These are painful times for those hoping to see an international consensus and substantive action on global warming.
In the US, Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney said in June 2011: “The world is getting warmer” and “humans have contributed” but in October 2011 he backtracked to: “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet.”
His Republican challenger Rick Santorum added: “We have learned to be sceptical of ‘scientific’ claims, particularly those at war with our common sense” and Rick Perry, who suspended his campaign to become the Republican presidential candidate last month, stated flatly: “It’s all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.”
Meanwhile, the scientific consensus has moved in the opposite direction. In a study published in October 2011, 97% of climate scientists surveyed agreed global temperatures have risen over the past 100 years. Only 5% disagreed that human activity is a significant cause of global warming.
The study concluded in the following way: “We found disagreement over the future effects of climate change, but not over the existence of anthropogenic global warming.
“Indeed, it is possible that the growing public perception of scientific disagreement over the existence of anthropocentric warming, which was stimulated by press accounts of [the UK’s] ”Climategate“ is actually a misperception of the normal range of disagreements that may persist within a broad scientific consensus.”
More progress has been made in Europe, where the EU has established targets to reduce emissions by 20% (from 1990 levels) by 2020. The UK, which has been beset by similar denial movements, was nonetheless able to establish, as a legally binding target, an 80% reduction by 2050 and is a world leader on abatement.
In Australia, any prospect for consensus was lost when Tony Abbott used opposition to the Labor government’s proposed carbon market to replace Malcolm Turnbull as leader of the Federal Opposition in late 2009.
It used to be possible to hear right-wing politicians in Australia or the USA echo the Democratic congressman Henry Waxman who said last year:
“If my doctor told me I had cancer, I wouldn’t scour the country to find someone to tell me that I don’t need to worry about it.”
But such rationality has largely left the debate in both the US and Oz. In Australia, a reformulated carbon tax policy was enacted in November only after a highly partisan debate.
In Canada, the debate is a tad more balanced. The centre-right Liberal government in British Columbia passed the first carbon tax in North America in 2008, but the governing Federal Conservative party now offers a reliable “anti-Kyoto” partnership with Washington.
Overviews of the evidence for global warming, together with responses to common questions, are available from various sources, including:
- Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense, in Scientific American
- Climate change: A Guide for the Perplexed, in New Scientist
- Cooling the Warming Debate: Major New Analysis Confirms That Global Warming Is Real, in Science Daily
- Remind me again: how does climate change work?, on The Conversation
It should be acknowledged in these analyses that all projections are based on mathematical models with a significant level of uncertainty regarding highly complex and only partially understood systems.
As 2011 Australian Nobel-Prize-winner Brian Schmidt explained while addressing a National Forum on Mathematical Education:
“Climate models have uncertainty and the earth has natural variation … which not only varies year to year, but correlates decade to decade and even century to century. It is really hard to design a figure that shows this in a fair way — our brain cannot deal with the correlations easily.
“But we do have mathematical ways of dealing with this problem. The Australian academy reports currently indicate that the models with the effects of CO₂ are with 90% statistical certainty better at explaining the data than those without.
“Most of us who work with uncertainty know that 90% statistical uncertainty cannot be easily shown within a figure — it is too hard to see …”
“ … Since predicting the exact effects of climate change is not yet possible, we have to live with uncertainty and take the consensus view that warming can cover a wide range of possibilities, and that the view might change as we learn more.”
But uncertainty is no excuse for inaction. The proposed counter-measures (e.g. infrastructure renewal and modernisation, large-scale solar and wind power, better soil remediation and water management, not to mention carbon taxation) are affordable and most can be justified on their own merits, while the worst-case scenario — do nothing while the oceans rise and the climate changes wildly — is unthinkable.
Some in the first world protest that any green energy efforts are dwarfed by expanding energy consumption in China and elsewhere. Sure, China’s future energy needs are prodigious, but China also now leads the world in green energy investment.
By blaiming others and focusing the debate on the level of human responsibility for warming and about the accuracy of predictions, the deniers have managed to derail long-term action in favour of short-term economic policies.
