Catholicism and Climate Change

[kimmielittle]

Climatesight has a nice overview of the climategate thing and the results. climatesight.org/2010/07/11/so-what-happened-with-climategate/

That’s where I got the information for the last posts

And yes there was criticisms of not being as open with the data as they should have been. However that is a far cry from blocking other scientists from being published and fraud and other such accusations. Also handling FOI requests isnt as simple as one might think. rabett.blogspot.com/2010/02/experience.html and I am not saying all would require that much work but the idea that they can just go into a drawer for instance and pull out some data isn;t always true.

Except this raw data is on computer models - THE VERY same used to supposedly ] Support CO2 is the only driver of climate.

Also there was some foi spammage rabett.blogspot.com/2010/02/amoeba-gets-underfoot.html

C’mon IS there any wonder why?

It is also important to note that the CRU doesn;t even really own some of that data and would have to have permission from the original owners to distrubute it.

Nice try…Once used in the Public Domain…I do believe The University is Publicly Funded???

And nothing nothing excuses death threats and threats of violence.

Who here, said differently?

Not even if these scientists were surpressing contrarian scientists. Which by the way no evidence of that was found.

I myself, have given you ample evidence…Maybe, what you meant to say: - Is the 1% of leaked emails didn’t prove - by groups investigating their own.
BUT suppression of FREEDOM OF INFORMATION -
Suppression by Partial or no answers -

Which of course, brings us to these, which were not investigated:

The misuses of Authority at Wikipedia to Suppress -
RealClimates banning of authors Remember RealClimate in leaked emails was setup by CRU members in order to stop opposing views ]
The call to redesigning the Peer Review so that Scientists In Real Science Magazine find it harder to publish.

IS suppressing oppositional views.

AND we haven’t touched on the suppression of IPCC papers

 

[kimmielittle]

I’m having a bit of difficulty at discerning just who is telling the truth:

Oxburgh Report:

The Report states that the eleven papers were “selected on the advice of the Royal Society” and that “CRU agreed that they were a fair sample of the work of the Unit.”

The Royal Society Says:

The Royal Society agreed to suggest to UEA possible members for the Scientific Assessment panel that would investigate the integrity of the research of UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).
Members of the panel were suggested on the basis of the excellence of their work and their breadth of expertise and experience (including statistical capability).
The Royal Society recommended that the panel had access to any and all papers that it requested and suggested that the review begin by looking at key publications, which were chosen to cover a broad range of subjects over a wide timescale.

READ MORE HERE

bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/4/16/actons-eleven-the-response.html

 

[JasonSB]

ALL that try to sell AGW

You might want to look at Figure SPM.2 on page 4 of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers: ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf

lynnvinc is absolutely correct – there are many factors that affect climate and scientists know about them and have taken them into account. The reason they focus on CO2 is because it’s the biggest driver of climate change right now. In the past the climate changed mainly because of orbital changes and occasionally because of periods of intense volcanism (several of which nearly wiped out all life on earth). To claim it can’t be us this time because it changed in the past, long before SUVs were invented, is like claiming arson doesn’t exist because lightning caused forest fires before man discovered fire.

You should also distinguish between what the science says, and solutions. Don’t refuse to accept the science just because you don’t like the proposed solutions. The science says what it says. It’s up to everyone to propose solutions in response that will address the risks and consequences identified by the science. Conflating a discussion of the science with how to tax cow emissions is amusing but irrelevant.

Nonsense…Abortion is permitted because it’s CONVENIENT Just as Population Control schemes embraced by IPCC is ]. Abortion …Eugenics…Assisted Suicide - NOW for the Convenience of SAVING The EARTH.

Care to point me to the relevant page number in the IPCC reports to support that outlandish claim?

nationalreview.com/articles/224785/wikipropaganda/lawrence-solomon

Summary: Don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Does that affect the science? Of course not. You seem to post a lot of things that are completely irrelevant.

Regarding the US Congressional hearing: Your quote alludes to the fact that although they felt some of Dr Mann’s choices were “inappropriate” (namely, using the average during the calibration period for PCA rather than the average for the entire data set), they don’t affect the results. Unfortunately Wegman failed to mention that because his panel was “not asked to assess the reality of global warming and indeed this is not an area of our expertise”. Elsewhere in that same link Dr North testifies:

"Now, the basic conclusion of the 1999 paper by Mann and his colleagues was that the late 20th Century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has substantially been supported by an array of evidence, but substantial uncertainties remain for the period before about 1600, and I can give you some illustrations of other ways of looking at the problem later if that should come up in questions. Our main disagreements with the Mann 98/99 papers are related to the assertions about warmth of individual decades and individual years. We don’t subscribe to that kind of definition of the problem. We also question some of their statistical methodology, in fact, some of the same claims that were put forward by Dr. Wegman and you will hear some later as well.

However, our reservations with some aspects of the original papers by Mann and colleagues should not undermine the fact that the climate is warming and will continue to warm as a result of human activities. In fact, the scientific consensus regarding human-induced climate warming, global warming, would not be substantively altered if the global mean surface temperature 1,000 years ago was found to be as warm as it is today although there is evidence that this really is a very exceptional period that we are in now, and again, I can come back to that during questions. This is because we don’t know enough about the driving forces of the climate over that long period."

(Emphasis mine.)

