Global Warming - solar radiation changes

[intention]

@Sage Rat

Missed the five minute edit deadline, but simply, peer reviewing discounts what you are saying. You can’t say that any peer reviewed work is unreliable because the methodology of the study hasn’t been made public. The simple fact that it is “peer reviewed” means specifically that the methodology has been made public and gasp reviewed.

I had missed this one, Sage. Peer review means nothing of the kind. Many papers pass peer review with only the barest explanation of the methods, and there are literally hundreds of papers that pass peer review without the data being publicly archived.

Did you actually read the article you cited? It says in part:

While passing the peer-review process is often considered in the scientific community to be a certification of validity, it is not without its problems. Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of Journal of the American Medical Association is an organizer of the International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication, which has been held every four years since 1986. [12] He remarks, “There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print.” [13]

In other words, peer review is not a guarantee of anything.

w.

[tagos]

Legates simply is not a credible figure and nothing he says need be taken seriously.

first - his work is funded and published by an ExxonMobil front organisation

Second - he clearly uses ‘evidence’ selectively to make his case.

The report is filled with personal assertions that reflect a very selective and biased look at the available scientific results, skeptically treating and dismissing scientific results that are broadly accepted while uncritically accepting very weakly supported claims of a natural origin of virtually all variations and changes that have been observed. It is seemingly aimed at refuting “climate alarmists” (who are mainly not identified, but seem to include the media and representatives of environmental groups) and in doing so sets up a lot of strawmen that gives him an excuse to put in a couple of contradictory references. In most cases, however, the claims he shoots at are neither valid nor at all central to the key scientific findings regarding human-induced global warming.

Since 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued three major assessment reports (IPCC 1990, 1995, 2001) that assemble and evaluate international scientific findings in this field after they have gone through a several-stage review process that ensures their views encompass the full range of expert science. Legates does not seem to accept the central findings of the IPCC, namely that human activities are having a significant effect on the global climate. But then, multiple times throughout the report, he selectively cites IPCC as an authority on what is not well-established in order to try to refute the views of those he labels as “climate alarmists.” This is a bit like saying I won’t believe what the American Medical Association recommends as best practice for treating various diseases, but will consider them an authority on what they say is not well-established as effective.

If IPCC is being cited against the “climate alarmists,” then its findings must not represent those that Legates is criticizing and IPCC’s views should be accepted as valid. But no, he both attacks and cites their findings. And this is not an isolated situation. Legates takes the same two-faced approach with the international Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment (with many of the citations to opposing results being to quite dated papers), the US National Assessment (discussed further below), the results of NASA (where he relies on selected results, generally ignoring recent results). He even (on page 11) cites the “scientific consensus” as an authority while throughout most of the rest of the report disagreeing with it. He is basically totally inconsistent on what is authoritative and what is not.

The report is also filled with mistakes and nonsense. Herewith just a sampling:

Legates says in the Introduction (and repeats the point on page 18) that “the Northern Hemisphere ice age ended about 20,000 years ago.” This is patently incorrect. This was the time when it is generally agreed that the glacial extent was at its maximum, and the major ice sheets on North America and Europe were not mostly gone until perhaps 9,000 years ago or more recently.

He asserts (page 5) that “the computer models consistently project a rise in global temperature over the past century that is more than twice as high as the measured increase.” As illustrated in Figure 1 (see below), this is simply not the case.

Finally, Legates repeats a number of arguments that were first made by Dr. Patrick Michaels. Interestingly, he does so without attribution, perhaps so as not to seem to be depending on such a controversial source of material. For example, in discussing the trends in polar bears, he cites the results of the analysis done by Michaels, but does not reference its presentation in the World Climate Report. In any case, that analysis is also rather dated and fails to tie to changes in ice extent rather than temperature. Another example is Legates’ criticism of the Canadian climate model mentioned earlier, for any independent analysis would not support Dr. Michaels’ misreading of the IPCC graphic. Legates also puts forth the typical skeptic claim that a reduced pole-equator temperature gradient will lead to fewer intense storms. While perhaps the case for winter storms, he fails to note that the most severe storms, namely tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons), occur during the summer season when the pole-equator gradient is at a minimum.

From Climate Science Watch

A comprehensive look at the situation can be found here.

Myth vs Fact Regarding the Hockey Stick

MYTH #0: Evidence for modern human influence on climate rests entirely upon the “Hockey Stick” Reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere mean temperatures indicating anomalous late 20th century warmth.

This peculiar suggestion is sometimes found in op-ed pieces and other dubious propaganda, despite its transparant absurdity. Paleoclimate evidence is simply one in a number of independent lines of evidence indicating the strong likelihood that human influences on climate play a dominant role in the observed 20th century warming of the earth’s surface. Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence in support of this conclusion is the evidence from so-called “Detection and Attribution Studies”. Such studies demonstrate that the pattern of 20th century climate change closely matches that predicted by state-of-the-art models of the climate system in response to 20th century anthropogenic forcing (due to the combined influence of anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations and industrial aerosol increases).

MYTH #1: The “Hockey Stick” Reconstruction is based solely on two publications by climate scientist Michael Mann and colleagues (Mann et al, 1998;1999).

This is patently false. Nearly a dozen model-based and proxy-based reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere mean temperature by different groups all suggest that late 20th century warmth is anomalous in a long-term (multi-century to millennial) context (see Figures 1 and 2 in “Temperature Variations in Past Centuries and The So-Called ‘Hockey Stick’”).

Some proxy-based reconstructions suggest greater variability than others. This greater variability may be attributable to different emphases in seasonal and spatial emphasis (see Jones and Mann, 2004; Rutherford et al, 2004; Cook et al, 2004). However, even for those reconstructions which suggest a colder “Little Ice Age” and greater variability in general in past centuries, such as that of Esper et al (2002), late 20th century hemispheric warmth is still found to be anomalous in the context of the reconstruction (see Cook et al, 2004).

MYTH #4: Errors in the “Hockey Stick” undermine the conclusion that late 20th century hemispheric warmth is anomalous.

This statement embraces at least two distinct falsehoods. The first falsehood holds that the “Hockey Stick” is the result of one analysis or the analysis of one group of researchers (i.e., that of Mann et al, 1998 and Mann et al, 1999). However, as discussed in the response to Myth #1 above, the basic conclusions of Mann et al (1998,1999) are affirmed in multiple independent studies. Thus, even if there were errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction, numerous other studies independently support the conclusion of anomalous late 20th century hemispheric-scale warmth.