Who in the scientific community is promoting the denial of global warming? As it turns out, the leading figures in this movement have ties to conservative research institutes funded mostly by large corporations, and have a history of opposing the scientific consensus on issues such as tobacco and acid rain.
What’s more, those who lead the global warming denial movement – along with creationists, intelligent design writers and the “mathematicians” who flood our email inboxes with claims that pi is rational or other similar nonsense – are operating well outside the established boundaries of peer-reviewed science.
Austrian-born American physicist Fred Singer, arguably the leading figure of the denial movement, has only six peer-reviewed publications in the climate science field, and none since 1997.
After all, when issues such as these are “debated” in any setting other than a peer-reviewed journal or conference, one must ask: “If the author really has a solid argument, why isn’t he or she back in the office furiously writing up this material for submission to a leading journal, thereby assuring worldwide fame and glory, not to mention influence?”
In most cases, those who attempt to grab public attention through other means are themselves aware they are short-circuiting the normal process, and that they do not yet have the sort of solid data and airtight arguments that could withstand the withering scrutiny of scientific peer review.
When they press their views in public to a populace that does not understand how the scientific enterprise operates, they are being disingenuous.
With regards to claims scientists are engaged in a “conspiracy” to hide the “truth” on an issue such as global warming or evolution, one should ask how a secret “conspiracy” could be maintained in a worldwide, multicultural community of hundreds of thousands of competitive researchers.
As Benjamin Franklin wrote in his Poor Richard’s Almanac: “Three can keep a secret, provided two of them are dead.” Or as one of your present authors quipped, tongue-in-cheek, in response to a state legislator who was skeptical of evolution: “You have no idea how humiliating this is to me — there is a secret conspiracy among leading scientists, but no-one deemed me important enough to be included!”
There’s another way to think about such claims: we have tens-of-thousands of senior scientists in their late-fifties or early-sixties who have seen their retirement savings decimated by the recent stock market plunge. These are scientists who now wonder if the day will ever come when they are financially well-off-enough to do their research without the constant stress and distraction of applying for grants (the majority of which are never funded).
All one of these scientists has to do to garner both worldwide fame and considerable fortune (through book contracts, the lecture circuit and TV deals) is to call a news conference and expose “the truth”. So why isn’t this happening?
The system of peer-reviewed journals and conferences sponsored by major professional societies is the only proper forum for the presentation and debate of new ideas, in any field of science or mathematics.
It has been stunningly successful: errors have been uncovered, fraud has been rooted out and bogus scientific claims (such as the 1903 N-ray claim, the 1989 cold fusion claim, and the more-recent assertion of an autism-vaccination link) have been debunked.
This all occurs with a level of reliability and at a speed that is hard to imagine in other human endeavours. Those who attempt to short-circuit this system are doing potentially irreparable harm to the integrity of the system.
They may enrich themselves or their friends, but they are doing grievous damage to society at large.
A version of this article first appeared on Math Drudge.
Join the conversation
Comments (70)
Michael Jones
(logged in via Facebook)
So, "Judge" thinks "Climate "scientists" are kids thta flunked real science at school". No A grade pupil ever takes environmental studies as a degree."
This is just an example of the smear campaign by the speciaL INTERESTS companies to discredit those that voice the result of our thoughtless actions that are changing are climate in a short period of time. They can no longer attack the basis of the science, so go after the spokesmen (or women), anything to delay any needed action to continue the status quo and flow of profits from burning of coal, oil and now tar sands and other "unconventional" fuels. The next generastion (s) will wonder how we could be so unwise and foolish.
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
Geoscience is an accepted multi-disciplinary field, as are climate and environmental sciences.
The next generation need to know that their parents, who worked so hard to mine and export so much coal, were making a great deal of money by priming the biggest suicide machine the world has yet known.
All the while, they were telling their children that they love them.
Troy Barry
Mechanical Engineer (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Thank you for including links to your sources.
