# Do global warming "skeptics" honestly see us as a benign species? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 5, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984 "2014-01-05T23:18:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/421 "2014-02-11T17:58:20Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > …What climate researchers are talking about is that extreme weather events like hurricanes can get worse in a warming world, but if you had paid attention the latest from climate researchers is that there is still more to be investigated to figure out if hurricanes will get worse in a warming world, and that is on top of droughts, extreme floods in places with high humidity and even if hurricanes are less in numbers to expect more intensity thanks to more water vapor in the path of the hurricane. (shortened for clarity) Climate researchers predicted there would be more hurricanes in the future due to man-made CO2 global warming. When the future arrived, there were, in fact, fewer hurricanes. The climate researchers responded by claiming they didn’t mean to say there going to be more hurricanes (because if they had, it would affect the climate researchers credibility). ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/422 "2014-02-11T18:08:26Z")
Nailed 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:** [February 11, 2014, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/423 "2014-02-11T19:02:57Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > (shortened for clarity) > > Climate researchers predicted there would be more hurricanes in the future due to man-made CO2 global warming. When the future arrived, there were, in fact, fewer hurricanes. The climate researchers responded by claiming they didn’t mean to say there going to be more hurricanes (because if they had, it would affect the climate researchers credibility). > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Nailed it Wrong again, we had this discussion before, last time it was clear that the scientists are more on the money, it was likely that less hurricanes in the north Atlantic are coming, but thanks to the increase of water vapor, energy and ocean rise once they come they are more intense. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/424 "2014-02-11T19:08:52Z")
So wrong, so very very wrong. ---
**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:** [February 11, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/425 "2014-02-11T19:36:32Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > So wrong, so very very wrong. Oh well, we already know the sources you rely on are not shooting straight. 🙂 [http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/does-climate-change-mean-more-or-stronger-hurricanes-120907.htm](http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/does-climate-change-mean-more-or-stronger-hurricanes-120907.htm) > [@](#): > > So we decided to do better and turn to one of the foremost authorities on the subject, Professor Kerry Emanuel of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2006, Prof. Emanuel has published extensively on the possible linkages between tropical storms and a warming planet, and he guided us through the complex haze of theory, modeling and observation. > > _Discovery News_: At the risk of asking you to distill complex science into a simplistic soundbite: Is climate change affecting the number and intensity of cyclones and hurricanes? > > Kerry Emanuel: Most of us think that we are seeing a climate change signal in the North Atlantic, which is by far the best observed and has been observed for the longest period of time; but I hasten to add that only about 12 percent of the world’s tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic. The other parts of the world are not so well observed. > > What we expect from a combination of theory and modeling is that as the climate warms, the actual total number of these storms should decline globally, but the incidence of the severe Category 3, 4 and 5 storms is expected on the other hand to go up. And we do see some indication that the proportion of hurricanes that are intense around the world has been going up, although our data is a bit tenuous and is not for very long, so nobody has a great deal of confidence in it. > > Let me add that, historically it’s the Category 3, 4 and 5 hurricanes that do the vast majority of damage, at least in developing countries, so those are the ones we’re concerned about the most. Indeed, regarding the number of hurricanes, more research is needed, but the evidence shows that just like I said the extra water vapor, energy and the ocean rise are elements for worse hurricanes when they come. ---
**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:** [February 11, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/426 "2014-02-11T20:35:29Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The earnestness with which you advance this notion is admirable. Hell is around the corner. Preaching it captivates us and it sells. Interesting. I take it from this that my child-like “earnestness” is to be contrasted with your commendable realism, wherein you inform us that increasing CO2 will not only bless us with a pleasantly warmer environment but plants will grow better, too – happy times all around – yay for CO2! The actual physical dynamics of such unprecedented change are, apparently, to be cheerfully ignored, because if there’s one thing we can depend on in science, it’s that science is always wrong. :rolleyes: Skepticism as a general principle is healthy, but it has to be tempered with a balanced appreciation of evidence, or else it’s no longer skepticism but just simply ignorance. Throwing evidence out the window is the SOP of the usual gang of denialists, who espouse a belief system about climate not to be found anywhere in the pages of _Nature_, the _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_, the _Journal of Climate_, _Science_, _Geophysical Research Letters_, and myriad other legitimate scientific literature, nor in the public statements of the national science academies of every advanced nation on earth and in what is now the fifth major iteration of the extensively documented and cited assessments of the IPCC. The denial of scientific evidence seems to be an unfortunate phenomenon of recent times, taking hold in faux-controversial areas like climate change and evolution. This torch is carried by denialists who infest the Internet with astroturf websites and the editorial pages of less reputable popular media, who cynically prey on public ignorance and naivety, asking them with astounding arrogance to disdain well established scientific findings and follow their meandering forays into unscientific mendacity. See the link below for more on that. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > AGW just happens to be the Cause du Jour that’s successfully captivated us (in part due to fabulous marketing such as lonely polar bears on iceless seas and some sort of inferno blazing across the screen on every AGW documentary lead-in). There is marketing going on here, alright – in spades – but I’m frequently astonished at how readily denialists will turn reality on its head. It’s not hard to understand where the overwhelming preponderance of the vested interests lie. [I’ve talked about it here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16993891&postcount=62). > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > A year ago we predicted an Atlantic hurricane season with an ACE 30% above average. What we observed was an Atlantic ACE 70% below average–the quietest season in decades (and in general the northern hemisphere activity was over 40% below average). Why was the prediction so far off base? You’re confusing the realm of weather forecasting with climate projection. Seasonal predictions are still squarely in the realm of forecasting and subject to chaotic influences. The reality is that climate projections deal with net energy balances in which chaotic effects become progressively less important on larger timescales and larger geographic scales. This is really nothing more than trying to extrapolate a cherry-picked forecast example into an unsubstantiated criticism of the completely different realm of climate modeling. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > As far as mass psychology, I don’t think we learned much from our last major foray into a Great Cause–Y2K (which I ridiculed profoundly here and elsewhere). That is a false equivalency. What on earth does a bunch of IT consultants trying to hype Y2K have to do with climate change? Unless we’re back to pushing the bumper-sticker mantra “science can’t be trusted” (but the oil industry can). > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Read the Rational Wiki on climate change denialism for a good chuckle on just how panicky an AGW Great Cause noviate can become Read the part – and follow the links – on the scientific census. Still chuckle-worthy? ---
**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:** [February 11, 2014, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/427 "2014-02-11T20:47:42Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > Climate researchers predicted there would be more hurricanes in the future due to man-made CO2 global warming. When the future arrived, there were, in fact, fewer hurricanes. Kerry Emanuel is one of the foremost climate researchers in the world specializing in hurricanes, and I’ve been following his work for years. I’ve never heard him – or in fact anyone else – make that claim, though no doubt someone at some point probably did. Climate models have tended to show the opposite. Until Emanuel’s landmark paper in 2005, no strong claims were being made about hurricane energies, either, but we now know that in many regions like the North Atlantic, we can likely expect fewer hurricanes due to distruptive factors like wind shear, but that when they do occur, higher sea surface temperatures [will tend to create more energetic ones](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3302/07-hott-nf.html). ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/428 "2014-02-11T21:47:02Z")
But that just isn’t what has happened. ---
**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:** [February 11, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/429 "2014-02-11T21:56:19Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > But that just isn’t what has happened. As you were with the plants not living in low CO2 PPM, you are wrong again. > **[Exploring the Links Between Hurricanes and Ocean Warming](https://e360.yale.edu/features/exploring_the_links_between_hurricanes_and_ocean_warming)** > > One of the more contentious issues facing climate scientists is whether rising ocean temperatures will cause more frequent and powerful hurricanes. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of... > [@](#): > > In 2005, just weeks before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, MIT meteorologist Kerry Emanuel published a paper in Nature saying that the wallop packed by hurricanes was increasing as sea surface temperatures climbed. His research was cited by many as evidence that the world could expect more Katrinas in the 21st century. But in 2008, writing in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Emanuel seemed to say, “Whoa. Not so fast.” While hurricanes might become more powerful, Emanuel said, there will likely be fewer hurricanes overall this century, and hurricane trends would vary widely around the globe. Just like in the case of “They changed it from global warming to climate change” and “we are headed to an ice age” in the 70’s, popular media got it wrong and denier sources just repeat it. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/430 "2014-02-12T00:39:33Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Interesting. I take it from this that my child-like “earnestness” is to be contrasted with your commendable realism, wherein you inform us that increasing CO2 will not only bless us with a pleasantly warmer environment but plants will grow better, too – happy times all around – yay for CO2! > \ > You’re confusing the realm of weather forecasting with climate projection. Seasonal predictions are still squarely in the realm of forecasting and subject to chaotic influences. The reality is that climate projections deal with net energy balances in which chaotic effects become progressively less important on larger timescales and larger geographic scales. This is really nothing more than trying to extrapolate a cherry-picked forecast example into an unsubstantiated criticism of the completely different realm of climate modeling. Ummm…I realize it’s easier for you to argue against the position you’ve assumed I’ve taken but can you help me see where I’ve informed you that increasing CO2 will bless us with a pleasantly warmer environment? What I’ve said is, we are crappy at predicting, we have a long history of predicting Doom incorrectly because Doom captivates us and it sells well; and I have suggested there is a parallel between the earnest novitiate proselytizing for their religion and the psychology which drives those who proselytize for AGW Doom. And more importantly, I’ve said that AGW Real-Soon-Now, putatively neg-negative effects pale in comparison to the current things that are stressing this planet’s ecosystem. We’re consuming the earth right now, and we’re obsessing over future scenarios presumed to be coming. I submit that the least examined–indeed, the least examinable–effect of AGW is what will actually happen in toto should Model X turn out to be correct. I submit that what few investigations there are have enormous assumptions and are heavily biased toward Doom, for reasons mentioned above. If you see a paper on CO2 fertilization bandied about by a Denier, bet your bottom dollar it will be followed up by an Alarmist piece reminding us that weeds get fertilized also, that extreme weather is going to burn up a different part of the globe, that net cropland will be under the sea…you get the idea. The truth is, we just don’t know, and we are lousy at predicting. Period. Especially when we get a bug of panic so high up our ass we get to the point of suggesting we start figuring out how to colonize Mars. Here’s the current prediction model spin from the Alarmists: We are good at predicting near-term weather: next day, next week. We are crummy at predicting longer term weather: next summer, next week. We are good at predicting near-term climate: next decade, next century. We are crummy at predicting long term climate: next glacial maximum, next climate epoch. Who is cherry picking here? We cherry pick the cycles we need to prove our points, and we cherry pick the events which confirm our biases. Alarmists have done a fabulous job cherry picking Sandy as a harbinger hurricane, and then ridiculing Deniers for cherry picking the coldest winter in decades in North America. It’s all part of the mass psychology that accompanies a Great Cause, and when you are in the middle of it, it is just so Obvious the other side is desperately wrong. We stink at predicting the future. That, at least, is one of the reasons I am concerned that AGW has allowed us to take our eye off the ball when it comes to preserving earth’s ecosystem. And of course the other reason that AGW is so enticing is that it lets us pronounce how we should Do Something. We love love love to be the One with a Plan. In the case at hand, the major anthropogenic destruction of the earth is simply a consequence of too many humans, and we have no plan for that. (Well, GIGObuster says we do, but I am unpersuaded that condoms are gonna do it.) (For what it’s worth, I love science and its principles, having spent a little over a dozen years post high school getting my own edumacation completed. I suspect I may be less enamored than you by “scientific consensus” but I will say that the scientists with whom I do rub shoulders ((my closest colleague has her PhD in oceanography)) tend to be less uh…vigorous…in their certainty about how all this will turn out, particularly with respect to the net outcome. And the best scientists are always the most piercing skeptics. That’s why we have long since abandoned epicycles for heliocentricity and heliocentricity for an expanding universe.) A last note about my Y2K comment, which was about mass consensus and psychology. Many a highly-educated scientist testified about the gravity of that problem. But if you don’t like that one, I’d say an example of a Great Cause which preceded it was running out of oil in the 70’s…80’s…90’s… Now here we are 30 years later still taking cheap shots at oil companies (as if our personal, insatiable demand for energy and living well were not the root cause of that evil). We’re just lame at getting predictions right, and typically a little over-eager to remind the Polloi that hell is right around the corner. Shape up now. