# The hottest year on record - how true? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 22, 2017, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908 "2017-07-22T22:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/21 "2017-07-23T20:25:34Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > … As to the rest, you already stated that one of them said “that colling may happen.” That’s why I’d then quoted you as stating that he’d said “that colling may happen.” Is there a good reason to keep misspelling “cooling” over and over and over? Remember — this is a permanent record! ---
**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:** [July 23, 2017, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/22 "2017-07-23T20:38:48Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Is there a good reason to keep misspelling “cooling” over and over and over? Remember — this is a permanent record! I have to say that his record of going for nitpicks as if that would be important to the issue of the deniers or contrarians being wrong to be unblemished. 🙂 I also have to notice here that TOWP skipped also the questions I made to continue with the nitpick. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2017, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/23 "2017-07-23T21:41:28Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I have to say that his record of going for nitpicks as if that would be important to the issue of the deniers or contrarians being wrong to be unblemished. 🙂 > > I also have to notice here that TOWP skipped also the questions I made to continue with the nitpick. Well, as to the first part, I didn’t want to be accused of misquoting anyone, and so I simply quoted it as it was written. Call me overcautious, if you like. And as to the second? A quote was brought to my attention; and I explained what, as far as I could tell, _that quote meant._ I was then asked whether I could weigh in on what folks are telling us to expect, and I – can but reply that, if anyone supplies me with another quote, I’d be happy to explain what _it_ means; but I’m not currently aware of anything that’s been said on the matter. So what’s skipped? That’s literally my knowledge of the subject, and I said so! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/24 "2017-07-24T15:48:44Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I’m generally a believer in climate change, but admit I don’t follow the issue closely. I’ve seen several headlines from a right-leaning FB friend recently claiming that stats saying that we’ve had particularly hot years recently are only depending on adjusted (and presumably “fake”) data, somehow. > > Is this true? If we just took the most pure unadulterated thermometer readings and averaged them together, was 2016 the hottest (or close to it) year on record? Or do those stats all go through bunch of analysis (even if honestly intended)? Or is there some reason why that’s an obviously foolish and naive question? > > thanks! I would like to ask a related question and hopefully not get jumped on as a climate denier. I guess I could preface this with the fact that I do believe in climate change (human caused), and that CO2 is a GHG and all that. My question, though, is how much do we use the data from 1880 up to, say, the 60’s or even 70’s and 80’s in demonstrating that this or that year is the ‘hottest year on record’? I mean, 2015 was the hottest year (globally) on record…but, ISTM, that doesn’t really say much since how reliable data was from 1880+ or how widely distributed the measurements were can’t possibly be close to today…at least I wouldn’t think so. I realize the Royal Navy took such measurements seriously and did have ships all over, but it can’t be anything like today either WRT accuracy or distribution. So, does this data actually have meaning? How is it adjusted to make it in line with data from today (is it?)? Again, to preempt any attacks, I am really just asking a question that I’d love a serious answer to from one of the 'dopers who seems to know a lot about this subject, just for my own education. I’m neither a climate scientist nor do I play one on the SDMB…nor have I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately. If the old measurements are pretty much meaningless wrt climate science and merely used as a rough baseline, that’s fine…or if we have a bunch of other stuff we can use better to know what the temperatures were in the past more precisely, that’s fine too. Just would love to know how this fits in. ---
**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:** [July 24, 2017, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/25 "2017-07-24T15:57:40Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I would like to ask a related question and hopefully not get jumped on as a climate denier. I guess I could preface this with the fact that I do believe in climate change (human caused), and that CO2 is a GHG and all that. My question, though, is how much do we use the data from 1880 up to, say, the 60’s or even 70’s and 80’s in demonstrating that this or that year is the ‘hottest year on record’? I mean, 2015 was the hottest year (globally) on record…but, ISTM, that doesn’t really say much since how reliable data was from 1880+ or how widely distributed the measurements were can’t possibly be close to today…at least I wouldn’t think so. I realize the Royal Navy took such measurements seriously and did have ships all over, but it can’t be anything like today either WRT accuracy or distribution. So, does this data actually have meaning? How is it adjusted to make it in line with data from today (is it?)