When I was at school Maths teachers taught me to be wary of carefully selected and presented statistics. "Only 5% disagreed that human activity is a significant cause of global warming." However 16% did not agree that “human-induced greenhouse warming” is now occurring. One in six who don't agree is a lot less of a consensus than one in twenty disagreeing. The quoted survey provides evidence of only 411 people agreeing that “human-induced greenhouse…
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Paul Wilson
Academic (logged in via email @patientsoft.com.au)
To the Editor of The Conversation
This article which purported to have a maths angle supporting the warmest consensus was ultimately just a beat up on "deniers" and the evil corporate funded right wing think tanks.
The AGW hysterics keep missing the point. The metrics in the early IPCC Reports and subsequent commentary about global doom by the likes of Gore, Flannery, Monbiet, Brown have been contradicted by subsequent real data (not models) and better knowledge over the past few years…
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Dennis Alexander
(logged in via LinkedIn)
JF:
First: Science is not simply divided amongst stochastic and deterministic types. Chaos theory demonstrates conclusively that deterministic systems can operate unpredictably, hence confidence intervals even in Newtonian systems. Anyone who got out of high school science in the past 20 years should know that.
Climate scientists agree that:
1 the climate is sensitive
2 seal levels will rise
3 there is an albedo effect (C18 for that one)
4 Ice is melting
5 clouds do exist and have an effect…
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Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Phillip - excellent points about caveats etc. and I commented in a similar vein on another article here and got no response, except from the usual mob simply accusing me of denial. I agree 100% that the human induced climate argument needs to be sold a hell of a lot better than what they are doing. The argument as they put it comes across as dogmatic to the general public and the general public do not like that. It is about time they employ some decent marketing people to put the argument they have…
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Judge Fudge
(logged in via Twitter)
Mostly, the alarmists contradict themselves on practically everything. The only concensus they appear to have is blaming man for global warming. They disagree on:-
1. Climate sensitivity
2. Sea level rise
3. Albedo effect
4. Ice melt
5. Clouds
6. Which data sets to use
7. Time lags to apply to each forcing agent
etc. etc.
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Mike – like Pierrehumbert, whose paper I already had along with his book chapter (2007), but thanks for the link all the same, you cannot grasp the role of statistical analysis in confirming and quantifying the significance of physical relationships. Ray at once point admits the much larger role of atmospheric water vapor, at 2/3 against CO2’s 1/3, but then simply assumes away the primary role of atmospheric water vapour, other than as an imaginary positive feedback for which he has never provided…
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Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Psuedo-scientific gobbledigook.
Blah, blah, blah, blah ... statistical analysis ... blah, blah, blah, blah.
Get back to me when you have a link to a peer reviewed journal.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Certain research organisations and many universities only have themselves to blame if members of the public don’t believe the theory of global warming. For too long there has been so much junk science published, and the public now has to decide whether global warming is junk science or not.
Peer review obviously doesn’t work in all areas of science. Particularly in the area of social science it is completely and totally obvious that so much research is biased advocacy research, but the university has allowed that research to be published.
So ultimately it is a problem for research organisations and universities to properly carry out some controls to avoid junk science being published, and then the public might be more ready to believe the theory of global warming.
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Dale Bloom:
"Certain research organisations and many universities only have themselves to blame if members of the public don’t believe the theory of global warming."
Yes, Heartland carries no blame whatsoever: http://www.desmogblog.com/mashey-report-confirms-heartland-s-manipulation-exposes-singer-s-deception
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
"Singer is a lobbyist, not a scientist"
Probably true, but as an example, how many social scientists in universities are exactly the same. So often their reports and research is just propaganda and advocacy research for feminist theory. Everyone knows it, including the universities, but the universities allow it. Now the public is told to believe that global warming is true and not advocacy research or propaganda.
If the public is sceptical, the universities only have themselves to blame for allowing science to become propaganda and advocacy research for an ideology.
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
"Probably true"
OK, so you admit you were wrong when you said:
"Certain research organisations and many universities only have themselves to blame"
At least I now know that I can't trust anything you say.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
I would go along with parts of global warming theory, because I would like to see a reduction in resource depletion and I don’t want ocean acidification from CO2.