So, we don’t really know exactly how warm it was 1,000 years ago (although subsequent papers have narrowed down the uncertainties) but that has zero impact on climate science anyway because we don’t really know what the forcings were then, either. It makes no difference if the climate was warmer or cooler then than it is now because a small change in the sun’s output at that time could easily have caused it. Heck, it’s widely thought that it was warmer during the Holocene Maximum from 9,000-5,000 years ago than it is now because there would have been 8% more solar radiation at that time simply because of the orbital configuration. The important thing is that we know it’s not the sun this time because we’re actually monitoring it. (Back to that arson:lightning analogy again.)

Nevertheless, the hockey stick has been an iconic figure in AGW, and the important thing to note about this whole episode is that despite the “inappropriate choices” in his earliest work – techniques he stopped using many years ago, it’s worth noting – the result has been vindicated again and again by different researchers using different techniques and different data sets. (Unlike the original graph in the 1990 IPCC report, which was really just a schematic with no numbers behind it at all, but somehow seems more “correct” to most people who are upset that the MWP “disappeared” in subsequent reports.) To obsess about questions regarding inappropriate statistical choices used to construct a graph over a decade ago that ended up actually being pretty much correct in spite of that seems like fiddling while Rome burns.

 

[JasonSB]

Regarding the CRU: Again, nothing that actually changes any results. Sir Muir Russell actually had the brilliant idea of seeing how hard it would be to reproduce their results using publicly available data and the methods they publicly described in their papers. (cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf) It took them just two days to independently reconstruct the global temperature record and arrive at the same conclusion. (Page 44.) Two days! They found:

Any independent researcher may freely obtain the primary station data.

It is impossible for a third party to withhold access to the data.

It is impossible for a third party to tamper improperly with the data unless they have also been able to corrupt the GHCN and NCAR sources. We do not consider this to be a credible possibility, and in any case this would be easily detectable by comparison to the original NMO records or other sources such as the Hadley Centre.

The steps needed to create a global temperature series from the data are straightforward to implement.

The required computer code is straightforward and easily written by a competent researcher.

The shape of the temperature trends obtained in all cases is very similar: in other words following the same process with the same data obtained from different sources generates very similar results.

It seems that if those asking them for the data were really interested in reconstructing global temperatures, they could have done it with less effort than it took to write all those FOIA requests. Of course, since the CRU’s temperature reconstruction matches the NASA GISS one so well, and the NASA GISS code and data is completely public, they already knew that there couldn’t have been anything nefarious going on.

Once again, despite what you class as “shoddy scientific practices”, and not being very nice to a guy they don’t like because he keeps trying to prove they’re frauds but publicly admits he won’t actually use the data even if he gets it unless someone pays him, they get the right answer. Better start tuning up that fiddle!

I strongly encourage everyone to read the entire Russell report because there’s a lot of really interesting material in there (such as Appendix 5, explaining how the peer review process really works, by the editor of The Lancet). But just to pull out the most important points from their findings:

1. Climate science is a matter of such global importance, that the highest standards of honesty, rigour and openness are needed in its conduct. On the specific allegations made against the behaviour of CRU scientists, we find that their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt.

1. In addition, we do not find that their behaviour has prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers. In particular, we did not find any evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessments.

1. But we do find that there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of the CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA, who failed to recognise not only the significance of statutory requirements but also the risk to the reputation of the University and, indeed, to the credibility of UK climate science.

The first two are the important ones for the general public. I find it hard to be too critical regarding the third because (a) it’s not actually that unusual, and (b) in this particular case the FOIA requests certainly seem vexatious. The enquiry into Dr Mann found:

With regard to sharing source codes used to analyze these raw climate data and the intermediate calculations produced by these codes (referred to as “dirty laundry” by Dr. Mann in one of the stolen emails) with other researchers, there appears to be a range of accepted practices. Moreover, there is evidence that these practices have evolved during the last decade toward increased sharing of source codes and intermediate data via authors’ web sites or web links associated with published scientific journal articles. Thus, while it was not considered standard practice ten years ago to make such information publicly available, most researchers in paleoclimatology are today prepared to share such information, in part to avoid unwarranted suspicion of improprieties in their treatment of the raw data. Dr. Mann’s actual practices with regard to making source codes and intermediate data readily available reflect, in all respects, evolving practices within his field. Dr. Mann acknowledged that early in his career he was reluctant to publish his source codes because the National Science Foundation had determined that source codes were the intellectual propelty of the investigator. Moreover, because he developed his source codes using a specific programming language (FORTRAN 77), these codes were not likely to compile and run on computer systems different from the ones on which they were developed …]. Since then, however, he has used a more accessible method for developing his source codes (MATLAB) and he has made all source codes, as well as intermediate data, available to the research community, thereby meeting and exceeding standard practices in his field.

(live.psu.edu/fullimg/userpics/10026/Final_Investigation_Report.pdf)

I’d like to say that it’s a shame that CRU didn’t follow Mann’s lead and do the same thing before this became a problem, but then again, being completely open and providing everything hasn’t spared Mann or GISS, has it?

 

[JasonSB]

Except this raw data is on computer models - THE VERY same used to supposedly ] Support CO2 is the only driver of climate.

I think you need to do a little fact checking.

