# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/61 "2015-09-01T11:38:16Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > 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) > > Will you? Sandy was a _post-tropical_ cyclone at landfall … which is structurally different than a hurricane. So there’s more to this than just 10 mph wind speed difference. We need to keep facts straight, although this is more of a well known problem with the Saffir–Simpson scale in that wind speed and tropical characteristics are poor measures for storm strength. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/62 "2015-09-01T11:39:53Z")
Still no one can explain the difference between climatology and weather? Interesting … ---
**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, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/63 "2015-09-01T12:18:00Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Still no one can explain the difference between climatology and weather? Interesting … Something as that basic is so hard to find? > **[Learn](https://nsidc.org/learn)** > > Quick facts, basic science, and information about snow, ice, and why the cryosphere matters The cryosphere includes all of the snow and ice-covered regions across the planet. > [@](#): > > **Weather** is the day-to-day state of the atmosphere, and its short-term variation in minutes to weeks. People generally think of weather as the combination of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility, and wind. We talk about changes in weather in terms of the near future: “How hot is it right now?” “What will it be like today?” and “Will we get a snowstorm this week?” > > **Climate** is the weather of a place averaged over a period of time, often 30 years. Climate information includes the statistical weather information that tells us about the normal weather, as well as the range of weather extremes for a location. > > We talk about climate change in terms of years, decades, and centuries. Scientists study climate to look for trends or cycles of variability, such as the changes in wind patterns, ocean surface temperatures and precipitation over the equatorial Pacific that result in El Niño and La Niña, and also to place cycles or other phenomena into the bigger picture of possible longer term or more permanent climate changes. > Weather forecasters try to answer questions like: What will the temperature be tomorrow? Will it rain? How much rain will we have? Will there be thunderstorms? Today, most weather forecasts are based on models, which incorporate observations of air pressure, temperature, humidity and winds to produce the best estimate of current and future conditions in the atmosphere. A weather forecaster then looks at the model output to figure out the most likely scenario. The accuracy of weather forecasts depend on both the model and on the forecaster’s skill. Short-term weather forecasts are accurate for up to a week. Long-term forecasts, for example seasonal forecasts, tend to use statistical relationships between large-scale climate signals such as El Niño and La Niña and precipitation and temperature to predict what the weather will be like in one to six months time. > > Climate predictions take a much longer-term view. These predictions try to answer questions like how much warmer will the Earth be 50 to 100 years from now? How much more precipitation will there be? How much will sea level rise? ---
**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:** [September 1, 2015, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/64 "2015-09-01T13:20:34Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > [Emphases Mine] > > Perhaps if you clarified what you mean by “Climatology is not meteorology” then your statements would make better sense. No one else seems confused, but I will clarify. When I said “Climatology is not meteorology” I meant they’re two different things. People who make arguments like the one being discussed don’t seem to understand that. ---
**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:** [September 1, 2015, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/65 "2015-09-01T13:35:41Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Did I say that climatology and meteorology were the same thing? No? Little wonder you find climate change/global warming so confusing. You think you see things that aren’t there. I’m not confused. You seem to think climatologists are in the business of making short-term local weather forecasts, and more importantly, that errors in weather forecasting reflect poorly on climate scientists and their research. But they aren’t in that business, and such errors made by meteorologists are irrelevant. Your argument, that “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?” makes no sense. Global warming experts don’t predict weather two weeks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/66 "2015-09-01T14:19:15Z")
“Climate is the weather of a place averaged over a period of time, often 30 years.” That sentence says weather and climate are the same thing; temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, cloud cover etc etc etc. There’s nothing intrinsic to the passage of time that changes the underlying science. Both weather and climate are sub-disciplines of meteorology. It’s like saying an oncologist isn’t a medical doctor because he’s not in the business of setting broken bones in the emergency room. I think the statement “Climatology is not meteorology” is disingenuous, since so much of each field is exactly the same. Meteorology is the more basic science, upon whose principles the science of climatology is built. This really does mean that if something is true in climatology, then it must also be true for meteorology. It’s the same forces at work here, just measured over different time periods. ---