But when it comes to text written about global warming, I can see that about 75% of it is propaganda, and I am sceptical that global warming is actually occurring. So I might be labelled a “sceptical” follower of the theory of global warming.
Ultimately, universities should get rid of the charlatans who hijack science and use it as propaganda tool for their own ideology, which probably means, just about every member of staff in social science, many of the staff in political science, and some of the staff in economics and business management.
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
"I am sceptical that global warming is actually occurring."
So the 12 month period to May 2010 was the hottest 12 month period on record and you're sceptical that global warming is actually occurring? I can see that facts are not something you have much concern for.
"just about every member of staff in social science, many of the staff in political science, and some of the staff in economics and business management"
What does this have to do with climate science?
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
The definition of climate is that measurements are taken over a 20 to 30 year period, and then averaged and other statistical calculations performed.
Then it can be said there is an average temperature or average rainfall etc, but conditions can occur that are still within acceptable standard deviation, or still acceptable over 100 years or more.
Focussing on the temperature or rainfall for one year only is not reliable science. Where I live we had 2 cyclones in one week last year…
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Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Dale Bloom: "The definition of climate is that measurements are taken over a 20 to 30 year period"
Then how are you sceptical that global warming is occurring when the 20 to 30 years averages all show continuous warming since at least the 1970s? Doesn't seem to be any evidence whatsoever from those averages that global warming has stopped.
"I personally don’t rely on much data from a university concerning global warming."
Neither do I and neither does the IPCC. So your point is a strawman.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
I have seen all sorts of contradictory figures relating to global warming, and all sorts of contradictory claims being made. I also distrust much of what comes out of universities, and once again, if you want to label me something, you can label me a sceptical follower of the theory of global warming.
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Dale Bloom: "I have seen all sorts of contradictory figures relating to global warming"
So are you disputing that the 20 to 30 year averages all continue to show warming or not? Your comment is somewhat of a non-sequitur. I would appreciate it if you didn't go off at a tangent. Please answer my question.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
Staying on topic, I would dispute the claim made in the article that the peer-review system works in science, or works in all areas of science. I think in institutions such as universities, peer group pressure to conform to an ideology or political system is a much more powerful force.
It is also easy to rig research papers. Simply write the conclusions first, then pick data to suit the conclusions, while ignoring data that doesn’t suit the conclusions. It seems to be universally done…
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Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
"There are many contradictory figures regards global warming. Just use a search engine."
I am well aware that there is no shortage of garbage websites, your very first citation with its cartoon graphic for example, that make up their own set of facts. Obviously your problem is that you have very little ability to tell the difference between garbage and sound data. So there is not much point in asking you questions such as "are you disputing that the 20 to 30 year averages all continue to show warming or not?" because you have no idea what is real data and what isn't. This is one of the common human traits that enables science denial to flourish.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
You are correct. I have no idea, because there are too few sources of information that can be trusted. I don't trust universities for good reasons, but many of the people in research organisations outside of universities were initially trained in universities, which makes it difficult to find reliable sources of information.
However, I believe it is not best management practice to be pouring so much into the atmosphere, or to be using up so much of our natural resources, so it is best to err on the side of safety and reduce emissions, and reduce using up so much of our natural resources.
All this I said earlier anyway.
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Dale, so you're not "sceptical" in the usual sense in this topic, you're sceptical of everything and everyone. It's strange that you suddenly started talking about 20 and 30 year averages when you don't actually care anyway. You're welcome to your defeatist attitude but like any defeatist attitude, it's no use to anyone.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
It is quite difficult to find reliable information, and when organisations allow highly biased and subjective research, it casts suspicions over all research being carried out in that organisation.
So not suspicious of everyone, just suspicious of people who have been involved with organisations that allow highly biased and subjective research.
There are too many variable variables in nature to be certain of much, but it is not best practice to be pumping extensive amounts of pollution into the atmosphere, or using up so many natural resources.
So skeptical of global warming, yes. A believer in pumping extensive amounts of pollution into the atmosphere, or using up so many natural resources, no.
