# Credulous "experts" on global warming **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 31, 2015, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477 "2015-08-31T05:47:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/41 "2015-08-31T23:00:55Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > And there very well could be legitimate reasons for the government to update their procedures for issuing advisories. > > But it doesn’t do any good to state, three years after the fact, that “when that hurricane hit New York a few years ago it was a category 1 at landfall”, when it’s simply not true. The problem for NOAA is that these advisories, watches and warnings all have strict scientific definitions. From **GIGO** ’s quote above “[Continuing the hurricane warning a day of two longer] would have been a lie, he said, and “would have utterly destroyed the credibility of the agency in the long run.”” Plus the “Hurricane Warning” was replaced by a “Hurricane-Force Wind Warning”, so the point’s moot if no one is paying attention. Part of the problem was the name was too cutsie … “Sandy” … kind of get the imagery of a cute lil’ elfin lass prancing in mud-puddles wearing a _My Little Ponies_ rain jacket. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/42 "2015-08-31T23:05:42Z")
I didn’t ask if they’d be better at it than me. I asked " Does this mean climatologists are in the business of making local weather forecasts?" Climatology is not meteorology, and the argument that runs “if they can’t predict the weather two weeks in advance, why should we believe them about long-term climate trends?” is a silly one. It shows the person making it doesn’t have a good enough grasp of the subject to have an informed opinion. I can’t believe anyone capable of using a computer doesn’t understand this. It’s a weak attempt to cast aspersions on climatologists by implying they’re incompetent because their findings contradict right-wing dogma. It’s up there with Inhofe claiming science can’t be right because there’s snow in the winter. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/43 "2015-08-31T23:30:18Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I didn’t ask if they’d be better at it than me. I asked " Does this mean climatologists are in the business of making local weather forecasts?" **Climatology is not meteorology** , and the argument that runs “if they can’t predict the weather two weeks in advance, why should we believe them about long-term climate trends?” is a silly one. It shows the person making it doesn’t have a good enough grasp of the subject to have an informed opinion. I can’t believe anyone capable of using a computer doesn’t understand this. > > It’s a weak attempt to cast aspersions on climatologists by implying they’re incompetent because their findings contradict right-wing dogma. It’s up there with Inhofe claiming science can’t be right because there’s snow in the winter. [Emphases Mine] Perhaps if you clarified what you mean by “Climatology is not meteorology” then your statements would make better sense. That really is a tough question to answer even for those with some grasp of the material, or the answer would abound. You’ll have to agree that the extreme climate forecasts do need explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/44 "2015-08-31T23:30:57Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The global warming experts can’t predict the weather two weeks in advance. What chance do they have of predicting the weather in twenty years? > > One big volcanic eruption will disrupt the planets weather and temps for years. But those can’t be accurately predicted. Just as the drought in California or flooding in Europe can’t be accurately predicted. The results can be blames on global warming but those are “results”. > > Then again, if someone were to “predict” everything from drought to flooding, they’re bound to have one of their predictions come true. You don’t have a basic understanding of the issue. What you just wrote is staggering in its lack of understanding. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/45 "2015-08-31T23:33:05Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Meteorology and climatology and doctoring, oh my. The IPCC’s predictions have been wrong. NOAA data has been flawed in the past. I’m sure the planet gets warmer every spring, and cooler every the fall. And your little dog too! 🙂 > **[Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been...](https://skepticalscience.com/contary-to-contrarians-ipcc-temp-projections-accurate.html)** > > There is a new myth circulating in the climate contrarian blogosphere and mainstream media that a figure presented in the 'leaked' draft Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report shows that the planet has warmed less... > [@](#): > > IPCC Trounces Contrarian Predictions > > As shown above, the IPCC has thus far done remarkably well at predicting future global surface warming. The same cannot be said for the climate contrarians who criticize the IPCC and mainstream climate science predictions. The IPCC has some items wrong but the issue was that the IPCC was very conservative and underestimated some items, the problem for the contrarians is that it means that the situation is worse. > [@](#): > > Although the IPCC climate models have performed remarkably well in projecting average global surface temperature warming thus far, Rahmstorf et al. (2012) found that the IPCC underestimated global average sea level rise since 1993 by 60%. Brysse et al. (2012) also found that the IPCC has tended to underestimate or failed to account for CO2 emissions, increased rainfall in already rainy areas, continental ice sheet melting, Arctic sea ice decline, and permafrost melting. Brysse et al. concludes that the on the whole the IPCC has been too conservative in its projections, “erring on the side of least drama” — in effect preferring to be wrong on the conservative side in order to avoid criticism. > [@doorhinge](#): > > NOAA data has been flawed in the past. > **[What you need to know about the NOAA global warming faux pause paper](https://skepticalscience.