? Again, and you only needed to check the early link, if scientists had wanted to scare people more they would had used the raw data that shows more warming than the adjusted ones. But they don’t do that because they do know that some readings were affected by issues or items around the detectors that affected the measurements. > [@XT](#): > > Again, to preempt any attacks, I am really just asking a question that I’d love a serious answer to from one of the 'dopers who seems to know a lot about this subject, just for my own education. I’m neither a climate scientist nor do I play one on the SDMB…nor have I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express lately. If the old measurements are pretty much meaningless wrt climate science and merely used as a rough baseline, that’s fine…or if we have a bunch of other stuff we can use better to know what the temperatures were in the past more precisely, that’s fine too. Just would love to know how this fits in. That is ok, but as mentioned before, the claim that the measurements are meaningless is an extraordinary claim that needs better evidence. Since there is no good evidence on that regard, and Christopher Booker that proposed that the data was being ignored or changed was shown to be a klutz regarding the evidence, one has to go for the best explanation. That the readings are, generally speaking, very accurate and good. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/26 "2017-07-24T16:05:45Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] That is ok, but as mentioned before, the claim that the measurements are meaningless is an extraordinary claim that needs better evidence. [/QUOTE] I’m not claiming, I’m asking…why are the measurements used? Are they as good as today? Is there an adjustment used? I didn’t see the answer to this in the link but maybe I missed it. I don’t need a doctoral dissertation on this, just a quick line or two explanation…Climate Science for Dummies and XT. ETA: > [@](#): > > Since there is no good evidence on that regard, and Christopher Booker that proposed that the data was being ignored or changed was shown to be a klutz regarding the evidence, one has to go for the best explanation. That the readings are, generally speaking, very accurate and good. Ok. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/27 "2017-07-24T17:36:20Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > A statement that could be applied to nearly any posting by the individual in question. > > Looking at atmospheric surface temperature may produce discrepancies or be subject to interpretation, but the atmosphere and terrestrial surface combined contributed less than 5% of the external heat capacity of the planet. The dominant thermal reservoir are the oceans, which provide over 93% of the thermal mass of the Earth. The mean temperature of the upper layer of the ocean (from the surface down to about 700 m) has [been measured to have increased by ~0.2 K over the last fifty years, with increasing fidelity and coverage over that period.](https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/oceansicerocks/thermalenergy.html). This isn’t an ‘indication’ of global warming; it is the very definition of warming. We can argue to the causes of the historically rapid shift in climate (although given the very strong correlation to fossil fuel use and the hypothesis of greenhouse capture of heat that has been both experimentally demonstrated and accepted by the vast majority of climate scientists as the driving mechanism, we have about the closest thing to a smoking gun that one can expect in an observational science) but there is no question that it is occurring. > > The notion that warming will benefit the denzions of Chicago by providing more mild winters, even if accepted as true, is massively offset by the impacts on people who will be affected by extreme weather events, flooding and tidal incursions in low laying regions, dramatic shifts in agricultural zones resulting in preivoulsy arible land no longer being viable, and the famine and strife almost certain to arise from impacts thereof. This isn’t a bunch of tree-huggers wantonly yelling doom and gloom over nothing; the United States Department of Defense considers this a major issue for future conflicts and [has produced an extensive study regarding potential security impacts of climate change.](http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-on-national-implications-of-climate-change.pdf?source=govdelivery) > > Stranger Thank you for these _ad hominem_ attacks … I’m glad someone here understands my arguments well enough to fully admit they are unassailable … leaving only my person to attack … Also, thank you for vouching for one of the primary Third Order Denialist arguments … that the oceans are moderating the impact of man-kind’s contribution to global warming … though I would suggest checking your arithmetic, 93% looks like you’re high balling some as though you’re including the moderating effect of melting ice … or perhaps you’re using the mass of the entire ocean rather than just the top 700 meters … Either way, I agree with you … the probabilities of extreme dynamic events will only change slightly and change over a long time period … a 3ºC increase in temperatures over 100 years is so gradual as to be completely unremarkable … ===== I stand on my claim that NOAA’s methodology is scientifically accurate … their citation is the most recent IPCC report … and the methodology is good enough to demonstrate a positive ∆T … which by definition is global warming … ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/28 "2017-07-24T18:23:43Z")
What this really all comes down to, is that climate is hugely complicated. And some people are using the fact that it IS hugely complicated to pretend that we know absolutely nothing about it, and therefore everything is fine. “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” ---