The second falsehood holds that there are errors in the Mann et al (1998, 1999) analyses, and that these putative errors compromise the “hockey stick” shape of hemispheric surface temperature reconstructions. Such claims seem to be based in part on the misunderstanding or misrepresentation by some individuals of a corrigendum that was published by Mann and colleagues in Nature. This corrigendum simply corrected the descriptions of supplementary information that accompanied the Mann et al article detailing precisely what data were used. As clearly stated in the corrigendum, these corrections have no influence at all on the actual analysis or any of the results shown in Mann et al (1998). Claims that the corrigendum reflects any errors at all in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction are entirely false.

False claims of the existence of errors in the Mann et al (1998) reconstruction can also be traced to spurious allegations made by two individuals, McIntyre and McKitrick (McIntyre works in the mining industry, while McKitrick is an economist). The false claims were first made in an article (McIntyre and McKitrick, 2003) published in a non-scientific (social science) journal “Energy and Environment” and later, in a separate “Communications Arising” comment that was rejected by Nature based on negative appraisals by reviewers and editor [as a side note, we find it peculiar that the authors have argued elsewhere that their submission was rejected due to ‘lack of space’.

The man is a stooge and an incompetent one at that. A flimsy man of straw for deniers to cling to for whatever reason they feel the need to deny the reality of the problems facing the world.

But debating with deniers is pointless. There will always be some stooge or scientific outlier picking at the fabric of evidence and asserting that this makes the whole thing a fraud or a mistake. It’s the same with the endless stream of gotcha’s from the evolution-deniers. The more interesting thing is the psychology behind it, what is it that makes people grasp straws to deny the overwhelming scientific consensus over such a crucial problem facing humanity?

The psychology of denial concerning climate mitigation measures: evidence from Swiss focus groups

Various studies of public opinion regarding the causes and consequences of climate change reveal both a deep reservoir of concern, yet also a muddle over causes, consequences and appropriate policy measures for mitigation.

The technique adopted here, namely integrated assessment (IA) focus groups, in which groups of randomly selected individuals in Switzerland looked at models of possible consequences of climate change and questioned specialists as to their accuracy and meaning, revealed a rich assembly of reactions.

Respondents were alarmed about the consequences of high-energy futures, and mollified by images of low-energy futures. Yet they also erected a series of psychological barriers to justify why they should not act either individually or through collective institutions to mitigate climate change.

From the viewpoint of changing their lifestyles of material comfort and high-energy dependence, they regarded the consequences of possible behavioural shift arising from the need to meet mitigation measures as more daunting. T

o overcome the dissonance created in their minds they created a number of socio-psychological denial mechanisms. Such mechanisms heightened the costs of shifting away from comfortable lifestyles, set blame on the inaction of others, including governments, and emphasised doubts regarding the immediacy of personal action when the effects of climate change seemed uncertain and far away.

The Psychology of Global Warming: Alarm-ist Versus Alarm-ing: By Bill Blakemore, ABC News

Journalism has no precedent for a story of the scale or seriousness of global warming.

The vast majority of credible climate scientists - well over 95 percent, according to specialists in assessing scientists' opinions - agree that the average temperatures of the oceans, the land surface of the planet and the lower atmosphere (anything lower than the tip of Mount Everest) have been climbing at an accelerating rate.

The same specialists say that nearly as many scientists agree that manmade greenhouse gas emissions are a significant factor - and a good many say the only significant factor - in the dangerous global warming now under way.

If 95 of the world's best, most experienced experts in child well-being were to tell you that your child was under lethal attack - and with dramatic signs already visible if you only look - would you say, "I think I'll wait until the other five experts are convinced before I do anything about it?" 

The urge to talk up and cling to minor dissenting voices is a psychological defence mechanism and so probably cannot be rationally debated.

[jshore]

@intention

In this case, the “couple of idiots” showed clearly that Mann’s paper contained significant, large, and devastating errors which completely invalidated all of the paper’s conclusions. The findings of the “couple of idiots” have been checked and verified by other scientists, and found to be 100% correct.

That is not exactly the conclusion of the NAS report on the subject. It found that some of the complaints by M&M on the details of the mathematical technique, while being technically correct, didn’t make a difference to the conclusions. Other issues (such as the Bristlecone Pines issue) reduced the confidence that the panel felt could be placed in the reconstruction prior to 1600. However, they agreed that Mann’s basic conclusions regarding the late 20th century warmth being likely unprecedented over the last 1000 years still stood except that they would place less confidence in it…They felt that the work of Mann and subsequent work by others that all seemed to support this made this conclusion “plausible” but a conclusion that was hard to put a specific measure of confidence on (whereas they were very confidence that the warmth was unprecedented over the last 400 years).

What is surprising, however, is that after the findings of the “two idiots” have been upheld by the NAS Panel, the Wegman Report, and other scientists, and after Michael Mann publicly stated that it was “intimidation” for people to make the normal scientific request of him that he reveal his data and methods, …

No, what Mann felt was intimidation were attempts to force him to release his computer code, which is his intellectual property…and which the National Science Foundation clearly and unambiguously stated was indeed his intellectual property and he did not have to release.

As I have noted before, you have a very unusual view of what constitutes replication that is completely different from the accepted view across all of the physical sciences as far as I know. As an outsider, I think you at least should understand and respect the norms of the scientific community that you enter rather than throwing around accusations that are based on your re-interpretation of what constitutes appropriate scientific behavior. Or, at the very least, you should be honest and say that you are asking for a higher standard in regards to information for replication than is not only the current norm in the climate science community but that is the norm in the physical sciences period.

[intention]

One of the most misleading ideas in all of climate science is that there is actually such a thing as an “average global temperature”. It simply does not exist.

The measurable aspects of physical objects are divided into two groups - “extensive” attributes and “intensive” attributes.

Extensive attributes include such things as mass and length. We can take the arithmetic mean (the most common type of average, but far from the only type) of extensive attributes quite easily. First, we add up the individual masses or lengths. This gives us a meaningful quantity, the total mass or the total length. If we add up the masses of three people, we get a total mass for the three which has a physical meaning. We then divide this total by three, and we get the average mass.

Intensive variables, on the other hand, include such things as temperature and pressure. But attempting to take an average of these quickly leads us into unphysical wonderland. To start with, we add up the temperatures, just as we did the masses. But that total has no physical meaning, and is not a fixed figure.

For example, suppose we are looking at the different counties in California, and we have one temperature reading for each county, and one area measurement for each county. We can add up the areas of each of the counties to get a total area for the counties, which has a physical meaning - it is the total area of California. And we can divide by the number of counties to get an average area for each county.

But when we try that with the temperatures, we get a meaningless figure, the “total temperature” of the counties … is this the “total temperature” of California? And because this figure is meaningless, so is the result of dividing it by the number of counties.