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-karl-2015.html)** > > Last week, a paper out of NOAA concluded that contrary to the popular myth, there’s been no pause in global warming. The study made headlines across the world, including widely-read Guardian stories by John Abraham and Karl Mathiesen. In fact, there... > [@](#): > > Contrary to the conspiracy theories, climate scientists process the raw temperature data for an important reason – to remove biases that don’t represent real temperature changes. The big one in the new NOAA analysis deals with changes in the ways ocean temperatures have been measured. They’ve been measured from water samples in insulated buckets, uninsulated buckets, from valves in ships’ hulls, and from instruments on buoys. As Zeke Hausfather explains, > [@doorhinge](#): > > I’m sure the planet gets warmer every spring, and cooler every the fall. > **[Are surface temperature records reliable?](https://skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm)** > > Numerous studies into the effect of urban heat island effect and microsite influences find they have negligible effect on long-term trends, particularly when averaged over large regions. Independent studies using different software, different methods, and different data sets yield very similar results. The increase in temperatures since 1975 is a consistent feature of all reconstructions. This increase cannot be explained as an artifact of the adjustment process, the decrease in station numbers, or other non-climatological factors. Natural temperature measurements also confirm the general accuracy of the instrumental temperature record. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/46 "2015-08-31T23:57:03Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > I’m sure the planet gets warmer every spring, and cooler every the fall. Given that when it’s fall (and cooling off) in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s spring (and warming up) in the Southern Hemisphere, I can confidently answer your statement with: no, it actually doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/47 "2015-09-01T00:29:05Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The global warming experts can’t predict the weather two weeks in advance. What chance do they have of predicting the weather in twenty years? As already pointed out to you by others, that’s a ridiculously incorrect argument that reflects a basic confusion about the difference between weather and climate. I can reliably predict that it will be colder in December than it is now because of knowledge of the underlying climatological factors. The forcings of greenhouse gases are well quantified long term climatological factors and can’t be wished away by conservatives. > [@doorhinge](#): > > Then again, if someone were to “predict” everything from drought to flooding, they’re bound to have one of their predictions come true. You must have missed my cites in post #5 on the increasing frequency of extreme weather events. > [@doorhinge](#): > > The UN’s IPCC has been around since 1988. Their original predictions of global temps all overshot actual global temps. The IPCC is not really in the business of predictions – what they primarily do is project the climate impacts of different emissions scenarios, now more accurately referred to as representative concentration pathways, or RCPs. But to the extent that they have made temperature projections, your statement is false. There are certainly factions out there who deliberately misrepresent the IPCC, as that idiot Lord Monckton has done over at WUWT – Monckton being a brainless dilettante and zealous denialist who is proof that at least some inbred elements of the English aristocracy should be kept out of public view. The facts are that the IPCC AR4 in 2007 stated: Since IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global average temperature increases between about 0.15°C and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections. [https://www.ipcc.ch/publications\_and\_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html](https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html) In the current AR5 this remains essentially unchanged: for instance, the median of the RCP 4.5 scenario is projected at +1.0°C by 2050 relative to 2000, or 0.2°C per decade (see Fig. 11.9 in Chapter 11 of the AR5 WG1, _Near-term Climate Change: Projections and Predictability_. Finally, why are we having this discussion? Is it to demonstrate that AGW isn’t happening? Is it to demonstrate that you don’t understand climate science? Both of those are getting old. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/48 "2015-09-01T01:01:46Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > But it does sound a lot like trying to make a big difference when there was little, and the hurricane did land, in Jamaica and Cuba as a hurricane. In Kingston, Jamaica, not Jamaica, Queens. That is a big difference, geographically, climate-wise, and in every other sense. It’s impossible to have a debate, let alone a Great Debate, if people won’t get the underlying facts straight. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAlecCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SmartAlecCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAlecCat)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/49 "2015-09-01T01:26:35Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The global warming experts can’t predict the weather two weeks in advance. What chance do they have of predicting the weather in twenty years? Yeah, and those statisticians who can’t even correctly predict a _single_ roll of dice, what chance do they have of even coming _close_ to estimating the average of 1,000 rolls? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/50 "2015-09-01T01:39:47Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > I maintain that a significant number of believers in global warming are some of the most gullible, credulous, biased, **un** -scientific people in existence. As one of those biased, unscientific, unexpert, uneducated climate pessimists myself, I say, _so what?_ The denialist side have plenty of loons too. What do the actual experts say? ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/51 "2015-09-01T01:51:06Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > In Kingston, Jamaica, not Jamaica, Queens. That is a big difference, geographically, climate-wise, and in every other sense. Who the heck thought he meant Jamaica, Queens? :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > It’s impossible to have a debate, let alone a Great Debate, if people won’t get the underlying facts straight. Are you intending to set an example? Whether Sandy was “Cat 1” or whatever when it landed in NY is essentially a pedantic argument. Those categorizations are arbitrary. It was unquestionably a devastating storm when it hit, among the worst ever, both when hitting NY and NJ and earlier when it _was_ technically hurricane strength. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/52 "2015-09-01T02:11:22Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > In Kingston, Jamaica, not Jamaica, Queens. That is a big difference, geographically, climate-wise, and in every other sense. > > It’s impossible to have a debate, let alone a Great Debate, if people won’t get the underlying facts straight. The point was that it was indeed a hurricane that made landfall, what I do detect here is that it looks like if to counter that point we can then ignore what happens to other nations, after all it is not our problem, IMHO if a ten mile per hour difference is enough to claim that something is invalid, it is underwhelming. The main point was wind speed was not the only issue to consider in a warming world. But this shows also that we are relying on being lucky, well fie to that. Of course it is good news that currently the winds and other factors with a help of the warming in the background are limiting the number of hurricanes in the north Atlantic, but more than a few researchers point out that this could be temporary, it is the already pointed at issue that even if one can find areas of the world where warming is beneficial the ugly fact is that the emissions are not under control and so conditions like this will change too. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/53 "2015-09-01T02:30:23Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Who the heck thought he meant Jamaica, Queens? :rolleyes: I don’t know what he _thought_, but he said Category 1 in New York. Not true, on two counts. > [@](#): > > Whether Sandy was “Cat 1” or whatever when it landed in NY is essentially a > pedantic argument. It landed in New Jersey, not New York. No, it’s not pedantic. Unless you think that NOAA and basic geography are somehow pedantic. :dubious: Given his own statements, the poster in question is not credible on this subject. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/54 "2015-09-01T02:53:26Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > I don’t know what he _thought_, but he said Category 1 in New York. Not true, on two counts. > > It landed in New Jersey, not New York. > > No, it’s not pedantic. Unless you think that NOAA and basic geography are somehow pedantic. :dubious: > > Given his own statements, the poster in question is not credible on this subject. I guess you did not notice that I remembered that from what the mainstream media told us then. But if that is your hang up I do not think that for my main point 10 miles of difference will be bad, so you can have your tropical storm and New jersey. I will have the hurricane that deniers implied that it never took place when it was measured as such. As for credible my point has been always that one has to look at science. [http://m.livescience.com/49080-no-major-hurricane-hit-u-s-in-9-years.html](http://m.livescience.com/49080-no-major-hurricane-hit-u-s-in-9-years.html) > [@](#): > > Experts chalk it up to chance, rather than any identifiable climate pattern or the effect of global warming. After all, major hurricanes have raked Mexico and many Caribbean countries in that nine-year interval. Even Sandy was a major hurricane when it hit Cuba. > > “Other people have been bearing the brunt,” Gerry Bell, the lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said. “We’ve just been fortunate.” Will you? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/55 "2015-09-01T03:06:02Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I guess you did not notice that I remembered that from what the mainstream media told us then. What you remember about what the mainstream media told you three years ago is not science, my friend. ---