**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:** [September 1, 2015, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/67 "2015-09-01T14:30:01Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I think the statement “Climatology is not meteorology” is disingenuous, since so much of each field is exactly the same. Meteorology is the more basic science, upon whose principles the science of climatology is built. This really does mean that if something is true in climatology, then it must also be true for meteorology. It’s the same forces at work here, just measured over different time periods. I think of it this way (admittedly, this is nowhere near a perfect analogy): Meteorology (the more “near-term” science) is similar to investment bankers and financiers, trying to understand and predict what will be happening in the financial markets in the near term (i.e., today, this week, this month). Climatalogy (the “long-term” science) is more similar to economics, trying to understand the macro trends in the market and economy, and predict what’ll be happening over the course of years. ---
**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, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/68 "2015-09-01T15:36:54Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > It’s like saying an oncologist isn’t a medical doctor because he’s not in the business of setting broken bones in the emergency room. But in this case the point is still that a climatologist is not a meteorologist, they do measure and investigate different aspects of the issue; although the items they look at are related, the time factor - and lots of it too - is the difference. Paleo-climatology, for example, is included in Climatology, It studies the changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of the earth. Not much useful when figuring out a storm’s location and direction. Indeed, it would be irresponsible to bring an orthopedic trauma expert to take care of a cancer in a patient. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/69 "2015-09-01T16:20:28Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > You don’t have a basic understanding of the issue. What you just wrote is staggering in its lack of understanding. Global warming has been happening since the last ice age. The sun warms the planet’s surface and the molten core warms the rest. Blaming man-made CO2, as opposed to naturally occurring CO2, for global warming should have made it easier to control manufacturing thru carbon taxes, but that scam failed. The next best thing to keep the funding rolling in is to predict that every possible future climate change will be the result of - global warming - . Ya can’t miss with that one. Drought? Global warming. Flooding? Global warming. No snow? Global warming. Too much snow? Global warming. Too cold? Global warming. Too warm? Global warming. Too few battery powered cars? Global warming. Too much coal? Global warming. etc. etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/70 "2015-09-01T16:33:38Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I’m not confused. > > You seem to think climatologists are in the business of making short-term local weather forecasts, and more importantly, that errors in weather forecasting reflect poorly on climate scientists and their research. But they aren’t in that business, and such errors made by meteorologists are irrelevant. Your argument, that “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?” makes no sense. Global warming experts don’t predict weather two weeks in advance. Global warming experts don’t predict weather two weeks in advance because they can’t predict weather two weeks in advance. Or two months. Or two years. Climatologist, meteorologists, paleontologists, statisticians, etc all write papers, they all read each others papers, they comment on each others papers, and I assume, they learn from each other. They still can’t make short term predictions based on the latest scientific findings but their long term predictions are supposed to be accurate??? The IPCC made it clear that their “computer modeling” proved that the global temp would be much higher than it actually turn out to be. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/71 "2015-09-01T16:45:17Z")
Look, guy, at this point climate change deniers are the equivalent of Flat Earth believers. But good luck to you. ---