**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:** [July 24, 2017, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/29 "2017-07-24T18:36:09Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Thank you for these _ad hominem_ attacks … I’m glad someone here understands my arguments well enough to fully admit they are unassailable … leaving only my person to attack … That is not correct. It’s not an _ad hominem_ to point out that virtually everything you have posted in this thread is wrong. **Stranger On A Train** , who is knowledgeable on this topic as he is on many others, was making the observation that this has been the case with many of your other posts, my concern here being primarily with your wrongness about many aspects of climate change. I don’t have the patience here to engage in the futility of trying to correct your numerous and considerable misconceptions about the climate record, which others have more or less addressed anyway, but I did want to comment – mostly for the benefit of other readers – on this piece of utter nonsense: > [@watchwolf49](#): > > a 3ºC increase in temperatures over 100 years is so gradual as to be completely unremarkable … This is one of the most absurd statements I have ever seen written by anyone ever on any aspect of climate change. One of the most sudden and catastrophic climate events in the earth’s geologic history was the[Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum) about 55 million years ago. To put rates of temperature change in perspective, this was a warm spike that lasted 200,000 years, during which global temperatures increased by between 5 and 8 °C. The carbon isotope excursion that was the underlying cause is considered to have been “rapid” in that it occurred over a period of 20,000 years. Warming after the last glacial maximum is a similar gradient, or about 0.02 °C per century. So yes, 3 °C is pretty damn remarkable because it’s about 150 times faster than the natural rapid warming following glaciation, and it’s being driven by the highest levels of CO2 by far that have ever been in the atmosphere since the existence of humanity, almost all of which has been put there in just the last 100 years. This level of forcing, which may reach 8 W/m[sup]2[/sup] by the end of this century, is extremely disruptive and destabilizing to the entire global climate system, to the polar ice cover that accelerates the warming when it melts, and to our critical atmosphere and ocean circulation systems that are responsible for the regional climates to which our ecosystems are adapted and on which our food crops and biodiversity depend. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/30 "2017-07-24T19:13:13Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Thank you for these _ad hominem_ attacks … I’m glad someone here understands my arguments well enough to fully admit they are unassailable … leaving only my person to attack … To the degree that your arguments are even remotely comprehensible, they are incredibly _wrong_. It’s not ad hominem to point out to you that there is a pattern here. > [@](#): > > Either way, I agree with you … the probabilities of extreme dynamic events will only change slightly and change over a long time period … a 3ºC increase in temperatures over 100 years is so gradual as to be completely unremarkable … Here’s something that’s easy to understand, because it’s _absurdly_ wrong. A 3°C increase in temperature hasn’t been seen over the _entire holocene era_. Through the medieval warm period, through the little ice age, [at _no point_ did global temperatures rise or fall by more than about a degree total](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum). A difference of about 6°C in global temperature is the difference between Boston being a lovely temperate city, and Boston being covered in a sheet of ice a mile thick. It took tens of thousands of years for us to go from the previous ice age to the holocene thermal optimum. Half that change in 100 years time somehow counts as _gradual_? This is such an incredibly basic mistake. This is the epistemological equivalent of a young earth creationist saying, “Well, was my great grandfather or my great grandmother a chimpanzee?” ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/31 "2017-07-24T20:13:02Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The notion that warming will benefit the denzions of Chicago by providing more mild winters, even if accepted as true, is massively offset by the impacts on people who will be affected by extreme weather events, flooding and tidal incursions in low laying regions, dramatic shifts in agricultural zones resulting in preivoulsy arible land no longer being viable, and the famine and strife almost certain to arise from impacts thereof. This isn’t a bunch of tree-huggers wantonly yelling doom and gloom over nothing; the United States Department of Defense considers this a major issue for future conflicts and [has produced an extensive study regarding potential security impacts of climate change.](http://archive.defense.gov/pubs/150724-congressional-report-on-national-implications-of-climate-change.pdf?source=govdelivery) > > Stranger Yeah, it’s worth noting that just because someone might live in an area that say, might experience milder winters (and potentially better agricultural yields) due to climate change, you aren’t insulated from the negative effects due to the geopolitics. If a large swathe of the civilized world starts to suffer decreasing agricultural yields, areas becoming intolerable for human existence and etc, that’s going to interrupt supply chains, cause mass migrations (which are damaging/disruptive), wars, famines, diseases will spread, prices for commodities will spike etc etc. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2017, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/32 "2017-07-24T21:52:26Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Um… Check your time scales. On the first graph there, the entirety of human civilization is that tiny band around zero towards the end. That’s the whole holocene. You know, that long period of relatively stable temperatures that allowed for the flourishing of human nature? The rapid warming of the 20th and 21st century wouldn’t even show up on that scale. Your second graph is even more absurd - on a timescale of tens of millions of years per inch, it wouldn’t even show the holocene at all! True. Here is a[timeline](https://xkcd.com/1732/) with a much better scale, and no the warming trend of the last hundred years isn’t just like all the other warming trends we’ve had in the last 20,000 years. ---
**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:** [July 24, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/33 "2017-07-24T22:09:11Z")
Excellent graph. To go with that, here’s what [400,000 years of CO2 levels](https://www.co2.earth/images/figures/sks/sks_co2_400kyr_850.jpg) look like. The valleys and peaks are, respectively, glacial maxima and the peaks of interglacials. What is remarkable is the amazing relative uniformity of CO2 minima and maxima throughout the last million years of glaciation cycles, and the abrupt departure from that pattern in just the past hundred years. It puts us into an entirely new climate regime, sometimes called the anthropocene: the climate of the post-industrial age, the artificial climate of man. ---
**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:** [July 25, 2017, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/34 "2017-07-25T00:48:23Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I’m not claiming, I’m asking…why are the measurements used? Are they as good as today? Is there an adjustment used? I didn’t see the answer to this in the link but maybe I missed it. I don’t need a doctoral dissertation on this, just a quick line or two explanation…Climate Science for Dummies and XT. Well, I can see were you are coming from, but I have to point out that it is clear that many of your sources are still heavy on the disinformation. Sure, you are not claiming it, but the reason for asking is because (specially the right wing sources and even the more centrist ones) those sources are not doing a good job of explaining properly to the people about the issue. So, I was expecting that by pointing to Booker, one of the most cited misleaders about the validity of the instrumental temperature record, it would point others to the explanations that I also pointed at in previous debates, like this one: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18440343&postcount=12](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18440343&postcount=12) The pertinent quote: > **[Paul Homewood and Christopher Booker are wrong about global surface temperatures](https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/paul-homewood-and-christopher-booker.html)** > > Global warming & climate change. Eavesdropping on climate science deniers, their weird pseudo-science and crazy conspiracy theories. [QUOTE] Christopher Booker comes across as no better than extremist conspiracy nutters who write for WUWT or Prison Planet or Above Top Secret or some other lunatic blog. Apparently before he declared his denialism, Christopher Booker had a career as a journalist. He still manages to persuade some gullible or attention-seeking editors to publish his nonsense. Kevin Cowtan is a scientist. He’s not a climate scientist but he has made a very valuable contribution to the science of global temperature records. You may have heard of the Cowtan and Way paper that was widely acclaimed last year. He investigated the claims made by Paul Homewood and Christopher Booker. Here are two you tube videos to let you know what he found. The first is about claims made about Paraguay: [QUOTE] The original weather station operators didn't always do this [calibration] so NOAA have to do a retrospective current calibration by comparing nearby weather stations. Puerto Casado shows a big drop in temperature around 1970 and another around 2000, that would usually mean a calibration problem. But it could be real. Let’s check a couple of nearby stations: Concepcion shows a similar drop around 1970 and so does the higher Negra, that now suggests that the drop might be real. What about stations outside