CRU does not produce a climate model. They only do an instrumental temperature record and tree ring proxy work. Recreating something consistent with their instrumental temperature record took the Russell investigators just two days to do without any assistance from CRU at all. But it’s not surprising that there was no evidence of nefarious activity because it’s consistent with the NASA GISS instrumental temperature record and the GISS code and data is public. As for the tree ring proxy, that’s just one of over 1,000 proxy series that are used in paleoclimatology, and, as I said before, it’s not even used for climate models because we don’t know what the forcings were over the past thousand years or so. The differences between ice ages and interglacials are what are used for calculating CO2 sensitivity because the temperature change and CO2 level changes are large enough that the results are much more accurate.

Now NASA GISS do produce climate models, and their code is in the public domain. I haven’t seen any “auditors” point out any flaws in it yet.

And nobody says CO2 is the only driver of climate.

Nice try…Once used in the Public Domain…I do believe The University is Publicly Funded???

NASA GISS only uses publicly-available data. CRU went one step further and obtained non-public data from various weather bureaus around the world. Several of those weather bureaus required them to sign agreements not to pass the data on to third parties because the data is commercially useful to them. Are you suggesting that universities be denied access to anything that cannot be publicly released, compromising their research?

In any case, the data that could not be released doesn’t really make any difference to the result. This should not be surprising, it’s all the same planet.

The misuses of Authority at Wikipedia to Suppress -

That’s just silly. Scientists don’t control what’s on Wikipedia. Nobody does. Look on the Discussion tab sometimes to see proof of that. Do you really think they like this page, for instance?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hockey_Stick_Illusion

Read the discussion tab and learn how Tamino’s review of the book on RealClimate was rejected because he uses a pseudonym.

RealClimates banning of authors Remember RealClimate in leaked emails was setup by CRU members in order to stop opposing views ]

RealClimate is meant to be a place for people to go to find out what the actual climate scientists think, not a forum for people to accuse scientists of fraud. Anybody who wants to do that can make their own blog. I wish RC would filter out a bit more of the rubbish because sometimes I get tired wading through all of it to find the good bits.

And RC wasn’t set up by CRU members at all, it was set up by Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS and Michael Mann. Your comments would be a prime example of “shoddy scientific practices”, no?

The call to redesigning the Peer Review so that Scientists In Real Science Magazine find it harder to publish.

For someone with such strong opinions you haven’t put much effort in to informing yourself of all sides of the debate, have you?

First, to see how Peer Review really works, read Appendix 5 of the Russell report.

Then you might want to inform yourself of what the issue actually was. Hint: the editors of that journal didn’t resign because they were “pressured” into it by climate scientists, they resigned in disgust at the paper that had been let in by an editor with an anti-AGW agenda – the same critically flawed paper that the publisher said should never have been approved, and that the scientists in the emails were railing against. It’s in the interest of all scientists to ensure the integrity of the peer-review process and when that integrity is breached they have an obligation to speak up.

IS suppressing oppositional views.

Such as?

AND we haven’t touched on the suppression of IPCC papers

Which ones? M&M and others made it into the IPCC report in spite of all the blustering in the emails. People often use hyperbole when they’re upset about something.

 

[kimmielittle]

You might want to look at Figure SPM.2 on page 4 of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers: ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf

lynnvinc is absolutely correct – there are many factors that affect climate and scientists know about them and have taken them into account. The reason they focus on CO2 is because it’s the biggest driver of climate change right now. In the past the climate changed mainly because of orbital changes and occasionally because of periods of intense volcanism (several of which nearly wiped out all life on earth). To claim it can’t be us this time because it changed in the past, long before SUVs were invented, is like claiming arson doesn’t exist because lightning caused forest fires before man discovered fire.

You should also distinguish between what the science says, and solutions. Don’t refuse to accept the science just because you don’t like the proposed solutions. The science says what it says. It’s up to everyone to propose solutions in response that will address the risks and consequences identified by the science. Conflating a discussion of the science with how to tax cow emissions is amusing but irrelevant.

Care to point me to the relevant page number in the IPCC reports to support that outlandish claim?

Summary: Don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Does that affect the science? Of course not. You seem to post a lot of things that are completely irrelevant.

Regarding the US Congressional hearing: Your quote alludes to the fact that although they felt some of Dr Mann’s choices were “inappropriate” (namely, using the average during the calibration period for PCA rather than the average for the entire data set), they don’t affect the results. Unfortunately Wegman failed to mention that because his panel was “not asked to assess the reality of global warming and indeed this is not an area of our expertise”. Elsewhere in that same link Dr North testifies:

(Emphasis mine.)

So, we don’t really know exactly how warm it was 1,000 years ago (although subsequent papers have narrowed down the uncertainties) but that has zero impact on climate science anyway because we don’t really know what the forcings were then, either. It makes no difference if the climate was warmer or cooler then than it is now because a small change in the sun’s output at that time could easily have caused it. Heck, it’s widely thought that it was warmer during the Holocene Maximum from 9,000-5,000 years ago than it is now because there would have been 8% more solar radiation at that time simply because of the orbital configuration. The important thing is that we know it’s not the sun this time because we’re actually monitoring it. (Back to that arson:lightning analogy again.)