To put it bluntly, “average temperature” is a very poor metric for measuring climate changes, because it has no physical basis. An excellent explanation of this problem, along with other problems with temperature averaging, is available here. (A better metric would be the heat content of the ocean. Heat content is an extrinsic value, so a total or an average actually has a physical meaning.)

But let us suppose that we choose to ignore the fact that we are using an imaginary figure, the “average temperature”. If we want to use the mythical “average temperature” as our metric, the problems have only started. For example, should we average all of the stations in the world, or average the northern and southern hemisphere separately and then average the two to get the final answer? There are advantages and disadvantages of each one, and there is no rule or reason for favoring one over the other … but they give different answers. (The usual method, by the way, is to average the hemispheres separately, and then average the two of them.)

Having made a selection between those two methods on some basis, we then are faced with a host of other problems. How do we deal with missing data? Ignore it? Estimate it? How much data does a station need to have before it is even considered at all? Do we average the stations individually, or do we combine them into “gridcells” and average the gridcells? Again, there are no a priori or “correct” answers to these questions. The custom is to use gridcell averages which are then averaged, but there is no reason to pick that over the alternative. And remember … each of these options will give us a different answer for the “average”.

Next, how do we deal with the changing numbers (and thus locations) of stations over time? The number of stations dropped radically in the 1990s, with more rural stations being closed. How do we adjust for that change from rural to urban?

What about gridcells (currently about 20% of the earth’s surface, with much larger numbers in the past) where there is no data? Do we ignore those gridcells, or estimate them in some manner? Again, arguments can be made for either of these options, and different organizations use different methods.

And if a very cold gridcell only has data for half of the period of record, if we include it, the average for that period of time will be lowered … How do we adjust for that?

Next, gridcells that contain a large number of stations have less variance in their average than gridcells that contain only a few stations. Should we “variance adjust” the gridcells to have the same variance, and if so, should they be adjusted to have the larger or the smaller variance?

What do we do with individual temperature records that seem to be way extreme, and are perhaps in error? Do we ignore them, and if so, how do we choose which ones to ignore? Again, whatever rule we choose will have proponents and detractors. (The method used by Jones et al. in the HadCRUT dataset is to remove data points which are more than 5 standard deviations from the 1961-1990 average. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out why, in a period of generally rising temperatures such as 1850 - 2000, this method will change the overall trend.)

Finally, we come to the question of the stations themselves. These are plagued with a host of problems, which include inappropriate locations (too close to buildings or roads, etc.), changes in location, changes in instrumentation, changes in averaging methods, changes in observation times, lack of maintenance, changes in surroundings (local heat islands), changes in cleaning frequency, changes in observation frequency, changes in elevation, and changes in instrument enclosures (from painting to repair to replacement).

All of these problems with the stations might be tolerable if we had accurate historical records of these changes … but we have only the most scattered, fragmentary records for many stations, particularly those in developing countries. This means that we can’t even begin to correct the historical data for these problems.

In short, while it seems clear that world is warming overall, exactly how much it is warming is still a very open question. This can be seen in the difference between succeeding versions of the same dataset. For example, the 1940 to 2000 temperature change varies between the 2000 version of the USHCN temperature record and the current version of USHCN by about 0.5° … which is about the same size as the temperature difference being measured. See here for details.

In other words … the 1940 - 2000 difference between the two succeeding datasets (0.5°C), both done by the same organization but using different assumptions as detailed above, is nearly as large as the entire claimed change in the 20th century (0.6°C).

And all of this, of course, is merely one more example of what I have been pointing out all along. Our knowledge of the climate system, both instrumental and theoretical, is woefully inadequate to support the sweeping claims being made by AGW proponents.

w.

[Sage_Rat]

@intention

In other words, peer review is not a guarantee of anything.

And? My point with bringing up peer reviewing was in response to your contention that scientists were keeping their work secret. It is by definition impossible to have a peer reviewed work that hasn’t been shared with others to be reviewed.

Accepting that work, as also mentioned, comes after similar, but independent studies have been made, and after people who have a bone to pick or who particularly need to rely on the data have rigorously examined and verified the methods and data of the work. Peer review is just the first hurdle towards getting something accepted as good science.

So again, are you contending that Michael Mann’s work was not peer reviewed, was not picked by bone-pickers, and was not rigorously checked when it was necessary to do so? That I can tell, it has had all of those happen to it, and errors were found, and they were amended (and/or the weightiness lowered.) So your seeming contention that it’s been kept secret and unchecked doesn’t seem to bear true. It hasn’t been kept secret and you can tell that because it has been checked, and fixed.

[intention]

@Sage Rat

And? My point with bringing up peer reviewing was in response to your contention that scientists were keeping their work secret. It is by definition impossible to have a peer reviewed work that hasn’t been shared with others to be reviewed.

Accepting that work, as also mentioned, comes after similar, but independent studies have been made, and after people who have a bone to pick or who particularly need to rely on the data have rigorously examined and verified the methods and data of the work. Peer review is just the first hurdle towards getting something accepted as good science.

So again, are you contending that Michael Mann’s work was not peer reviewed, was not picked by bone-pickers, and was not rigorously checked when it was necessary to do so? That I can tell, it has had all of those happen to it, and errors were found, and they were amended (and/or the weightiness lowered.) So your seeming contention that it’s been kept secret and unchecked doesn’t seem to bear true. It hasn’t been kept secret and you can tell that because it has been checked, and fixed.

Sage, I’m only going to go over this once more, as you seem to completely misunderstand what peer review is.

It is very rare for a peer reviewer to inspect the raw data used in a study. It is very rare for a peer reviewer to attempt to replicate a study. It is very rare for a peer reviewer to request information on the exact details of how a result was obtained.

Instead, peer review is a quick look to find errors.

Thus, it is quite possible for a paper to be peer reviewed and for the author to refuse to reveal the data. It is quite possible for a paper to be peer reviewed and for the author to refuse to reveal his methods. This is what Michael Mann did, and continued to do until he was forced by Congress to come clean.

If you don’t understand that, I’m afraid I can’t help you.

w.

[Kimstu]

@intention

All of the evils that are supposed to come from your forecast climate catastrophe are with us today. We have droughts, floods, famines, rising sea levels, hurricanes, illnesses, heat spells, cold snaps, and everything else which the catastrophists predict, and we have them today. Right now.

What I recommend is that we work on protecting people from these real present dangers now. Today.

I don’t think there’s anybody concerned about AGW who doesn’t agree that this sort of adaptation strategy has to be at least part of the solution. No matter how much we bust ass to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the best guess of mainstream science seems to be that we’re in for some non-negligible amount of anthropogenic warming and hence some non-negligible amount of climate disruption. At least some of our strategy will have to focus on simply coping with disaster.