Paraguay? Las Lomitas does not show the same drop; could the temperature drop is specific to one country? It could if the were was a change in operating practices in that country. So let’s try building a temperature record for Paraguay using only stations located just outside of the country. When we do this we don’t see the big drop around nineteen seventy or two thousand and if we compare our new record with the NOAA record using the adjusted stations within Paraguay they’re pretty similar. An independent check using a different set of stations suggests that there is a calibration issue with the Paraguay data and that NOAA has fixed it. Let’s look for another independent check: Berkeley Earth started from the raw data and applied their own calibrations and they also show a steady warming trend for Paraguay. This isn’t proof but it at least looks likely that NOAA got it right. The next step would be to check with NOAA and with people in Paraguay but let’s for a moment assume that Booker is right and that Noah are tampering with the data. We can calculate a global land temperature record using the NOAA adjusted data and then we can do the same calculation with the raw unadjusted data. Adjusted data do show a little bit less warming, but only about ten percent less over the last 50 years, and remember: this is land only data. Two-thirds of the planet is ocean which isn’t affected by the weather station adjustments if we consider the whole planet the newer adjustments make only about three percent difference to the amount of warm over the last 50 years so Booker’s claim is that Noah a tampering with the data to make it look as though global warming is happening about three percent faster than reality… Why would they do that? \* [/QUOTE] The second one is about the Arctic. Go to YouTube to get the files that Kevin refers to. [/QUOTE] - Quote added for the ones that do not like to check videos. ---
**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:** [July 25, 2017, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/35 "2017-07-25T03:06:30Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > This is such an incredibly basic mistake. This is the epistemological equivalent of a young earth creationist saying, “Well, was my great grandfather or my great grandmother a chimpanzee?” 🙂 BTW, I pointed at Christopher Booker because he is one of the main sources for the recent denier efforts at attempting to plant doubts about the temperature record, it should not surprise you that the same guy that the Telegraph and other right wing sources used is also an Intelligent Designer follower or a creationist. > **[How much longer can Christopher Booker go on misleading readers? | George...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/may/13/christopher-booker-misleading)** > > George Monbiot: Everyone makes mistakes. But journalists must tailor their beliefs to the evidence, not the other way round > [@](#): > > A list of all the howlers he has made in recent years would fill a book, but here is a small selection: > > **Global warming** > > Booker dismisses much of climate science, tending to prefer unqualified bloggers to provide his information. After other anti science subjects, the report tell us that Booker was also involved in disparaging evolution. (Booker does demonstrate the huge crank magnetism that the deniers of science are, they can not have just one subject to deny). > [@](#): > > Evolution > > In an article for the Spectator last year, Booker questioned the theory of evolution by natural selection, suggesting that it could not answer the following objections: > > • If each form of life gradually evolved through tiny variations … why does every fossil we find so identifiably belong to a discrete species? > > • Where are all the “intermediate forms” between one species and another? > > • How could [Darwin’s] gradualist theory account for all those complex organs, such as the eye, which require so many interdependent changes to take place simultaneously? > > • How could it account for those startling “evolutionary leaps”, when all sorts of changes emerged together in an improbably short time, such as those needed to transform land mammals into whales in barely 2m years? > > He appeared to be unaware that all these questions – the tiredest old creationist canards – have been answered many times over by evolutionary biologists. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/36 "2017-07-25T13:07:34Z")
[QUOTE=GIGObuster] Well, I can see were you are coming from, but I have to point out that it is clear that many of your sources are still heavy on the disinformation. Sure, you are not claiming it, but the reason for asking is because (specially the right wing sources and even the more centrist ones) those sources are not doing a good job of explaining properly to the people about the issue. [/QUOTE] My sources? My sources wrt climate change are generally YouTube videos on SciShow, PBS Space Time, and Science Plus and, well…you (and other 'dopers). Climate science isn’t a passion with me, so I don’t generally follow it very closely. I don’t have any ‘right wing sources’ or even ‘centrist ones’. So…from my perspective it’s kind of a WTF response to what I consider a simple question, but one I’m not really all that interested in digging through the data to find out…thus I asked it here. > [@](#): > > So, I was expecting that by pointing to Booker, one of the most cited misleaders about the validity of the instrumental temperature record, it would point others to the explanations that I also pointed at in previous debates, like this one: Ok, but why didn’t you/can’t you just give me a straight answer to the question? The top part just seems to be attacks on some guys I know nothing about, the lower part actually seems to be answering some of my questions but it’s just a small puzzle piece…I’m not sure why whether it’s a calibration error or real is significant or what this has to do with the number or quality of the data in the 1880’s, to be honest. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/37 "2017-07-25T13:18:17Z")