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
"So not suspicious of everyone, just suspicious of people who have been involved with organisations that allow highly biased and subjective research."
So are there actually any organizations doing research related to global warming that don't allow this "highly biased and subjective research"?
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
You don’t know of such nonbiased organisations either? It does make it difficult doesn’t it.
IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so obviously they would be biased towards the theory of climate change, and unlikely to objectively consider anything else. I discount universities as being dependable for nonbiased information. There is the CSIRO, but again many people in that organisation were trained in universities.
Someone can run with their gut instincts regards…
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Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
So you are suspicious of everyone who does the research. (It's difficult to pin down what you actually mean.) As I said before, you're welcome to your defeatist attitude but like any defeatist attitude, it's no use to anyone.
"IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, so obviously they would be biased towards the theory of climate change"
The theory that climate is changing? I'm sorry but change in the climate (or more particularly global warming) is not a theory but a measured fact.
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
Accurate measurements are central to the scientific method, but leaving out data is not. I have seen too many studies released from universities that leave out data, or take a very narrow and subjective view.
Global warming is a theory only, and not a scientific law that is beyond dispute with no exceptions found.
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
Dale Bloom:
"I have seen too many studies released from universities that leave out data"
OK, I said you're suspicious of everyone who does the research and you're welcome to your defeatist attitude.
"Global warming is a theory only, and not a scientific law that is beyond dispute with no exceptions found."
No, global warming is a measured fact: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880/plot/rss/plot/uah
Dale Bloom
Laboratory analyst (logged in via email @mail.com)
Chris,
You have called me many names, which is now a reason why I'm suspicious of any link you point to, and I won't bother to look at it.
It is not best management practice to be emitting large amounts of pollution into the atmosphere, or to be using up so many natural resources, but global warming is just a theory.
Judge Fudge
(logged in via Twitter)
If you google wikispooks and ar5, you'll see that the zero order draft for the forthcoming IPCC AR5 report has already written the conclusion that there is more and more evidence for anthropogenic global warming even before they've actually reviewed the results of the computer model runs, which is the only actual 'proof' that links global warming to mankind.
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
Earth is warmed by absorbtion of short wave sunlight. Because of this, Earth's temperature can remain unchanged by returning the same amount of energy to space. That is, solar shortwave energy is balanced by the earth re-radiating to space as a 'black body' radiator with a characteristic temperature of ~255K; that is, from space the earth's spectrum is roughly that of a radiating body with an optical surface temperature of around 255K.
Earth's surface cools by evaporation of excited water molecules…
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Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Well said, Judge!
Climate scientists do indeed assume the climate is deterministic, hence their total reliance on computer models, and complete avoidance of statistical analysis of the stochastic real climate world.
My peer-reviewed paper for an international science journal is now in galley proofs, watch this space for when it appears, as it shows how statistical (multi-variate regressions) analysis refutes the deterministic "CO2 is the root of all evil" view of the world exemplified by the article here.
The article also illustrates the lack of common sense of its authors and all the 97% it cites – an increase of even 7oC in current winter temperatures across Europe would create only joy and reduce current high mortality (always worse in winter everywhere than in summer).
Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Nonsense.
Where is your evidence.
Give us a quote from a climate scientist who makes the claim that "climate is deterministic" or stop making stuff up.
Put up or shut up.
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
Actually, Mike, climate is deterministic, in the sense that it is the outcome of straightforward physics.
Does this make it predictable? Only as much as any other highly complex interlinked dynamic system with positive and negative feedbacks.
That said, we certainly know a great deal about climate: increasing greenhouse gases retards dissipation of heat through the atmosphere to space. Even so, the more feeble-minded among us seem unable to grasp even this elementary fact.
Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Actually David, the situation is much more complex. A good discussion of the issue can be found here.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/chaos/
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Mike, as I said before, you clearly do not understand statistics.
Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Is that you Tim. Not using a sock puppet again? LOL
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
No Mike, I am not Tim and now you are just acting like a ...