Nevertheless, the hockey stick has been an iconic figure in AGW, and the important thing to note about this whole episode is that despite the “inappropriate choices” in his earliest work – techniques he stopped using many years ago, it’s worth noting – the result has been vindicated again and again by different researchers using different techniques and different data sets. (Unlike the original graph in the 1990 IPCC report, which was really just a schematic with no numbers behind it at all, but somehow seems more “correct” to most people who are upset that the MWP “disappeared” in subsequent reports.) To obsess about questions regarding inappropriate statistical choices used to construct a graph over a decade ago that ended up actually being pretty much correct in spite of that seems like fiddling while Rome burns.

Ohhhhh LOOKIE they sent in a RealClimate Ringer

I’ll address these as soon as I can - You see My Big Brother cashed in all the Carbon Credits going to Mr Gore and got me a new computer:dancing::extrahappy:

 

[JasonSB]

Ohhhhh LOOKIE they sent in a RealClimate Ringer

I’ll address these as soon as I can - You see My Big Brother cashed in all the Carbon Credits going to Mr Gore and got me a new computer:dancing::extrahappy:

“They” didn’t do anything. I saw a link to this thread on RealClimate and I was appalled by what I saw and I cared enough to try to correct it.

It took me a good five hours to prepare those posts. It takes far more effort to respond with facts and information and sources to back them up than it takes to make a trite response like “ALL that try to sell AGW” when someone asks a direct question for support for an assertion that’s already been shown (and is well known) to be false.

I’m hoping you’ll actually put some effort in to “addressing” my comments next time and say something substantive.

While you’re doing that, ponder the following:

Jesus exhorts us to protect the weak. If the climate science is correct then millions of people will suffer over the coming century unless we act now. Who do you think would be pleasing to God – those who had the information at their disposal and chose to ignore it because they didn’t want it to impinge on their lifestyle, or those who worked tirelessly to establish that information and disseminate it to the world – those who you accuse of fraud and corruption so cavalierly without regard to the fact that they have been exonerated by multiple, independent enquiries?

If climate science is somehow wrong then it means we moved to alternative energy sources a few decades before we would have had to anyway (in the case of oil at least, a bit longer in the case of coal). Economic studies have shown an impact of a few percent to our bottom line. Of course, if climate science did somehow turn out to be wrong then a decade or so from now people could return to Business As Usual and continue using what’s left of a dwindling resource as quickly as they can.

Now, put aside for the moment that I think the chance of climate science being wrong and the climate sensitivity to CO2 being much lower than expected is very slim indeed, and answer me this: What percentage likelihood of climate science being correct would it take for you to decide it’s worth acting to save those millions who would suffer if it’s correct? Does it have to be 90% likely to be correct before you think it’s worth making the changes necessary to save all those people? 50%? People take out insurance on their house when there’s only a small probability that it will be needed, so how about that? In other words, are you that confident that somehow the science is wrong that you’re willing to gamble with all those peoples lives?

Then, after you’ve decided what likelihood of disaster for millions of people it would take for you to act, try to decide rationally whether the actual likelihood is lower than that and therefore inaction is a safe bet. Keep in mind that the polar ice cap, glaciers, birds, trees, flowers, etc., all know nothing of politics or ideologies – they’re just responding to the changes they are experiencing, and respond they have been.

I look forward to your substantive reply.

 

[kimmielittle]

You might want to look at Figure SPM.2 on page 4 of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers: ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf

Is this an appeal to Authority? First and foremost IPCC is a political arm of The UN. A political arm that has a history of hmmm mistakes being polite ].

lynnvinc is absolutely correct – there are many factors that affect climate and scientists know about them and have taken them into account. The reason they focus on CO2 is because it’s the biggest driver of climate change right now. In the past the climate changed mainly because of orbital changes and occasionally because of periods of intense volcanism (several of which nearly wiped out all life on earth). To claim it can’t be us this time because it changed in the past, long before SUVs were invented, is like claiming arson doesn’t exist because lightning caused forest fires before man discovered fire.

Evidently, you didn’t understand what I was trying to say. To AGW’s CO2 IS the Driver of Climate - nothing else. To come to this conclusion one must Ignore Solar, Ocean Oscillations, Clouds, Water vapor etc etc

Now, How can we ignore or give / put a limit on ] things IPCC readily admits it has no idea 1 How they effect Climate 2 How much they effect climate 3 Their interactions with each other?

Your above link: lists the word “likely” some sixty+ 60+ ] times…in Eighteen 18 ] pages…AND is Italicized. Now, think with a scientific mind for a minute. The word “likely” in science means what?

Yes, your link showed a nice graph of “RADIATIVE FORCING COMPONENTS” - Just how are those figures derived at? They assume all is at equilibrium - We know this is a false assumption. We know water vapor isn’t - But we don’t even know at what “feedback” or “forcing” to attribute to it - and it’s one of the simplest of GHE, as far as composition.

You should also distinguish between what the science says, and solutions.

Then we need to keep IPCC UN out of the Solution business…Because THEY darn sure mix them.

What exactly does Science say about the harmful effects of CO2 - I mean the truth?

Science - Observational Science - says:
Increase CO2 and plants grow better.
No ill effects are seen on US Submarines at 8000ppm to humans.

What does a slightly warmer temperature mean to humans?
Can you prove it’s harmful? Nobody has yet.

As a fact, what claims made by IPCC, has withstood Observational Evidence?

The science says what it says. It’s up to everyone to propose solutions in response that will address the risks and consequences identified by the science.

Actually, The science hasn’t identified anything. AGW is an unproven hypothesis - Until Observational Evidence Not some model or graph ] But causation - effect is presented in support of it’s claims. There is some evidence that CO2 follows warming by hundreds of years - this seems to hinder the theory.