A new twist on the fallout of global warming: [it will affect air travel](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/business/flying-climate-change.html). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/38 "2017-07-25T13:28:31Z")
Just to chime in, **Gigobuster** , I find **XT** ’s question to be both interesting and legitimate–not as a challenge to climate science, but as a way for us layfolks to understand it better. Referencing folks who’ve raised similar questions to obscure or mislead folks about the science doesn’t really help; that’s much more about the politics and less about the science. Maybe slow your roll? ---
**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:** [July 25, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/39 "2017-07-25T15:33:44Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Ok, but why didn’t you/can’t you just give me a straight answer to the question? The top part just seems to be attacks on some guys I know nothing about, the lower part actually seems to be answering some of my questions but it’s just a small puzzle piece…I’m not sure why whether it’s a calibration error or real is significant or what this has to do with the number or quality of the data in the 1880’s, to be honest. 😕 The point of the video (and the scientist reporting about the issue) )is that **it is not likely to be a calibration error. And it is not significant** , again the point that is missed here that on the whole the warming would be a bit more if the scientists had not bothered to check if the readings have issues. The lesson to take home is that NOAA, NASA and others have done a great job before adjusting the data to take care of those issues. IOW people like Anthony Watts have based their whole effort on dismissing the temperature record by assuming that scientists have not looked at this. As noted also in the video, former skeptic scientists like Muller at BEST applied their own adjustments and also used raw data to report that the other teams (such as NASA, NOAA, etc) actually did an excellent job of looking for those issues that make some doubt on the reliability of the temperature record, so the first point I made does remain: The ones claiming that the data is fake or changed to fit a narrative should be dismissed until they give is serious data and not misleading information. > **[Richard Muller: I Was Wrong on Global Warming](https://thinc.blog/2015/01/09/richard-muller-i-was-wrong-on-global-warming/comment-page-1/)** > > Physicist Richard Muller became a hero to the climate denial community a few years ago, after saying some pretty harsh things about climate science, and scientists. He started the Berkeley Earth Su… Mentioning people like Booker is relevant to the OP that reported that “[scientists] are only depending on adjusted (and presumably “fake”) data” because people like Booker are the most likely ones used by many on the media as if it was a serious source and a reason for friends like the OP to continue to insist on the myth of “scientists with an agenda” on Facebook. ---
**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:** [July 25, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908/40 "2017-07-25T16:01:56Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Just to chime in, **Gigobuster** , I find **XT** ’s question to be both interesting and legitimate–not as a challenge to climate science, but as a way for us layfolks to understand it better. Referencing folks who’ve raised similar questions to obscure or mislead folks about the science doesn’t really help; that’s much more about the politics and less about the science. > > Maybe slow your roll? Well, I have to apologize for coming like that in your view, but as noted this was dealt with many times before, I think that the point that I made, **that it is not** people like **XT** the ones causing misleading information to gain traction was missed. The point I make here is that it amazes me that some are taking the bile tossed at deserving people like Booker and the media as if it is being directed at the lay-folks. Personally, I get glad when posters make us aware about who or what is the most likely source of a misleading bit information that shows up, don’t you think the same? Me and many others should wonder why is that after decades of experts working on this it is that undeserving doubt is assigned to the temperature record. The point is also missed that the “referenced folks who raised similar questions in the past” were demonstrated to not also get the science wrong but they were really cranks like Booker. The issue then has to be raised: We should demand better from our sources of information. Whereas it is the MSM or our buddies in Facebook. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-hottest-year-on-record-how-true/791908.md?page=3)