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Mike
What do you know about it? All climate scientists rely exclusively on computer modelling which is by its nature deterministic, not least in its a priori determination that climate sensitivity depends only on rising atmospheric CO2. Statistical analysis deals with the stochastic reality, by regressing changes in temperature on changes in a variety of independent variables, not just one, and determining which have a statistically significant role. It turns out that while [CO2] may well play some role, it turns out to be negligible, in the stochastic real world, relative to in situ solar surface radiation and atmospheric water vapour, inter alia. That is why the IPCC's AR4, WG1, Chap.9 (Hegerl & Zwiers) reports NO econometric results at all, despite promising they would. Their findings are 100% deterministic, see their Appendix.
Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
"What do you know about it?"
Based on you comment above, a lot more than you.
"It turns out that while [CO2] may well play some role, it turns out to be negligible."
Tim - if you want to overturn over a century of physics and real world observations, a few references to peer reviewed science would be in order.
Here is a 38 page summary on "Infrared Radiation And Planetary Temperature” from Physics Today by Raymond Pierrehumbert ,Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago which you can start with.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf
Get back to me when you have finished with your rebuttal.
Or are you just making stuff up again.
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Mike, clearly you have not heard of confounding. Unmeasured variables if you didn;t know. Also you clearly do not understand statistics.
Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Matt - you appear to be channelling Tim Curtin who replies to every criticism with "you do not understand statistics" without actually raising any substantive point.
Strange that.
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Many variables correlate with the outcome (temperature), both negatively and positively, but in statistical models, multiple potential explanatory variables (positive and negative correlations) can be included simultaneously. Some will remain significant, others will not. Correlation does not mean causation and the biggest issue with deterministic models is unmeasured variables (i.e. variables not included in the model that have an effect on the outcome (i.e. temperature). So, statistical models…
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Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Tim - this is more waffle. Your strawmen are in danger of catching fire from all the hot air.
Your claim which started this discussion is "It turns out that while [CO2] may well play some role, it turns out to be negligible."
Given that this claim would overturn AGW science, it should be easy for you to provide a link to some peer reviewed science.
Given that you have not, I can only conclude that you are all puff, no cream.
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
Matt, here's the physics.
is warmed by absorbtion of short wave sunlight. Because of this, Earth's temperature can remain unchanged by returning the same amount of energy to space. That is, solar shortwave energy is balanced by the earth re-radiating to space as a 'black body' radiator with a characteristic temperature of ~255K; that is, from space the earth's spectrum is roughly that of a radiating body with an optical surface temperature of around 255K.
Earth's surface cools by evaporation…
show full comment
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Mike: I am not Matt Stevens who unlike me is actually a statistician and thus knows of what he speaks when he says that "you clearly do not understand statistics".
David Arthur
n/a (logged in via email @fastel.com.au)
The physics driving climate change is perfectly well known, and expressible in deterministic terms.
Climate change Denialists pretend that, because there is not a linear relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2]), AGW is false. What they neglect is the fact that the relationship is actually between [CO2] and the RATE at which heat is able to escape the atmosphere to space. They disregard the fact that heat which is unable to escape the atmosphere to space will diffuse to some other heat sink, such as the much larger thermal mass of the oceans.
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Yes, Mike, I am not Tim.
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Mike Hansen said "Get back to me when you have a link to a peer reviewed journal". I do, twice over, and the latest is in galley proofs, but I shall not disclose its title because you as a typical playschool tittletaddler would tell Trenberth who has form in getting editors sacked or forced to resign. When it is in print, check here for the name of the journal.
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Chris O’Neill opined (19th) “Then how are you [who?] sceptical that global warming is occurring when the 20 to 30 years averages all show continuous warming since at least the 1970s? Doesn't seem to be any evidence whatsoever from those averages that global warming has stopped.”
There is however evidence that global warming is slowing down and may well be in hiatus (eg Kaufmann et al. in PNAS 2011: “Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations…
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Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Mike Hansen - you said my "claim which started this discussion is 'It turns out that while [CO2] may well play some role, it turns out to be negligible.'