Care to point me to the relevant page number in the IPCC reports to support that outlandish claim?

How about this?

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said addressing population growth must also consider a country’s consumption rates ¬ a reference to the fact that India’s per capita emissions are a 15th that of the United States and China’s one-sixth.
He didn’t expect climate negotiators to take up the issue of population in Poznan or next year in Copenhagen, Denmark.

It isn’t brought forward by IPCC because they fear the loss of religious - BUT all one needs to do is look at IPCC’s Mother UN - They have their own Population Control Group.

As the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference draws nearer, almost every day brings a new headline from environmental alarmists threatening the imminent end of the world unless all nations submit to their agenda. Today’s threat? Overpopulation — with a Third World spin. A September 18 Reuters story (“Contraception vital in climate change fight: expert”) was typical of the coverage of the latest perceived crisis: the need to dramatically limit the growing human population of the Third World. According to Reuters:
Contraception advice is crucial to poor countries’ battle with climate change, and policy makers are failing their people if they continue to shy away from the issue, a leading family planning expert said on Friday.
Leo Bryant, a lead researcher on a World Health Organisation study on population growth and climate change, said the stigma attached to birth control in both developing and developed countries was hindering vital progress…Reuters did at least allude to a seeming conflict of interest on Bryant’s part, mentioning that he is “an advocacy manager at the family planning group Marie Stopes International,” but what was not mentioned is that this organization just this week signed an agreement with United Nations Population Fund. According to an article posted Friday on the group’s website,

thenewamerican.com/index.php/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/1919-contraceptives-vital-to-climate-fight

Marie Stopes is a World Major supplier of Abortions. Look Her up and you will see what she thought of in such terms of Eugenics…Population Control

Will continue when I can - Still transferring programs

 

[JasonSB]

Is this an appeal to Authority?

An appeal to authority is only a logical fallacy if the authority is not actually recognised as an authority in the subject at hand.

You claimed to know what “AGW’ers” are claiming. The IPCC directly contracts your claim. Now, either you mean something other than “climate scientists” or “IPCC” when you refer to “AGW’ers” – in which case it’s entirely uninteresting what these unidentified people claim – or what the IPCC actually says is relevant.

First and foremost IPCC is a political arm of The UN.

No, the IPCC is a scientific body that generates no new research of its own, it merely reviews and assess the most recent scientific information and collates it into a report for the governments of the world every five years.

A political arm that has a history of hmmm mistakes being polite ].

You’re right, they have made a few mistakes – like this massive overestimation of how long Arctic sea ice will last:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Arctic_models_obs.gif

Nevertheless, they do their best to summarise the science as it is known at the time, which you can see by looking through the reviewer’s comments and the responses to them.

I suspect you’re taking about things like the Himalayan glaciers, though, right? Which were not actually in the Working Group 1 section (which focusses on the physical science and is very solid) but rather in the Working Group 2 section (which focusses on impacts, adaptation, and variability with a regional emphasis), and which was corrected as soon as the mistake was discovered.

Do you honestly think that a mistake like that casts doubt on AGW? That everything else suddenly becomes wrong because there was an error on when a glacier would disappear?

Evidently, you didn’t understand what I was trying to say. To AGW’s CO2 IS the Driver of Climate - nothing else. To come to this conclusion one must Ignore Solar, Ocean Oscillations, Clouds, Water vapor etc etc

Evidently, you didn’t understand what I was trying to say. Why are you claiming that “to AGW’s” CO2 IS the Driver of Climate - nothing else, when the scientific literature repeatedly states otherwise, including in the IPCC report itself? Just who are these “AGW’ers” of whom you speak if they aren’t the climate scientists?

Why not argue with what the science actually says rather than insisting on repeating a strawman that’s so readily refuted?

Let me give you a clue – the climate sensitivity to CO2 that has been determined by the studies done to date can only be explained in conjunction with feedbacks. If you ignore water vapour, etc., then the sensitivity cannot be explained. Furthermore, it is only by taking into account those other effects that previous excursions can be explained and it’s precisely how we can tell that this time it’s CO2 driving it.

Now, How can we ignore or give / put a limit on ] things IPCC readily admits it has no idea 1 How they effect Climate 2 How much they effect climate 3 Their interactions with each other?

By doing sensitivity analysis to quantify upper and lower bounds. Here’s the problem: the lower bounds are scary enough, but the evidence suggests that we’re pushing the upper bounds instead:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif

Please watch the following talk by Richard Alley:

agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

Your above link: lists the word “likely” some sixty+ 60+ ] times…in Eighteen 18 ] pages…AND is Italicized. Now, think with a scientific mind for a minute. The word “likely” in science means what?

They spell it out in the report. Haven’t you read it?

Yes, your link showed a nice graph of “RADIATIVE FORCING COMPONENTS” - Just how are those figures derived at?

They spell it out in the report. Haven’t you read it?

They assume all is at equilibrium - We know this is a false assumption. We know water vapor isn’t - But we don’t even know at what “feedback” or “forcing” to attribute to it - and it’s one of the simplest of GHE, as far as composition.