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/431 "2014-02-12T01:03:09Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Kerry Emanuel is one of the foremost climate researchers in the world specializing in hurricanes, and I’ve been following his work for years. I’ve never heard him – or in fact anyone else – make that claim, though no doubt someone at some point probably did. Climate models have tended to show the opposite. Until Emanuel’s landmark paper in 2005, no strong claims were being made about hurricane energies, either, but we now know that in many regions like the North Atlantic, we can likely expect fewer hurricanes due to distruptive factors like wind shear, but that when they do occur, higher sea surface temperatures [will tend to create more energetic ones](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3302/07-hott-nf.html). I was interested to see your post about Dr Emanuel. But it may be that you need to lay off the marketing for a bit and catch up on your reading, as that paper is a few years old. Dr Emanual created a bit of stir by adding hurricane frequency along with severity back in to the CMIP5 climate model predictions [last summer.](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/07/05/1301293110.abstract) _“In contrast to storms that appear explicitly in most global models, the frequency of downscaled tropical cyclones increases during the 21st century in most locations. The intensity of such storms, as measured by their maximum wind speeds, also increases, in agreement with previous results. Increases in tropical cyclone activity are most prominent in the western North Pacific, but are evident in other regions except for the southwestern Pacific. The increased frequency of events is consistent with increases in a genesis potential index based on monthly mean global model output. These results are compared and contrasted with other inferences concerning the effect of global warming on tropical cyclones.”_ Of course, that was an easier sell during the summer pre-season panic over the upcoming hurricane season. [Mother Jones](http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/07/hurricanes-global-warming-kerry-emanuel), for example: “\*And now this year, it looks like history (horrendously bad hurricanes) may be repeating itself. …In his new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (Emanuel) uses a procedure known as “downscaling”—combining together global climate models with a much higher resolution hurricane model—to show that hurricanes may be both more numerous and also more intense going forward. \*” I don’t read Mother Jones, but I’m sure they have a good follow up explaining why the 2013 hurricane season in the north Atlantic was one of the feeblest in decades (and probably why ACC was the cause of its whimper). I don’t know if Mother Jones has had a chance to mention that we are lousy at predicting the future, though. Except climate change consequences. Those, we know, will be Horrible. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/432 "2014-02-12T01:05:16Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > We’re just lame at getting predictions right, and typically a little over-eager to remind the Polloi that hell is right around the corner. Shape up now. Truth. ---
**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:** [February 12, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/433 "2014-02-12T01:43:24Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I was interested to see your post about Dr Emanuel. In the end even he acknowledges the results he has are not good enough for going for the doomsday mode: > [@](#): > > The present study used six CMIP5 models, the only six that > provided the output needed to apply our downscaling and that > did not have large discontinuities between the recent historical > and near-term projected climates. The differences between our re- > sults, those arrived at by applying the same technique to CMIP3 > models, and the conclusions of other groups using different > models and/or using different methods suggest that projections of > the response of tropical cyclones to projected climate change will > remain uncertain for some time to come As pointed before, there are many other more likely issues that are coming in a warming world, as pointed before, betting that the number of hurricanes will not go higher is an extra item. But if you think that what you are doing here has to make us more complacent you are not doing a good job really. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/434 "2014-02-12T08:27:21Z")
> [@doorhinge](#): > > 1 & 2) The obvious answer is that both would be valid. 60 years would be 4 times longer than 15 years but that’s not the point in contention. The pause/plateau under current consideration only occurred during the last 1/4 of the most recent 60 year time frame. Both hadcrut4gl and hadsst3gl charts, regardless of their overall length of time, show a recent pause/plateau. A pause/plateau which seems to be a real PITA for the IPCC and agw believers, credibility-wise. “Tamino”, the “Open Mind” blogger says there ain’t no pause. Did “Tamino” prove that the last 15 years of hadcrut4gl and hadsst3gl are wrong? Well, some of us are actually capable of looking at [the data (.txt file)](http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.2.0.0.annual_ns_avg.txt). It appears that a new record was set in 1998, then again in 2005 and another record was set in 2010. Would you like to provide additional sources proving you wrong, or are you planning on stopping now? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/435 "2014-02-12T16:21:20Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Indeed, regarding the number of hurricanes, more research is needed, but the evidence shows that just like I said the extra water vapor, energy and the ocean rise are elements for worse hurricanes when they come. > [@GIGObuster](#): > > In the end even he (Emanuel)acknowledges the results he has (model-based predictions for increased hurricane destruction) are not good enough for going for the doomsday mode… > As pointed before, there are many other more likely issues that are coming in a warming world, as pointed before, betting that the number of hurricanes will not go higher is an extra item. So, is there “evidence” hurricanes will get worse or is there not? I get it that “more research is needed.” (What kind of research, again? Playing around with prediction models?) More research is always needed. I completely agree that current hurricane predictions are not “good enough for going for the doomsday mode.” I’m trying to understand your psychology here, though, wrt to your Great Cause. You seem to be persuaded by the evidence pointing toward worse hurricanes, and then back off the moment it is pointed out the “evidence” is speculation based on modeling, with a pretty lame predictive value this past season. See, what happens once we embrace a paradigm is that everything pointing toward it becomes a confirmation and that confirmation then drives our bias even deeper. So we find ourselves laying hurricane doom out there when we want to make a point and then retracting the point–but only that one point–when challenged. It becomes very hard to embrace the larger paradigm shift: that we suck at predictions, even in cases where the underlying models appear to be sound. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/436 "2014-02-12T16:28:18Z")