However, I can’t agree that putting all our policy efforts into coping with disaster is really the “no-regrets” option. If global warming is partly susceptible to mitigation or prevention, then the smart thing for us to do is to devote at least some resources to mitigating or preventing it.

Yes, spending money on mitigation efforts is to some extent a gamble: if it unexpectedly turns out that the problem isn’t as severe as feared and the mitigation isn’t really necessary, we’ve wasted some money. But refusing to spend money on mitigation is also a gamble: if it turns out that the problem really is serious and we could have saved a lot of money and lives by early efforts at mitigation, then we’ve screwed ourselves by our excessive parsimony. There is no safe bet in this situation.

Remember, prevention is almost always a lot cheaper than cure. Our problem in this situation is that we simply don’t know exactly how much prevention is needed now, or how much cure will be needed down the road. But that doesn’t automatically make it smart for us to ignore prevention strategies entirely and pour all our money into cure strategies.

@intention

One of the most misleading ideas in all of climate science is that there is actually such a thing as an “average global temperature”. It simply does not exist. […]
In short, while it seems clear that world is warming overall […]

These two statements seem contradictory. If you don’t believe that the concept of “average global temperature” even exists in any meaningful way, then what do you mean by conceding that “the world is warming overall”? If “the world is warming overall” doesn’t mean “average global temperature is rising”, then what does it mean?

[FRDE]

@Kimstu

These two statements seem contradictory. If you don’t believe that the concept of “average global temperature” even exists in any meaningful way, then what do you mean by conceding that “the world is warming overall”? If “the world is warming overall” doesn’t mean “average global temperature is rising”, then what does it mean?

If the poles grew colder and the tropics grew hotter then ‘the average global temperature’ could remain the same.

What he means is that talking about ‘the average’ is meaningless in this context.

[intention]

Kimstu, good to hear from you.

@Kimstu

…

However, I can’t agree that putting all our policy efforts into coping with disaster is really the “no-regrets” option. If global warming is partly susceptible to mitigation or prevention, then the smart thing for us to do is to devote at least some resources to mitigating or preventing it.

Actually, before deciding that’s the “smart thing”, we would need to establish:

a) “If global warming is partly susceptible to mitigation or prevention”, that is to say, if we can in fact make a significant difference, and

b) If the mitigation or prevention efforts would be cost-effective, and

c) If the people of the world are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to implement the proposed solution.

All of those are large “ifs”, and I don’t think that any of those have been established yet. Kyoto, for example, has already cost many billions of dollars and is estimated to cost many more, is not succeeding in many of the signatory countries, and is supposed to result in a cooling in 50 years of 0.06°C if everyone complied … which on my planet at least is so far from effective as to be either very humorous or very tragic, but YMMV …

@kimstu

Yes, spending money on mitigation efforts is to some extent a gamble: if it unexpectedly turns out that the problem isn’t as severe as feared and the mitigation isn’t really necessary, we’ve wasted some money. But refusing to spend money on mitigation is also a gamble: if it turns out that the problem really is serious and we could have saved a lot of money and lives by early efforts at mitigation, then we’ve screwed ourselves by our excessive parsimony. There is no safe bet in this situation.

Remember, prevention is almost always a lot cheaper than cure. Our problem in this situation is that we simply don’t know exactly how much prevention is needed now, or how much cure will be needed down the road. But that doesn’t automatically make it smart for us to ignore prevention strategies entirely and pour all our money into cure strategies.

While prevention is often a lot cheaper than cure, this is by no means a given. In the current case, when we are far from sure exactly what the problems will be (hotter? colder? wetter? drier? some combination? all of these have been claimed), and even whether the problems will occur, there is absolutely no guarantee that prevention will be cheaper than cure … especially when we don’t have any certainty that changing CO2 levels will have the effect that people so blithely assume.

For example, many people, perhaps even yourself, have been pointing out that since around 1990 the temperature has decoupled from its previous correlation with solar, and that this shows that CO2 must be to blame for recent warming. But a study in the latest issue of Science magazine says that indications are that the global haze has been thinning since then, and that this may be the cause of the recent warming. What other surprises await us out there?

Which merely supports my oft-repeated point that we don’t know enough about the climate to draw any conclusions. This is particularly true about the kind of “negative proof” (we can’t explain it, so it must be CO2) which is so popular with the AGW crowd. Even NASA says that landuse changes may be having a bigger effect on the climate than CO2, and we don’t have a clue what cosmic rays or changes in plankton generated DMS are doing.

In the harsh light of day, we simply don’t know enough to make billion dollar decisions about things that might happen in fifty years. Let’s spend money on mitigation and on V&V and SQA, which we know will bring returns.

Otherwise, we may end up like the US in Iraq, rushing in to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, or can’t be solved with the tools at hand. Iraq was sold to the US populace using the exact same argument you are using (action now is preferable to further study, because it’s better to prevent Saddam from causing future problems than to mitigate them when/if they occur), and we all know how well that went. I don’t want to hijack this thread, I’m just using Iraq as an example to point out that prevention can be much, much more expensive than cure, may end up not solving the problem at all, and can create a host of other problems at the same time.

@intention

One of the most misleading ideas in all of climate science is that there is actually such a thing as an “average global temperature”. It simply does not exist. […]
In short, while it seems clear that world is warming overall […]

@kimstu

These two statements seem contradictory. If you don’t believe that the concept of “average global temperature” even exists in any meaningful way, then what do you mean by conceding that “the world is warming overall”? If “the world is warming overall” doesn’t mean “average global temperature is rising”, then what does it mean?

It means that more parts of the world seem to be warming than cooling. This does not necessarily mean anything about the mathematical average. Did you read the references I cited? It shows that depending on how you choose to calculate the average, for the same identical situation the average can be mathematically shown to be both rising and falling. Averages of temperature are simply not mathematically meaningful, particularly when the CO2 signal we are looking for (~0.02°C rise per year) is so small, the noise in the system is so large, and the measurements we have are so full of uncertainty.

w.

[jshore]

@intention

To put it bluntly, “average temperature” is a very poor metric for measuring climate changes, because it has no physical basis. An excellent explanation of this problem, along with other problems with temperature averaging, is available here. (A better metric would be the heat content of the ocean. Heat content is an extrinsic value, so a total or an average actually has a physical meaning.)

It is good to hear from you, intention. I did have a very quick look at that Essex, McKitrick, and Andresen paper and I must say that I am not impressed. While it may be true that technically-speaking “global temperature” does not have a strict meaning in a thermodynamic sense, I think this is much ado about nothing. The average monthly temperature at one specific location doesn’t either but that doesn’t stop it from being a useful quantity to consider.