**Author:** ![psikeyhackr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@psikeyhackr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psikeyhackr)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/56 "2015-09-01T03:16:40Z")
So the ability to find someone talking stupid bullsh!t is supposed to be proof of something? :smack: It would be extremely difficult to prove that any single incident can be attributed to AGW. Climate is statistical. When statistics of many events change significantly then that can be attributed to climate change not any single statistic. How much energy does it take to raise a cubic mile of water by one degree Celsius? If millions of cubic miles of water change by that much and are statistically different from the averages of the last century then something is going on. psik ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/57 "2015-09-01T03:25:22Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > What you remember about what the mainstream media told you three years ago is not science, my friend. My cat’s breath smells like cat food. Indeed. I thank you for demonstrating the point I made in my first post. As noted I will indeed keep that more in mind. And I guess you did not notice who I did quote last, indeed as the NOAA expert reports “We’ve just been fortunate.” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/58 "2015-09-01T03:41:10Z")
> [@psikeyhackr](#): > > So the ability to find someone talking stupid bullsh!t is supposed to be proof of something? :smack: > > It would be extremely difficult to prove that any single incident can be attributed to AGW. Climate is statistical. When statistics of many events change significantly then that can be attributed to climate change not any single statistic. > > How much energy does it take to raise a cubic mile of water by one degree Celsius? > > If millions of cubic miles of water change by that much and are statistically different from the averages of the last century then something is going on. > > psik Indeed, I did notice earlier that there is this meme going on that only presses on what the scientists do acknowledge: Yes, one can not blame an specific hurricane to global warming. But what many contrarians ignore is that at the same time scientists are telling us that water vapor increases the warmer it gets, and then there is all this energy being accumulated by the oceans. Regardless if a hurricane or other extreme weather event in a humid region is caused by the changes or not, all that water vapor and energy has to go somewhere when a hurricane comes. And rising oceans is also a factor in making them more dangerous. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/01/the-subtle-but-real-relationship-between-global-warming-and-extreme-weather-events/](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/01/the-subtle-but-real-relationship-between-global-warming-and-extreme-weather-events/) > [@](#): > > Take the floods. One exemplary voice here has been Texas Tech climate researcher (and evangelical Christian) Katharine Hayhoe, who took to Facebook to explain the science. As Hayhoe noted, climate change doesn’t “cause” individual extreme events, in this case or in others. But “just like steroids make a baseball player stronger, climate change EXACERBATES many of our weather extremes, making many of them, on average, worse than they would have been naturally,” she said. > > Thus, Hayhoe treated the link between a changing climate and the floods not as a matter of simple causation, but as a matter of context. She notes that overall, “heavy rainfall and flood risk is increasing,” due to the fact that warming charges the atmosphere with more water vapor, which is then more available to fall in individual precipitation events. (Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has made similar remarks. ) > [@](#): > > I asked for a reaction to Obama’s remarks from MIT’s Kerry Emanuel, one of the world’s leading hurricane experts. > > “In his remarks at the National Hurricane center, President Obama presented a balanced view of how climate change is expected to affect hurricanes,” said Emanuel by e-mail. “His statement that warming is expected to make storms more powerful while sea level rise is already contributing to increased risks associated with storm surges is in accord with the consensus view of climate scientists.” ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/59 "2015-09-01T03:45:44Z")
It doesn’t help your argument, such as it is, to make untrue declarations. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/60 "2015-09-01T04:08:02Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > It doesn’t help your argument, such as it is, to make untrue declarations. And it does not help to show all that you even deny that I granted your wish, you get your tropical storm and New Jersey, I get the scientists to show that the important point I made early does stand regarding the media and the intensity of the hurricanes **and** tropical storms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477.md?page=4)