Water vapour as a greenhouse gas isn’t the problem, it’s a readily quantifiable feedback. The problem is whether clouds are a net positive feedback or a net negative feedback, and the answer to that is uncertain, probably because it’s pretty much a wash. Are you willing to stake the lives of millions of people on the gamble that magically clouds will manage to cancel out all the other known feedbacks with no evidence that that is the case?

Then we need to keep IPCC UN out of the Solution business…Because THEY darn sure mix them.

Where?

What exactly does Science say about the harmful effects of CO2 - I mean the truth?

You really don’t know?

Science - Observational Science - says:
Increase CO2 and plants grow better.
No ill effects are seen on US Submarines at 8000ppm to humans.

Ehm – nobody says the problem with releasing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is because it’s poisonous. (It is, but only at far larger concentrations that are envisaged.)

CO2 could be utterly inert except for its greenhouse gas properties and it would still be a problem. So that’s a strawman.

And there have been plenty of studies on whether higher CO2 is good for plants or not. Turns out that it’s great for weeds, and it does make certain crops grow bigger but unfortunately makes them less nutritious. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. But even if it’s great for plants, turning the ocean acidic and wiping out the base of the food chain doesn’t seem like a good tradeoff.

 

[JasonSB]

What does a slightly warmer temperature mean to humans?

A slightly warmer temperature isn’t the problem. It can change by as much as 20 C here throughout one 24 hour period and I’m OK. But the difference between the current temperature and the last ice age was only about 6 C. 6 C doesn’t seem like much, does it?

Can you prove it’s harmful? Nobody has yet.

Depends what you mean by “proof”. If you mean like a mathematical proof, then no, of course not – but then I can’t really prove anything about the real world to that extent, because we could all actually be living in The Matrix.

What about in a criminal trial – proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Is that what it would take for you to act to save millions? Well, personally, I think that level of proof has been attained, and I wouldn’t even require that level of proof in order to act anyway, but maybe you disagree.

So how about a civil trial – the standard of proof is “balance of probabilities”, i.e. more likely than not. If I said it was more likely than not your house was going to be burnt down, would you take out insurance then?

As a fact, what claims made by IPCC, has withstood Observational Evidence?

Given that the IPCC reports are a summary of the existing evidence, including observational, that’s a strange question.

Perhaps you want something like this?

skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm

Actually, The science hasn’t identified anything. AGW is an unproven hypothesis - Until Observational Evidence Not some model or graph ]

How about increasing air temperatures?

How about increasing humidity?

How about increasing sea surface temperatures?

Decreasing sea ice?

Increasing sea level?

Decreasing glaciers?

Decreasing snow cover?

Migration of plant species to higher latitudes?

All of which are consistent with AGW.

Or do you accept that all of these things are happening and merely dispute what’s causing it?

AGW might have been an “unproven hypothesis” back in 1896 when “Svante Arrhenius calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming. Other scientists dismissed his idea as faulty. In 1938, G.S. Callendar argued that the level of carbon dioxide was climbing and raising global temperature, but most scientists found his arguments implausible.” aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

You see, back then, AGW was the new idea seeking to overturn the established position. What do you think changed everybody’s minds? Why do you think that this theory was gradually accepted by mainstream science, with only a few holdouts still left today?

Have you even looked at all the independent and different lines of evidence in the world around you that are changing in a way consistent with what the theory has been predicting for a long time?

I’m really curious to know what you think a graph of data is, too. If the raw numbers are shown rather than a graph of those raw numbers that makes a difference to you? Most people find graphs easier to interpret. Nevertheless, the raw numbers are readily available if you’re prepared to look for them.

But causation - effect is presented in support of it’s claims.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. You can prove that in a lab:

youtube.com/watch?v=Ot5n9m4whaw

We are increasing the concentration of it. You can prove that by direct measurement.

Increased concentration of CO2 causes an enhanced greenhouse effect. You can prove that in a lab, too.

What you are saying is that despite all of the direct, concrete, physical evidence that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the earth won’t warm? Why?

What’s more, since the earth is warming very closely with what you would expect if CO2 was the primary driver (bartonpaullevenson.com/Correlation.html), what you are expecting me to believe is that the effect of the increased concentrations of a known greenhouse gas are being perfectly cancelled by some other, unknown effect (so we can safely continue to emit as we see fit), but at the same time another, also unknown effect, is causing warming entirely consistent with what we would expect from the CO2 alone?

There are two unknown effects conspiring to produce an effect exactly the same as the one known effect, but thankfully these two unknowns mean we can ignore the one known?

Just out of curiosity: Suppose that I was to find that even remotely plausible – how do you know that these magical unknown effects will continue to work their magic, allowing us to keep emitting CO2 like there’s no tomorrow, and not suddenly stop working one day and hit us with the full force of the greenhouse effect? I mean, if they’re unknown, then, by definition, we don’t know how they’ll behave.

 

[JasonSB]

There is some evidence that CO2 follows warming by hundreds of years - this seems to hinder the theory.

CO2 is both a forcing and a feedback. This is actually one of the things that makes it so serious. As Richard Alley says in that video I linked to above, the CO2 molecule doesn’t know why it’s there, it’s just doing it’s thing. It might have been emitted by humans, making it a forcing, or it might have been emitted in response to warming caused by other CO2, making it a feedback. It makes not difference where it came from.

Changes in the orbit cause a slight change in the solar irradiance, causing a slight amount of warming. The warming causes the oceans to retain less CO2, which causes more warming. The additional warming causes more CO2 to be emitted, and so on, until a new equilibrium is reached. This is what causes ice ages to end.