And, their example shown in Figs. 2 and 3 to show how this could theoretically matter with actual temperature data is incredibly contrived. What I believe they did is chose 12 stations, with the lowest- and highest-temperature ones having negative temperature trends (of ~-0.8 C per decade and ~-0.2 C per decade, respectively) but with the ones in the middle generally having, on average, weak positive trends. Their r essentially amounts to a “moment” of the distribution. When r is large and positive, they are averaging very high moments and just pick out the trend in the station with the highest temperature. When r is large in magnitude and negative, they are averaging very large negative moments and just pick out the trend in the station with the lowest temperature. [I am basing this all on the results…I haven’t actually looked at the raw station data, so my statements are in some sense “predictions” of what you will find to be true if you actually look at the data. It could be a bit more complicated than I am stating because, since they use monthly temperatures, some stations might cross…i.e., with one station having warmer summers while the other has warmer winters. Another “prediction” I will make is that you will find the lowest-temperature station to be separated from the others by a larger amount than the highest temperature station, which is why the convergence to the assymptotic value for the large positive r and s is slower than for the large negative r and s.]

Note that if they just compared, say, r values in some semi-reasonable range of, say, 0, 1, 2, and 3, they would see that the average trend they got hardly changed at all, as is clear from their graph (although it is hard to read it exactly because their r scale is so incredibly broad). It is only by going to extreme values so that the trends of different stations are essentially weighted very unevenly that they get their results.

To be honest, I am surprised that you find this paper to be so “excellent”. You have claimed to me in the past that you are equally skeptical of everybody, not biased toward one point of view. Yet, here you are touting this paper while slamming the paper by Santer et al. that we have discussed previously. I doubt one could find very many scientists who would agree with you at all on the relative merits of those two papers!

[jshore]

@intention

For example, many people, perhaps even yourself, have been pointing out that since around 1990 the temperature has decoupled from its previous correlation with solar, and that this shows that CO2 must be to blame for recent warming. But a study in the latest issue of Science magazine says that indications are that the global haze has been thinning since then, and that this may be the cause of the recent warming. What other surprises await us out there?

What this paper talks about is what we already know…which is that aerosols tend to provide a cooling effect and, so, if they decrease, more of the warming due to greenhouse gases will be manifest. However, as noted in that report, given the issues with calibration of these satellites over the long term, it is best to regard the trend seen in the global haze with a fair bit of caution.

It has already been noted that the climate sensitivity is not particularly well-constrained by recent warming exactly because of the uncertainties in effects due to aerosols (see, e.g., here and here). Hence, while there have been some attempts to derive a climate sensitivity from recent warming, it has tended to give larger error bars than climate sensitivities derived from various other constraints such as the ice age - interglacial transitions, climate response to volcanic eruptions, and the predictions of climate models.

[Kimstu]

@intention

It means that more parts of the world seem to be warming than cooling. This does not necessarily mean anything about the mathematical average. Did you read the references I cited? It shows that depending on how you choose to calculate the average, for the same identical situation the average can be mathematically shown to be both rising and falling.

But then, what is the mathematical interpretation of the statement that “more parts of the world seem to be warming than cooling”? How are you quantifying the concept of “more parts of the world”?

Yes, I understand your theoretical objections about the potential ambiguity of results involving mean averages of data where the individual values have significant uncertainty (although I agree with jshore that the specific examples in your cite weren’t very persuasive).

I just don’t understand how, if you refuse to recognize any validity in the concept of “average global temperature”, you can meaningfully interpret statements like “the world is warming overall” in any quantitative way.

@FRDE

If the poles grew colder and the tropics grew hotter then ‘the average global temperature’ could remain the same.

True, it could, if the two temperature changes exactly balanced each other out. But in that case, we wouldn’t describe the situation as “the world is warming overall”, which is what intention said.

[jshore]

@intention

All of those are large “ifs”, and I don’t think that any of those have been established yet. Kyoto, for example, has already cost many billions of dollars and is estimated to cost many more, is not succeeding in many of the signatory countries, and is supposed to result in a cooling in 50 years of 0.06°C if everyone complied … which on my planet at least is so far from effective as to be either very humorous or very tragic, but YMMV …

By the way, I can’t remember, did we ever figure out what the assumptions were behind that 0.06°C estimated effect in 50 years scenario for an agreement that covers emissions over only a 5-year period (2008-2012)? As has been noted before, Kyoto is only a first step and, more importantly, what is more important than the actual restrictions on emissions is the effect they have of forcing the market to acknowledge the cost associated with using the atmosphere as a sewer for greenhouse gases so that the market develops a solution to a problem that it previously didn’t even know existed!

And, of course, the whole thing is only pushing forward a transition in energy use that will have to be made eventually anyway because fossil fuels are a finite resource. Many of the same people who claim that any sort of limits on emissions will be a disaster would be the same ones assuring us that the market deals very well with problems of scarcity and running out of resources! Apparently, we are supposed to believe that the market can handle running into limitations on resources due to their finiteness but not limitations we impose on using those resources (or using them without sequestering the emissions).

While prevention is often a lot cheaper than cure, this is by no means a given. In the current case, when we are far from sure exactly what the problems will be (hotter? colder? wetter? drier? some combination? all of these have been claimed), and even whether the problems will occur, there is absolutely no guarantee that prevention will be cheaper than cure … especially when we don’t have any certainty that changing CO2 levels will have the effect that people so blithely assume.

We may not know for sure if they will be cheaper than the cure in just the same way that you don’t know for sure that it will be cheaper for you to buy fire insurance than to leave your house uninsured against fire. (In fact, in that latter case, we can be pretty sure that the actuaries at the insurance company have made sure it is actually more expensive when averaged over lots of people!)However, many of us still believe that insurance is a good thing because we don’t want to bet the entire planet’s ecosystem on the hope that things won’t turn out to be so bad.

Otherwise, we may end up like the US in Iraq, rushing in to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, or can’t be solved with the tools at hand. Iraq was sold to the US populace using the exact same argument you are using (action now is preferable to further study, because it’s better to prevent Saddam from causing future problems than to mitigate them when/if they occur), and we all know how well that went. I don’t want to hijack this thread, I’m just using Iraq as an example to point out that prevention can be much, much more expensive than cure, may end up not solving the problem at all, and can create a host of other problems at the same time.

To be honest, I was shocked to see you bring up Iraq. When I have brought it up previously, you have been so opposed to making any connection between these two issues that you have refused to even reveal whether or not you supported or opposed the invasion…whereas I have stated plainly that I opposed it. I think if the lesson that we learn from Iraq is that one should never believe in scary scenarios to the point of taking mitigating action, we will have learned the wrong lesson.