**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, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/72 "2015-09-01T16:45:24Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The IPCC made it clear that their “computer modeling” proved that the global temp would be much higher than it actually turn out to be. :smack: Not accurate at all, and I already linked to the evidence that debunks that myth. > **[Climate models are even more accurate than you thought | Dana Nuccitelli](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jul/31/climate-models-are-even-more-accurate-than-you-thought)** > > Dana Nuccitelli: The difference between modeled and observed global surface temperature changes is 38% smaller than previously thought ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/73 "2015-09-01T17:57:13Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Look, guy, at this point climate change deniers are the equivalent of Flat Earth believers. But good luck to you. Really? I consider the “man-made CO2 is evil” zealots to be the equivalent of Flat Earthers. They KNOW that global warming/climate change is mankind’s fault but they just can’t prove it. ---
**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, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/74 "2015-09-01T18:16:41Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Really? I consider the “man-made CO2 is evil” zealots to be the equivalent of Flat Earthers. They KNOW that global warming/climate change is mankind’s fault but they just can’t prove it. They did, many times and this is very old. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/0lgzz-L7GFg/hqdefault.jpg "1958 - Global Warming - It's NOT newly known") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgzz-L7GFg) > [@](#): > > For FIFTY YEARS scientists have known about global warming. This exerpt is from the well known educational documentary “Unchained Goddess” produced by Frank Capra for Bell Labs for their television program “The Bell Telephone Hour.” It was so well made, that it went on to live a continued life in middle school science classrooms across the nation for decades. > > Nearly half a century before Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth,” this film was made. But what does it reveal? That our scientists have known for over two generations about this danger, but our politicians and citizenry have chosen to ignore the dangerous implications of this fact until it really is too late to avoid the preventable consequences. And that was just looking at what Plass and others had discovered then, we only have got more confirmations ever since then. > **[Confirming (again) the CO2 greenhouse effect - but WUWT doesn't like it](https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/confirming-again-co2-greenhouse-effect.html)** > > Global warming & climate change. Eavesdropping on climate science deniers, their weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy theories. > [@](#): > > The influence of atmospheric CO2 on the balance between incoming energy from the Sun and outgoing heat from Earth (also called the planet’s energy balance) is well established. But this effect has not been experimentally confirmed outside the laboratory until now. The research is reported Feb. 25 in the advance online publication of the journal Nature. > > ``` > The results agree with theoretical predictions of the greenhouse effect due to human activity. The research also provides further confirmation that the calculations used in today's climate models are on track when it comes to representing the impact of CO2. > > The scientists measured atmospheric carbon dioxide's contribution to radiative forcing at two sites, one in Oklahoma and one on the North Slope of Alaska, from 2000 to the end of 2010. Radiative forcing is a measure of how much the planet's energy balance is perturbed by atmospheric changes. Positive radiative forcing occurs when Earth absorbs more energy from solar radiation than it emits as thermal radiation back to space. It can be measured at Earth's surface or high in the atmosphere. In this research, the scientists focused on the surface. > > They found that CO2 was responsible for a significant uptick in radiative forcing at both locations, about two-tenths of a Watt per square meter per decade. They linked this trend to the 22 parts-per-million increase in atmospheric CO2 between 2000 and 2010. Much of this CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels, according to a modeling system that tracks CO2 sources around the world. > > "We see, for the first time in the field, the amplification of the greenhouse effect because there's more CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb what the Earth emits in response to incoming solar radiation," says Daniel Feldman, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Division and lead author of the Nature paper. > > "Numerous studies show rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations, but our study provides the critical link between those concentrations and the addition of energy to the system, or the greenhouse effect," Feldman adds. > > ``` So, yes, deniers of that are indeed like Flat Earthers. ---
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/75 "2015-09-01T18:48:25Z")
They KNOW there’s at least a 74% chance that the vast majority of all warming since 1950 was man made and no other exclamation comes close to matching the carbon concentration. [http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/28/602151/bombshell-koch-funded-study-finds-global-warming-is-real-on-the-high-end-and-essentially-all-due-to-carbon-pollution/](http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/28/602151/bombshell-koch-funded-study-finds-global-warming-is-real-on-the-high-end-and-essentially-all-due-to-carbon-pollution/) ---