The warming we are causing, by dumping carbon into the atmosphere that’s been locked away for hundreds of millions of years, is warming the oceans, which will cause them to retain less CO2, which will cause more warming, and so on.

The fact that CO2 lags temperature in the historical record and then amplifies the temperature change is exactly what helps quantify what the feedback amplitudes are.

As I mentioned, Richard Alley talks about this, and explains the logical fallacy implicit in the complaint quite well.

How about this?

Rajendra Pachauri – who was installed by the Bush administration because the previous head of the IPCC, who was an actual climate scientist, was seen by them as “too AGW” – is also the author of an erotic novel. Are we to therefore assume that the IPCC has an agenda in that field, too? Or should we simply judge the IPCC on what it actually says, hmm?

It isn’t brought forward by IPCC because they fear the loss of religious

If it isn’t brought forward by IPCC then how is it relevant to the topic? And how do you know that the reason they don’t bring it forward is because they’re afraid, and not because it has nothing to do with their charter, which is, and I quote, “to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.” You seem to keep bringing up things they didn’t say in your attempts to discredit them, and then make claims about their motives for not saying the things they never said!

 

[Ender]

You might want to look at Figure SPM.2 on page 4 of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers: ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf

There were some interesting charts in that report, some of which raise questions of their own. For example SPM.3 shows global average changes in temperature and sea level and snow cover changes for the Northern Hemisphere and the first question that occurs to me is why they didn’t show global snow cover changes? There may be a perfectly good reason for mixing apples and oranges but it’s not readily apparent and quite frankly that’s the kind of data manipulation that has - deservedly - given the entire AGW crowd a bad reputation. More interesting, however, is that the graphs of temperature and sea level rise appear (overall) rather linear, sea level especially. They are shaped nothing like the graphs in SPM.1 showing the increase in CO2. Why is there such poor correspondence between increased CO2 and increased sea level, especially in light of this comment?

New data since the TAR now show that losses from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have very likely contributed to sea level rise over 1993 to 2003 (see Table SPM.1).

I also noticed that the graph in SPM.4 which shows the temperature history of North America doesn’t match up particularly well with the GISS data for the US over that same period. I guess the majority of the continental change over that period could have been limited to Canada and Mexico but that does seem a little counter intuitive. Also, could you point out where the Mann hockey stick graph was in the AR4 report? It was such a prominent feature of TAR3 surely it can’t have just disappeared.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Recreating something consistent with their instrumental temperature record took the Russell investigators just two days to do without any assistance from CRU at all.

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying that the Russell investigators recreated the raw instrumental data used by CRU or, working from their own sources of raw data recreated the adjusted data that CRU published? And what does “something consistent” actually mean? I find this claim a bit startling in light of the Harry_Read_Me file containing comments from the CRU programmer actually doing the work of adjusting the raw data. I mean, how does one go about reproducing something that was generated like this?

Here, the expected 1990-2003 period is MISSING - so the correlations aren’t so hot! Yet the WMO codes and station names /locations are identical (or close). What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah - there is no ‘supposed’, I can make it up. So I have

Ender

 

[portarica]

Hiyas

Our home is less than 10 years old.
This is the third or fourth company

Then you do have issues with what you buy. It isn’t the the concept that has the general faulty outcomes you have experienced, it is the poor quality of installation or the poor equipment that has ended up on your home.

Life cycles of PV equipment:

oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OIPP/docs/solar_panel_lifecycle.pdf?ga=t

Life Cycle of Solar Hot Water equipment should be at least 20 years for pumps and could be longer for the rest of the collection systems: homepower.com/basics/hotwater/

there are hundreds of other links, perhaps you should upgrade your system to one that will not be breaking all the time. Or at least do not imply that your experience is what can generally be expected from most systems.

Peace

 

[Calliso]

You might want to look at Figure SPM.2 on page 4 of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers: ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf

lynnvinc is absolutely correct – there are many factors that affect climate and scientists know about them and have taken them into account. The reason they focus on CO2 is because it’s the biggest driver of climate change right now. In the past the climate changed mainly because of orbital changes and occasionally because of periods of intense volcanism (several of which nearly wiped out all life on earth). To claim it can’t be us this time because it changed in the past, long before SUVs were invented, is like claiming arson doesn’t exist because lightning caused forest fires before man discovered fire.

You should also distinguish between what the science says, and solutions. Don’t refuse to accept the science just because you don’t like the proposed solutions. The science says what it says. It’s up to everyone to propose solutions in response that will address the risks and consequences identified by the science. Conflating a discussion of the science with how to tax cow emissions is amusing but irrelevant.

Care to point me to the relevant page number in the IPCC reports to support that outlandish claim?

Summary: Don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. Does that affect the science? Of course not. You seem to post a lot of things that are completely irrelevant.

Regarding the US Congressional hearing: Your quote alludes to the fact that although they felt some of Dr Mann’s choices were “inappropriate” (namely, using the average during the calibration period for PCA rather than the average for the entire data set), they don’t affect the results. Unfortunately Wegman failed to mention that because his panel was “not asked to assess the reality of global warming and indeed this is not an area of our expertise”. Elsewhere in that same link Dr North testifies:

(Emphasis mine.)