Indeed, I think one lesson from Iraq is that one has to carefully consider the evidence and who is feeding you the evidence … and what the worst consequences are if the evidence is correct and what other alternatives are available for dealing with the problem. In the case of Iraq, the scary scenarios were eminating from a very ideological White House, not from the scientific community and there was essentially no downside to continuing the inspections, i.e., the chances of Saddam being able to pose a threat to us while the inspections were going on was nil.

And, I think the most important lesson is to get away from making decisions on the basis of ideology rather than facts. If you look at how people break down on these two issues, there is a pretty strong negative correlation between those who were most itching to invade Iraq and those who are most itching to take mitigating action on climate change. (Yes, there are exceptions like Tony Blair and John McCain…and on the other side FRDE…but the correlation is still there and probably pretty strong.) So, in fact, rather than there being people who bring up fearful possibilities and people who see the world through rose-colored glasses, it seems to be a matter of which fears different people see as being most realistic. I think those who were on the wrong side of the Iraq debacle have already demonstrated to us that their abilities to make good assessments in this regard are not very good.

[intention]

jshore, I’m confused. Are you saying that averaging of intensive variables can be done?

w.

[intention]

@jshore

By the way, I can’t remember, did we ever figure out what the assumptions were behind that 0.06°C estimated effect in 50 years scenario for an agreement that covers emissions over only a 5-year period (2008-2012)? As has been noted before, Kyoto is only a first step and, more importantly, what is more important than the actual restrictions on emissions is the effect they have of forcing the market to acknowledge the cost associated with using the atmosphere as a sewer for greenhouse gases so that the market develops a solution to a problem that it previously didn’t even know existed!

I gave you all of the information that I have on that estimate, which was made by Tom Wigley of NCAR, a vocal Kyoto supporter. You don’t like it? … give us another one. Until then, that’s the best we have.

I don’t understand the “Kyoto is a first step” thing at all. The “first step” costs billions and results in an undetectable result … what is the “second step”? A plan that costs trillions and the result is barely detectable?

Finally, before getting all passionate about whether we should use the atmosphere as a “sewer” for greenhouse gases (are you opposed to plants using the atmosphere as a sewer for menthane?), you should consider whether there is any evidence that it’s doing any harm. Not tinkertoy computer results, evidence. Facts. Observations. I know that you think that if the observations disagree with the models, the observations are likely to be wrong … but me, I’m not that much into into “post-modern science”, I still believe in old-fashioned things like facts and observations.

@jshore

And, of course, the whole thing is only pushing forward a transition in energy use that will have to be made eventually anyway because fossil fuels are a finite resource. Many of the same people who claim that any sort of limits on emissions will be a disaster would be the same ones assuring us that the market deals very well with problems of scarcity and running out of resources! Apparently, we are supposed to believe that the market can handle running into limitations on resources due to their finiteness but not limitations we impose on using those resources (or using them without sequestering the emissions).

Please explain to me how, say, the UK buying carbon credits from China is “pushing forward a transition in energy use” of any kind.

I must admit, prior to the signing of Kyoto, I didn’t hear a word about how the point of Kyoto was to promote anything other than a reduction in CO2. Now that it has been shown to do nothing about CO2, it’s suddenly a brilliant plan to force us to change fuels by making the use of fossil fuels very expensive … if that’s really the desired result, why not just tax the fuels and put the taxes into alternative fuel research? Why create a whole expensive bureaucracy that ends up with money going, not to alternative fuel research, but to China, one of the world’s worst polluters? What’s the advantage in that?

@jshore

We may not know for sure if they will be cheaper than the cure in just the same way that you don’t know for sure that it will be cheaper for you to buy fire insurance than to leave your house uninsured against fire. (In fact, in that latter case, we can be pretty sure that the actuaries at the insurance company have made sure it is actually more expensive when averaged over lots of people!)However, many of us still believe that insurance is a good thing because we don’t want to bet the entire planet’s ecosystem on the hope that things won’t turn out to be so bad.

I also believe that insurance is a good thing, but I’m boringly rational in that I only believe in insurance IF the payout is commensurate with the payments. Kyoto is like an insurance policy that costs $100,000 per year, and pays out $1.36 in case of catastrophe … maybe you believe in insurance like that, but it doesn’t seem all that smart to me.

@jshore

To be honest, I was shocked to see you bring up Iraq. When I have brought it up previously, you have been so opposed to making any connection between these two issues that you have refused to even reveal whether or not you supported or opposed the invasion…whereas I have stated plainly that I opposed it. I think if the lesson that we learn from Iraq is that one should never believe in scary scenarios to the point of taking mitigating action, we will have learned the wrong lesson.

You are 100% correct that there are a number of lessons to be learned from Iraq. And although you may not like it, and may want to minimize it, one of them is clearly that prevention may be much more expensive than cure. Which was my only point.

@jshore

Indeed, I think one lesson from Iraq is that one has to carefully consider the evidence and who is feeding you the evidence … and what the worst consequences are if the evidence is correct and what other alternatives are available for dealing with the problem. In the case of Iraq, the scary scenarios were eminating from a very ideological White House, not from the scientific community and there was essentially no downside to continuing the inspections, i.e., the chances of Saddam being able to pose a threat to us while the inspections were going on was nil.

Like I said, I don’t want to hijack the thread … but you seem to want to. If you want to discuss the threat Saddam did or didn’t pose, please start a thread on that.

I agree, however, that we need to consider the evidence … and that when the “evidence” comes from folks like George Bush, Michael Mann, or Phil Jones, that we should consider that as well. You seem to be a bit selective in your judgement of sources …

However, I disagree with your ad hominem point of view that we should automatically disbelieve folks like Mann and Jones and George Bush. While we should be cautious about information from suspect sources, it might be correct. At the end of the day, facts stand or fall on their own, regardless of who might state them.

@jshore

And, I think the most important lesson is to get away from making decisions on the basis of ideology rather than facts. If you look at how people break down on these two issues, there is a pretty strong negative correlation between those who were most itching to invade Iraq and those who are most itching to take mitigating action on climate change. (Yes, there are exceptions like Tony Blair and John McCain…and on the other side FRDE…but the correlation is still there and probably pretty strong.) So, in fact, rather than there being people who bring up fearful possibilities and people who see the world through rose-colored glasses, it seems to be a matter of which fears different people see as being most realistic. I think those who were on the wrong side of the Iraq debacle have already demonstrated to us that their abilities to make good assessments in this regard are not very good.

1. Citation for the claim that there is a “pretty strong negative correlation” between Iraq support and AGW support? Has there been some kind of study, and I didn’t get the memo?

However, I do agree with you a) Iraq was a bungled fiasco of the highest order, and b) that we should make decisions based on facts rather than ideology.

