they don’t matter to me. Unfortunately, they seem to matter very much to others here, and yet they want to abuse me despite my peer-reviewed publications. I mention it only to try to get people to stop treating me like the village idiot. It doesn’t make my ideas right or wrong at all. It does mean that I have thought long and hard about these matters, and that my opinions are informed by that process. Doesn’t make them right, but I’m not just pulling ideas out of the air.
My thanks to you for your tone. I will strive to be as courteous.
Which brings up an interesting point. I’ve been published on the issue of climate science in the premier journal in my field (Global Change Biology).
Has anybody on the alarmist side here actually been published on the issue anywhere at all? Normally I wouldn’t care, since it’s an obvious argument from authority. But since the issue has been raised, and all us skeptics have been labelled as ignorant and uneducated, I wonder if the alarmists actually have equivalent bona fides?
Pretty much, yeah: if you run your air conditioner with the windows wide open, I may ridicule you as stupid, and my main objection to your SUV is that if you’re in front of me in traffic, I can’t see what’s happening in front of you, so I hope you don’t mind if I prefer to be in front of you than behind you (but that’s a whole 'nother rant). But I’m not going to say you’re immoral.
The main thing that worries me is that those who engage in such profligate energy use will be more inclined to fight against the true environmental costs of such energy use being imposed on their future energy use, since pretty much all of us like to keep on doing whatever it is that we’ve gotten used to being able to do.
Obviously I’m not worried about Al Gore’s fighting against the imposition of a good costing system on his CO2 output. I’m worried about some of them other guys, but there’s little to be done about that, other than let the recession and peak oil do their bit.
The point was also that even most meteorologists do not think that, and the award shows it.
If that is so, then how to explain why even the top Meteorologists miss that? How to explain that the leadership and the majority of most scientific organizations perversely ignore how it is “easily disproven”?
Only by willfully ignoring the research and warnings (of deniers misinterpreting the “slowdown” periods in the warming trend) of Mojib Latif and others is that you can come up with verdicts like “there is no “consensus”” or that modelers were not aware that other factors could slow down the warming for a period.
Let me tell you that my background is in education and history, It is by looking at history that one can say that the consensus of today is way different that it was up to the 70’s.
There’s nobody here on the “alarmist” side, AFAICT. The climate change non-deniers here identify as “realists” or some other non-pejorative term.
If you want to call yourself a “skeptic” rather than a “denier” and have that nomenclature respected, you shouldn’t insist on slapping pejorative labels on your opponents.
IIRC, there are others on the board who have published in climate science areas and have participated in climate-change threads, but I don’t think there are any in this thread.
Meh, I get tarred with the “denier” label routinely on these boards. You only have to look at this thread to see that in action, never mind every single past thread. Since this seems to be an issue where I’m going to have ad hominem labels applied to me, I thought I’d join in as well. It’s not like I’m going to be referred to respectfully either way.
To be expected, really. We of the warming hysteria coalition have Gore and ACORN on our side to finance our conspiracy, all you guys got are Exxon, Citigroup, Shell, and two or three other penny-ante, two-bit corporate supporters.
I don’t get the point of arguing that the climate is getting worse due to man made pollution or not. We do know that we are wasting a lot of gas driving big huge vehicles. We also know they spew a lot of pollution. If we went to smaller cleaner cars, how could that be bad? Going to more efficient cars is a win /win. We become less dependent on oil if we conserve. We spew less dirt if we drive better ,less polluting vehicles. Are we taking someones right to pollute away from them? Is that a right they have?
Do we? What constitutes a “lot”, and is the unit metric or imperial?
You really don’t know? If you seriously believe there is no downside to driving a smaller car, why do you think so many people don’t do it? Do you honestly think that everybody who disagrees with you is too dumb to do things that are only beneficial to them?
Again, do you honestly think that everybody who disagrees with you is too dumb to do things that are only beneficial to them? Me, I stopped thinking like that at about 15. Most people do. You realise that if billions of people are doing something, it probably provides some benefit to them.
Well, I’d agree that if you did have a shot at being referred to respectfully, you’ve now pretty much pre-empted it. (Except perhaps for me, I try to keep referring to people respectfully even under provocation.)
Oh, and you as well as intention seem to be a bit unclear on the meaning of “ad hominem”. If somebody claims that your views on climate change are worthless on the grounds that you’re a climate change denier, that might be an inaccurate attack on your views, but it is not an ad hominem one.
An ad hominem argument is one based specifically on a characteristic of the opponent that is irrelevant to the subject of the argument. If somebody said that your views on climate change are worthless because you’re, um, let’s pretend they said a serial kitten-kicker, that would be an ad hominem argument. Because kitten-kicking tendencies, reprehensible though they may be in themselves, do not have any bearing on whether their possessor understands climate science.
FWIW your posts are easily my favorite Dope reading.
So…Al Gore is generally doing good. AGW realists are not alarmists and have an acceptable grasp on AGW based on rock-solid science. I am an AGW ignoramus.
I want to give you all of those, free of further debate, for the purpose of trying to get this question addressed:
Is it acceptable for AGW realists to fly first class on ordinary business trip flights?
I believe you have implied it is acceptable and I am left wondering why it is acceptable. If we say it’s acceptable, do we not, by extension, make every behaviour acceptable independent of its effect on furthering AGW? Or is it the case that you do not agree with my premise that first class is a wonderful case example (since, from a functionality standpoint it, is identical to coach)? For me it’s a perfect case study because one cannot bring in distracting arguments such as safety, expediency, time commitments and so on to defend what might otherwise be criticised as profligate (such as me flying my G5 to get somewhere).
“Realists”? Every person on earth thinks that they are a realist. Labelling one side in a discussion as “realists” is a joke. How is that any different from what you are arguing against?
How about, since our side of the discussion is called the “skeptics”, you give up claiming to be the only “realists” in the room?
How about “skeptics” and “unskeptics”? You didn’t like “AGW supporters”, so how about “AGW unskeptics” instead? Because labelling one side “realists” is an insult, not a “non-pejorative term”.
What is it that the top Meteorologists are missing? You’ll have to be more specific here.
The citation made a variety of claims about the accuracy of the models. Unfortunately, he stopped comparing them at around the year 2000. Most people have noticed that, and admit that since 2000 the models are doing very poorly. His claims are “easily disproven” because he is ignoring recent history, which the top Meteorologists are not foolish enough to do.
Yes. Except the Catholic church was selling intercession with a God that didn’t exist for a problem that was imaginary.
Whereas carbon offsets are putting money towards green endeavors (like wind turbines) to actually combat a real problem, like AGW.
Other than that exactly the same.
Now as to whether any one human’s offsets are worth the trouble, I’m probably with you there. But it’s a perfectly sound way to put your money where your mouth is if you’re against carbon pollution.
Who said anything about “so what, only” seven paragraphs? I was acknowledging that the full publication was indeed substantially longer than the three sentences I originally saw of it.