(Above post, continued, after edit window closed. The brain…she getting slower.) Should we have a doozy or two (and we are way overdue) of major hurricanes this season, I’d be willing to bet a ton of my personal CO2 footprint that you (GIGObuster) will be back trumpeting the hurricane as a harbinger. That’s just how human psychology works for Great Causes. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/437 "2014-02-12T16:52:53Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > That’s just how human psychology works for Great Causes. It’s actually not even new. People blaming the weather on other people goes back long before global warming became the meme ---
**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:** [February 12, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/438 "2014-02-12T16:59:52Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > So, is there “evidence” hurricanes will get worse or is there not? There is evidence that they are getting worse, that excess of water vapor, energy and ocean rice that makes the hurricanes (that will still come) worse are based on the record of what the warming is doing in the background. It is not only that the evidence supports it but it is what logic dictates. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I get it that “more research is needed.” (What kind of research, again? Playing around with prediction models?) More research is always needed. As Richard alley reported, that is only propping up an issue that researchers already told us is not very clear (the number of hurricanes) and telling all that therefore we should dump all the other evidence that makes scientists report that will affect humanity if nothing is done or if there is no concerted effort to deal with the issue. [QUOTE=Chief Pedant] Should we have a doozy or two (and we are way overdue) of major hurricanes this season, I’d be willing to bet a ton of my personal CO2 footprint that you (GIGObuster) will be back trumpeting the hurricane as a harbinger. That’s just how human psychology works for Great Causes. [/quote] And as your bet that you will convince me this year failed in the first day, so you already failed this one, one year or two is not enough to make a trend in climate. Incidentally points like that also failed before, the monster El nino year of 1998 was not pumped up as a year that would only lead to only more record years after that one, researchers call it an outlier. > **[RealClimate: Global temperature 2013](https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2014/01/global-temperature-2013/comment-page-2/?wpmp_switcher=desktop)** > > RealClimate: The global temperature data for 2013 are now published. 2010 and 2005 remain the warmest years since records began in the 19th Century. 1998 ranks third in two records, and in the analysis of Cowtan & Way, which interpolates the... Point being that that is science, yours is making a conclusion and cherry picking the evidence to support your views, for all you efforts you did here you only brought forth an article from Mother Jones that not even I as a liberal use to check for climate science information, and the article showed that I was correct, most researchers agree that the intensity of the hurricanes will increase in a warming world. The data out there is not robust to make predictions on how many hurricanes we can expect, the main problem here is that while other issues are very clear and are telling us that we should act, issues like the number of hurricanes \*\*could \*\*jump to the bad column too in the future, not doing much about our emissions is already a very reckless bet to make considering what we know is more certain to take place. [QUOTE] It's true that Earth's a massive jigsaw puzzle, with lots of pieces intricately fitting together. But, Richard Alley argues, we already know enough to see the Big Picture. The missing pieces of scientific understanding - exactly how clouds work, how extreme weather will change with global warming - are important, but we can already see how Earth works. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/439 "2014-02-12T17:50:41Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I don’t think that posters insisting on their cherry-picked 15-year downtrend have experience with real-world noisy signals. Perhaps they have experience with identifying the actual issue in contention. Is anyone here seriously disputing that the global surface temperature trend over over the last 50-100 years is positive? And by the way, do you still maintain that during there Pleistocene time period there were other major influences on CO2 levels besides temperature? ---
**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:** [February 12, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984/440 "2014-02-12T18:30:28Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Perhaps they have experience with identifying the actual issue in contention. Is anyone here seriously disputing that the global surface temperature trend over over the last 50-100 years is positive? The fact that no matter how much we point to that positive trend it is ignored. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-global-warming-skeptics-honestly-see-us-as-a-benign-species/677984.md?page=23)