Which, given the paucity of facts in the global warming debate, makes the passion behind your position very hard to understand.

w.

[Kimstu]

@intention

I don’t understand the “Kyoto is a first step” thing at all. The “first step” costs billions and results in an undetectable result …

“Costs billions”? How do you know for sure? AFAICT, the estimates of the economic costs of mitigation strategies are just as model-based and liable to theoretical flaws as the estimates of the environmental and economic costs of constantly increasing anthropogenic CO2 concentrations.

It always rather puzzles me that many people who insist on being so rigorously skeptical about the science and models behind environmental predictions are so trusting of the science and models behind economic predictions. Economics as a science is certainly no more rigorous than atmospheric physics is.

It seems to me that this reaction might reflect a certain “comfort level” in risk acceptance produced by familiarity. We tolerate the risk of making very costly policy mistakes based on the best guesses of economics, even though economics is a very uncertain science, because we’ve been doing it for a long time and the uncertainty has come to seem acceptable. But we get frightened by the possibility of making very costly policy mistakes based on the best guesses of climate science, simply because the idea of relying on climate science in high-stakes policy issues is still new to us.

@intention

I still believe in old-fashioned things like facts and observations.

Facts and observations are definitely very good things, and they’re the foundation of all science. Unfortunately, they don’t exist independently of scientific theory, and scientific theories aren’t always as certain as we’d like them to be.

You seem to be still clinging to the hope that there’s really a safe bet out there when it comes to climate policy—a genuine “no-regrets option” in which we can make our policy decisions based only on objective, incontrovertible “facts and observations”, without running any serious risk of catastrophic mistake. I just don’t see how you can possibly get your wish on that one.

Whatever decision we make, we’ll be betting at least billions of dollars (if you believe the economists’ models) against the reliable functioning of the interglacial-era planetary ecosystem that modern human civilization depends upon (if you believe the climate scientists’ models). There is no safe option here. The only way to gain the illusion of a safe option is to persuade ourselves that one or the other set of models is so uncertain that we’re justified in completely disregarding it. That seems to be what you’re trying to do.

[jshore]

@intention

jshore, I’m confused. Are you saying that averaging of intensive variables can be done?

In practical terms, yes. Is there some very rigorous thermodynamic sense in which it is not well-defined? Probably. Does it matter one whit for what we want to do with it? I see no evidence that it does…and, in fact, the degree to which that paper had to create such an extreme and contrived example to demonstrate their effect only reinforces that opinion. Surely if they could find a more realistic example, they would have presented it.

Look, if you want to get technical about it, you could probably argue that temperature itself is ill-defined in our atmosphere since it is out of equilibrium. However, does that stop us from measuring it?

And, by the way, the NASA/GISS folks point out that it is better to look at temperature anomaly fields than temperature fields because the anomaly fields do tend to have nicer properties…i.e., they tend to be more slowly-varying in space so there is a strong correlation between anomalies at nearby points, whereas there can be significant differences in temperature (especially if there are differences in elevation).

[intention]

jshore, you seem to think that climate averages are reliable. As an example of the problems with temperature averages, let’s take a look at the recent claims that this last winter was the warmest on record.

While this is true if we look at the GISS dataset , let’s compare it to the HadCRUT3 dataset . Both of these purport to give us the average temperature of the planet, and both are widely used by climate scientists.

But the HadCRUT3 dataset doesn’t say that this was the warmest winter since 1880, it says that the 1997-1998 winter was warmer. If average temperature can be accurately measured and is as dependable as you claim, why the difference?

In addition, the HadCRUT3 dataset includes error estimates. Here is a graph including the error data. From this, we can see that there is no significant difference between winter temperatures since 1997/98.

The differences between the winter temperatures in the two datasets is quite large, with the difference being 0.4°C at times. This is a huge difference in what you claim is a valid statistic. Here is a year-by-year comparison. As you can see, the GISS dataset has been steadily climbing compared to HadCRUT3 since the mid-60’s.

This, of course, may or may not be related to the fact that James Hansen, the leading apologist for the AGW point of view, is also in charge of the GISS dataset …

Three things are very troubling about this:

1. The lack of error estimates in the GISS dataset is all too typical of the AGW folks. In truth, we don’t know if the most recent winter was warmer or colder than any winter in the last decade. Numbers without error estimates are not science, they are hype.

2. The huge difference between the HadCRUT3 dataset and the GISS dataset means that we are making billion dollar decisions on data that even the best scientists disagree on. Not only do we not have scientific consensus about the future climate … we don’t even have consensus about the past climate.

3. The earlier versions of the GISS dataset did not show the climb from the mid-1960s vis-a-vis HadCRUT, while the current version does. I guess that humans are not only capable of causing future warming … they’re also capable of causing the past warming as well, by simply adding 0.3°C to the claimed recent warming by just recalculating the “average”.

All the best,

w.

[intention]

Kimstu, thank you for your comments. You say:

@Kimstu

“Costs billions”? How do you know for sure? AFAICT, the estimates of the economic costs of mitigation strategies are just as model-based and liable to theoretical flaws as the estimates of the environmental and economic costs of constantly increasing anthropogenic CO2 concentrations.

It already has cost billions. Look it up, I can’t do all the work for you. Canada has already spent three billion on just setting up the bureaucracy, without a single tangible result (except a new bureaucracy). And that’s just one country. I can understand you railing against theories, but now you’re denying reality.

@kimstu

It always rather puzzles me that many people who insist on being so rigorously skeptical about the science and models behind environmental predictions are so trusting of the science and models behind economic predictions. Economics as a science is certainly no more rigorous than atmospheric physics is.

It seems to me that this reaction might reflect a certain “comfort level” in risk acceptance produced by familiarity. We tolerate the risk of making very costly policy mistakes based on the best guesses of economics, even though economics is a very uncertain science, because we’ve been doing it for a long time and the uncertainty has come to seem acceptable. But we get frightened by the possibility of making very costly policy mistakes based on the best guesses of climate science, simply because the idea of relying on climate science in high-stakes policy issues is still new to us.

I am as skeptical of economic models as I am of climate models. Do you trust a) one b) the other, or c) both?

Regarding the use of models, it seems that you are confusing two situations. In economics, we have to make decisions today - we have to change or not change the central bank rate, for example. So we use the best tools we have, which as you point out are uncertain.

But regarding CO2, we are not forced to make a decision. Quite the contrary, we are deciding whether or not to take action, and you recommend doing so based on climate models with admitted errors five times the size of the predicted catastrophic warming.

Surely you can see the difference between the two situations.

@kimstu

Facts and observations are definitely very good things, and they’re the foundation of all science. Unfortunately, they don’t exist independently of scientific theory, and scientific theories aren’t always as certain as we’d like them to be.