Given that this claim would overturn AGW science, it should be easy for you to provide a link to some peer reviewed science.
Given that you have not, ..."
But I have, my paper is in proofs ready to be published in a 4X peer reviewed science journal as soon as corrected. What my paper does is test the science and quantify the relative proportions…
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Wil B
Environmental Planner (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Having read this comments thread, all I can say is, the stupid, it burns.
So glad that a couple of amateur scientists think that they're smarter than CSIRO, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, etc etc etc.
There is not one significant national scientific society or body in the world that does not accept the fundamental hypothesis that anthropogenic climate emissions are raising the temperature of the globe. Not one. Yet here are these monkeys, raising absolute zombie ideas, refuted time and time again, as if they have anything legitimate to add.
Peter Lang
Retired geologist and engineer (logged in via email @netspeed.com.au)
Wil B,
People with ideologically driven closed minds cannot see what is going on. If you are not prepared to open your mind to anything that doesn't support your ideological beliefs you will remain ignorant.
Regarding the academies, do a little research as to what is going on in these so called reviews, none of which are actually reviews.
The IAC reviewed the IPCC AR4 processes and wrote a damming report (not the summary for policy makers of course - that was sanitised as per ususal).
http://tome22.info/IAC-Report/IAC-Report-Overview-Short.html
Political interference
Bias
Uncertainty
Conflict of Interest
Management
Wil B
Environmental Planner (logged in via email @gmail.com)
>my paper is in proofs ready to be published in a 4X peer reviewed science journal as soon as corrected.
OK get back to us then. Until then, you remain a joke.
Judge Fudge
(logged in via Twitter)
The important bit in the article is the acknowledgement that computer models are unreliable. No sane person would take action, just on the off chance. Science is either deterministic e.g. Newton's laws of motion, e=mc(squared) etc. or stochastic (i.e. reliant on probability theory) e.g. the average life expectancy of a man born today in the UK is 78 doesn't mean that all men in the UK will live to 78.
Climate scientists seem to want their hypothesis to be both stochastic (hence the reason why they use a basket of climate models to produce a range of possible results) in the long term, yet deterministic (hence their claims that they can predict climate based on CO2 emissions, solar activity, ENSO events, volcanoes and aerosols) in the short term. This is what's known by real scientists as "nonsense".
Climate "scientists" are kids that flunked real science at school. No A grade pupil ever takes environmental studies as a degree.
Mike Hansen
Mr (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Another poster who makes stuff up.
Dr Ben Santer and many other climate scientists point out repeatedly that at least 15 years are required before analysing climate trends. It is the climate science deniers who claim an end to global warning by relying on short term trends.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47
So where is your evidence that climate scientists are making "short term" predictions of climate?
Where is you evidence that A grade pupils do not take environmental science? Or did you make that up as well.
Andrew Vincent
Non-stupid human (logged in via email @avincent.com)
There's a difference between a prediction and a projection. Get back to us when you learn the difference.
Matt Stevens
Senior Research Fellow/Statistician (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Pity you made that last statement Judge - your points were valid, but your last one was just plain stupid and reveals prejudice.
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Chris: I see you have refrained from responding to my last whilst still attacking Dale.
Clearly you do not understand that merely eyeballing graphs tells you nothing about the trends therein. The most telling statistic in my analysis here of the now accepted BEST temperature data series is that the LN growth rate since 1978 has indeed been negative.
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
back to Chris; Thanks to the very clever technique of The C, posts they object to are buried, like my earlier post today, which requires real due diligence to discover, maybe that's why you missed it. Be quick, by tomorrow, it will be buried in 2000 before The C even existed!
Timothy Curtin
Economic adviser (logged in via email @bigblue.net.au)
Peter Lang, you are wasting your time with Wil B, like me with Chris O'Neill. However their silence in regard to my statistical analysis of the BEST temperature data since 1978 speaks volumes, so we need to move on, eg by demolishing their tent embassies!
Peter Lang
Retired geologist and engineer (logged in via email @netspeed.com.au)
“The study concluded in the following way: “We found disagreement over the future effects of climate change, but not over the existence of anthropogenic global warming.” “
But that is the key point. So why are we even arguing about it?