**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, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/76 "2015-09-01T19:05:12Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Global warming has been happening since the last ice age. The sun warms the planet’s surface and the molten core warms the rest. And you think the sun was cooler in the last Ice Age? Or the Earth lacked a molten core? So, you just deny the Second Law of Thermodynamics now? ETA: OK, OK, a cooling sun, or a changed orbital path of the Earth, is not impossible. It is, however, an extraordinary claim, and requires an extraordinary defense. The greenhouse effect is not such an extraordinary claim. It’s ordinary, known science. ---
**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, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/77 "2015-09-01T22:03:32Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > The sun warms the planet’s surface and the molten core warms the rest. And there we have it. An entire undergraduate + postgraduate education and research career in climate science condensed into one sentence. And yet, the world’s scientists are too stupid to see it! 😃 > [@doorhinge](#): > > The IPCC made it clear that their “computer modeling” proved that the global temp would be much higher than it actually turn out to be. This is wrong. I refuted it [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18648533&postcount=47). **Gigo** did, too. You also demonstrate an appalling lack of understanding of the difference between weather and climate. In fact, respectfully, I can’t recall anything you have ever said on this subject that has been correct, or anything other than just simplistically wrong. You don’t do yourself any favors by putting in an appearance in virtually every global warming thread and uttering the same gibberish. It just makes you look foolish. There are many people here who actually understand science. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/78 "2015-09-02T00:23:04Z")
Denialism seems to mostly deal with the present, but does it ever stretch to the past? Sometimes I’ll hear some talking head say temps were much higher in the distant past and you can’t blame humans, but the CO2 ppm was much higher then too which never seems to be brought up. Do these people think the theories about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum are just a bunch of bullshit or what? Or any of the other hothouse Earth eras? Do they have any alternate explanations? I’d agree that the doomsday mongers are annoying, but one would think digging up and pumping hundreds of gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere would have _some_ effect. ---
**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 2, 2015, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/79 "2015-09-02T03:17:11Z")
I think the strength of the pro-warming, “denialist” side makes more sense if you combine it with Mr Ickes’s claims about lizardmen in positions of power. They want the Earth to return to the climate of the Age of Reptiles, leaving us mammals behind. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2015, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477/80 "2015-09-02T15:35:23Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > But in this case the point is still that a climatologist is not a meteorologist, they do measure and investigate different aspects of the issue; although the items they look at are related, the time factor - and lots of it too - is the difference > > [snip] > > Indeed, it would be irresponsible to bring an orthopedic trauma expert to take care of a cancer in a patient. > [@wolfpup](#): > > You also demonstrate an appalling lack of understanding of the difference between weather and climate. How many different aspects are there to temperature, humidity, pressure, etc? _Time_ is a reference, not a factor; the rate of change,\* or velocity\* remains the same no matter how much time passes. If you want _acceleration_, then you’ll need a force. Such a force must be demonstrated at all time intervals. So with respect to the _forces_ that cause changes to temperature etc., then meteorology and climatology are exactly the same > [@](#): > > Climate is the weather of a place averaged over a period of time, often 30 years. Any force that acts on the weather over thirty years will also act over the infinitely small time interval, no exceptions. > [@marshmallow](#): > > Denialism seems to mostly deal with the present, but does it ever stretch to the past? Sometimes I’ll hear some talking head say temps were much higher in the distant past and you can’t blame humans, but the CO2 ppm was much higher then too which never seems to be brought up. Do these people think the theories about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum are just a bunch of bullshit or what? Or any of the other hothouse Earth eras? Do they have any alternate explanations? > > **I’d agree that the doomsday mongers are annoying, but one would think digging up and pumping hundreds of gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere would have _some_ effect.** Emphases Mine Very well stated, I agree with you 100% … except the “hundreds of gigatons of CO[sub]2[/sub]”, you can check the arithmetic, but I think it’s only _tens_ of gigatons. We’re only observing around 1 ppmv annual increase in CO[sub]2[/sub]. Global temperatures have crashed since the mid-Cretaceous. Indeed we find today’s temperatures about as cold as it has been since the Cambrian Period. Obviously man’s activities didn’t plunge us into a devastating ice age 30 million years ago, and it is _very_ hard to believe that man’s activities will bring the Earth out of the current ice age, not without hard data at least. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/credulous-experts-on-global-warming/729477.md?page=5)