You seem to be still clinging to the hope that there’s really a safe bet out there when it comes to climate policy—a genuine “no-regrets option” in which we can make our policy decisions based only on objective, incontrovertible “facts and observations”, without running any serious risk of catastrophic mistake. I just don’t see how you can possibly get your wish on that one.

Absolutely not. I am not clinging to any hope of any kind. I am simply saying that the facts are too scarce, the models are unbelievably poor, and the science is far too uncertain to support speculative solutions. I am saying we should focus on solutions to problems that we know exist, and continue to work on the science in the hope that some day it will be good enough to make the other decisions.

@kimstu

Whatever decision we make, we’ll be betting at least billions of dollars (if you believe the economists’ models) against the reliable functioning of the interglacial-era planetary ecosystem that modern human civilization depends upon (if you believe the climate scientists’ models). There is no safe option here. The only way to gain the illusion of a safe option is to persuade ourselves that one or the other set of models is so uncertain that we’re justified in completely disregarding it. That seems to be what you’re trying to do.

Given how much Kyoto has already cost, we are hardly depending on models to say that it is expensive and becoming more expensive. And nobody I know is saying that it will make a detectable difference. Nor do we need a model to know that “Kyoto II” will be more expensive if Kyoto is “just a start”.

The safe option is to continue to focus on solving the problems which we have today, and which may or may not worsen tomorrow - floods, famines, droughts, and all the rest. If we can solve them today, we can solve them tomorrow.

And, of course, we need to continue to work on the science. We should start by requiring transparency in the science, for the scientists to reveal their data and methods. We should submit the models to rigorous testing, rather than accepting all models as being equal.

We need to require that the climate “scientists” provide error estimates for their projections, like all of the real scientists do.

And we should be honest about what we know and don’t know. We don’t know the temperature of the past (see my previous post), and we certainly don’t know the temperature of the future.

w.

[Kimstu]

@intention

As an example of the problems with temperature averages, let’s take a look at the recent claims that this last winter was the warmest on record. […] While this is true if we look at the GISS dataset, […] the HadCRUT3 dataset doesn’t say that this was the warmest winter since 1880, it says that the 1997-1998 winter was warmer.

From the article you linked to:

NOAA scientists say the combined global land and ocean surface temperature from December 2006 to February 2007 was 0.72 °C above the 20th century mean, putting it at its highest since records began in 1880. […] Jay Lawrimore of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center says the previous record was in 2004, and the third warmest was in 1998.

So you’re suggesting the whole hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming is seriously undermined by our uncertainty whether 1998 was the warmest winter on record since 1880 or the third-warmest winter on record since 1880? :dubious:

Does that comparatively minor uncertainty really significantly affect the basic conclusion of a rising trend in winter temperatures, and the concerns about its potential consequences? I’m wondering whether you may be missing the forest for the trees here.

@intention

Here is a year-by-year comparison.

Might be just me, but I can’t get this link to work.

@intention

It already has cost billions.

Well, we seem to have survived it, don’t we? I thought you were talking about predicted huge costs of emissions reductions that would, you know, actually severely damage our global or national economies, which is a far cry from what we’re seeing so far as a result of Kyoto.

For somebody who can so blithely contemplate serious, mainstream scientific predictions of potentially catastrophic environmental and economic disasters on a global scale due to climate change, you seem rather panicky about the possibility of wasting a comparatively minor amount of money on potentially unnecessary climate-change prevention!

@intention

But regarding CO2, we are not forced to make a decision.

Sure we are. We have to decide whether or not to do something now about emissions reduction. Deciding to do nothing is making a decision.

@intention

The safe option is to continue to focus on solving the problems which we have today, and which may or may not worsen tomorrow - floods, famines, droughts, and all the rest. If we can solve them today, we can solve them tomorrow.

Sorry, but that’s just a faith-based assertion. It assumes, based on no evidence, that the amount and severity of the potential future consequences of climate change will not be significantly more catastrophic than the environmental disasters of today. It’s a blind-faith hypothesis that the solutions we devise today will automatically scale up nicely to be able to handle the amount of devastation we could encounter tomorrow.

If it turns out that tomorrow’s disasters are in fact far more catastrophic overall than what we’re able to cope with today—especially if it turns out that early prevention efforts would have significantly reduced their effects—then your so-called “safe option” wouldn’t be a safe option at all: on the contrary, it would be a disastrous failure of judgement.

Make no mistake, there simply is no reliable “safe option” here. Whatever we decide, we’re gambling on a potentially huge risk in one form or another, and future generations will not forgive us if we try to duck the responsibility for that. If we do nothing in the way of emissions reduction, and it turns out that AGW has cripplingly severe climate consequences that early prevention strategies would have significantly reduced, our descendants will be taking coach tours to spit on the graves of Patrick Michaels and Willis Eschenbach and their ilk.

Similarly, if we go all-out in global spending on emissions reductions and bankrupt several major economies, and it turns out that AGW impacts are comparatively mild and weren’t worth the economic sacrifice, our descendants will be taking coach tours to spit on the graves of Jim Hansen and Ross Gelbspan. It makes no sense to pretend that we have secure ass-coverage on this issue in any direction. We are gambling for what may be extremely high stakes, no matter which way we place our bet.

@intention

We need to require that the climate “scientists” provide error estimates for their projections, like all of the real scientists do.

This sort of shrill accusation (scare quotes around “scientists”? :dubious: ) is what makes your objections look to the lay reader less like informed expert criticism and more like crackpot amateur nitpicking. Do you really feel it improves your credibility, as an amateur scientist dabbling in a very complicated scientific field in which you have no formal training or professional background, to assert bluntly that research professionals in the field are not “real scientists”? If you want your criticisms to earn respect on their merits, shouldn’t you confine yourself to pointing out specific flaws in the research, not grossly insulting the researchers?

Are you quite sure that what you’ve found in this case is really a glaring methodological error severe enough to disqualify its perpetrators from being considered “real scientists”? I recall what jshore pointed out to you a few posts ago when you were similarly outraged about what you considered methodology crimes on the part of Michael Mann:

@jshore

As I have noted before, you have a very unusual view of what constitutes replication that is completely different from the accepted view across all of the physical sciences as far as I know. As an outsider, I think you at least should understand and respect the norms of the scientific community that you enter rather than throwing around accusations that are based on your re-interpretation of what constitutes appropriate scientific behavior.

Is it possible that in at least some of these cases, you’re getting indignant about something in the published research that you regard as a flagrant abuse of scientific practice, but which is actually just an aspect of standard scientific practice that you’re not fully familiar with or don’t fully understand?