No one is arguing the planet has been warming since the end of the little ice age, and in fits and starts since. Not that mans activities are having some effect.
What many people are concerned about is the future effects. We do not know how the consequence…
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Byron Smith
(PhD candidate in Christian Ethics at University of Edinburgh)
"There has been a lot of scaremongering but it is largely by advocacy groups."
Advocacy groups like the Royal Society, NAS, WMO, CSIRO, NOAA, NASA, 32 national academies of science (including all the G8, China, India and Brazil), European Academy of Arts and Sciences, International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences, American Geophysical Union, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, European Federation of Geologists, European Geosciences Union, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of London, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, American Meteorological Society, American Medical Association, The Institution of Engineers Australia and scores of other reputable professional, national and international bodies. Oh, and the Pentagon.
Bloody lefty activists.
Peter Lang
Retired geologist and engineer (logged in via email @netspeed.com.au)
Byron Smith,
PhD canditate. Young and gullible. Swallow anything.
You missed the whole point. There is no authoritative due dilligence, by an impartial organisation to show that the proposed policies will change the climate, let alone be cost effective.
Wil B
Environmental Planner (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Peter Lang, I'm aware from previous posts just how much of the global body politic is to the left of you (just about everybody, that's clear), but to suggest that an emissions trading scheme is 'left-wing' is to declare like the Red Queen that words are what you and only you mean them to be. A market-based ETS is the most orthodox, right wing economics available. Nobody sane could dispute that.
Saying that Sir Nicholas Stern and Ross Garnaut are left-winger ideologues is a pathetic joke.
Peter Lang
Retired geologist and engineer (logged in via email @netspeed.com.au)
Wil B,
You wouldn't have a clue. Don't you realise Garnaut was the poetical staffer in Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke's office. Don't you realise both he an Stern were given the contracts because those awarding the contracts (the Labour/Labor parties) in both cases were confident they would get the political spin the wanted.
And since when has a government imposed tax or trading scheme been a market mechanism?
Just because GreenLabout says it is a market mecahnism doesn't make it so. On;ly trhe gullible would fall for that.
And anyway, what will the carbon price do?
Will it:
- get the rest of the world to follow Australia's example (like didn't happen at Copenhagen, Cancun or Durban) You are the joke if you believe that
- reduce global emissions?
- Change the climate
- Change the ecology of Kakadu or the Great Barrier reef
Only the gullible would believe any of the government’s spin on this nonsense.
Trevor Prowse
retired farmer (logged in via Facebook)
Who do we believe when it comes to data that is quoted . BOM DATA of air temperatures at the 12 tidal stations shows no upward trends in 8 of the 12 operational stations in Australia for the last 20 years----Again the often quote is that the data from the last 40 years shows the worlds climate is warming . Yet the rate of warming in the arctic had periods of warming and cooling. If you use the last period of warming 1970-2008 and compare it with the cooling period 1940-1970 , the rate of cooling was at a far greater rate. If scientists use a computor program to estimate the future warming , which period would suit their result they want to promote? Look up Reifen,C and TOUMI,r. 2009. Climate projections:Past perfomance noguarantee of future skill?
Chris O'Neill
Telecommunications Engineer (logged in via email @optusnet.com.au)
"If you use the last period of warming 1970-2008 and compare it with the cooling period 1940-1970 , the rate of cooling was at a far greater rate."
That's not what happened to the world: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1940/plot/gistemp/from:1940/to:1970/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1970/trend
Peter Lang
Retired geologist and engineer (logged in via email @netspeed.com.au)
Wil B
You said:
“A market-based ETS is the most orthodox, right wing economics available. Nobody sane could dispute that.”
So what you are saying is that about 99% of the population of the world is insane are you. But of course you are one of the few sane people on the planet along with a proportion of the GreenLabor Party in Australia and political parties with similarly ideology in some other developed countries.
Since you seem to think you know a bit about this matter, could you please…
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