So, we don’t really know exactly how warm it was 1,000 years ago (although subsequent papers have narrowed down the uncertainties) but that has zero impact on climate science anyway because we don’t really know what the forcings were then, either. It makes no difference if the climate was warmer or cooler then than it is now because a small change in the sun’s output at that time could easily have caused it. Heck, it’s widely thought that it was warmer during the Holocene Maximum from 9,000-5,000 years ago than it is now because there would have been 8% more solar radiation at that time simply because of the orbital configuration. The important thing is that we know it’s not the sun this time because we’re actually monitoring it. (Back to that arson:lightning analogy again.)

Nevertheless, the hockey stick has been an iconic figure in AGW, and the important thing to note about this whole episode is that despite the “inappropriate choices” in his earliest work – techniques he stopped using many years ago, it’s worth noting – the result has been vindicated again and again by different researchers using different techniques and different data sets. (Unlike the original graph in the 1990 IPCC report, which was really just a schematic with no numbers behind it at all, but somehow seems more “correct” to most people who are upset that the MWP “disappeared” in subsequent reports.) To obsess about questions regarding inappropriate statistical choices used to construct a graph over a decade ago that ended up actually being pretty much correct in spite of that seems like fiddling while Rome burns.

Actually wasn;t that the graph that was based mostly off northern Europe proxies or something like that? Not quite no numbers but still not quite comparable to proxies taken from across North America. And it does boggle the mind how people can think a graph make from proxies from such a small area is a better representative of what temperature would have been like over a more global scale then one that involves data across the Northern Hemisphere. But I think perhaps too much emphasis has been put on the “Hockey Stick” graph and people I think have gotten it stuck in their heads the idea that if the hockey stick can be shown to be wrong that if the medievil warm period was just as warm or warmer then today then AGW can be disproven. But unfortunately for them AGW doesn;t rise or fall based on the Hockey Stick graph. And yeah people seem to focus a lot on the original hockey stick graph and forget that there has been several more done since then.

 

[Ender]

I think perhaps too much emphasis has been put on the “Hockey Stick” graph and people I think have gotten it stuck in their heads the idea that if the hockey stick can be shown to be wrong that if the medievil warm period was just as warm or warmer then today then AGW can be disproven. But unfortunately for them AGW doesn;t rise or fall based on the Hockey Stick graph. And yeah people seem to focus a lot on the original hockey stick graph and forget that there has been several more done since then.

The emphasis was placed on the Hockey Stick graph by the IPCC when they splattered it all over the Third Assessment Report. What makes it appropriate to emphasize it when it (seemed to) prove AGW but not appropriate to emphasize the fact that the graph was entirely bogus?

Ender

 

[kimmielittle]

An appeal to authority is only a logical fallacy if the authority is not actually recognised as an authority in the subject at hand.

Let’s just cut to the quick

You believe in AGW, IPCC, RealClimate, Mr’s Mann, Hansen, Jones, Schmidt et al.

That is fine
It doesn’t prove CO2 causes Global Warming AGW ]

I believe, those above have notable credibility problems. These were self-inflicted.
I believe, Climate Models can’t predict.
I believe, Climate Models alone, depend upon (name removed by moderator)ut, and that (name removed by moderator)ut is subjective to the person programing it.
I believe, using IPCC / AGW own numbers, that if USA, China, UK all reduced by 83% their CO2 emissions from USA’s 2005 emissions - We might lower the temperature, less than NINE-THOUSANDS of a C .
I believe, the AGW Camp has at times acted unprofessionally - AND at times on the verge if not over ] of dishonestly.
I believe, the AGW Camp has allowed itself to become political - with agendas.
I believe, that thousands of Scientists don’t see IPCC as an authority. - I believe more are following.
I believe, I will read any papers, as I always have done, issued by any of the above, with skepticism.
I believe, the AGW camp has lost the trust of the public - AND I think, we have been given good reason.

Sooooo…you see, puppet-ting IPCC etc etc…to me…Just doesn’t get it done.

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/images/pixel.gif

    ****Crop        Yield Changes and Associated Economic Consequences****

    It is likely that climate change, as defined by the scenarios examined        in this Assessment, will not imperil the ability of the US to feed its        population and to export foodstuffs. 
                                        ****CO2              Effects on Crops****

          Greater concentrations of CO2              generally result in higher photosynthesis rates and may also reduce              water losses from plants. Photosynthesis is enhanced when additional              carbon is available for assimilation and so crop yields generally              rise.
          The actual response to increased CO2              differs among crops. Most commercial crops in the US, including              wheat, rice, barley, oats, potatoes, and most vegetable crops, tend              to respond favorably to increased CO2, with a doubling of              atmospheric CO2 concentration leading to yield increases in the              range of 15-20%. The crop models used in this Assessment assume a              CO2 fertilization effect in this range, and also assume that              sufficient nutrients and water will be available to support these              increases. Other crops including corn, sorghum, sugar cane, and many              tropical grasses, are less responsive to increases in CO2, with a              doubling of its concentration leading to yield increases of about              5%.
          In situations where crop yields are              severely limited by factors such as nutrient availability, an              enduring CO2 fertilization effect is very likely to be of only minor              importance.

usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/overviewagriculture.htm

 

[kimmielittle]

Then you do have issues with what you buy. It isn’t the the concept that has the general faulty outcomes you have experienced, it is the poor quality of installation or the poor equipment that has ended up on your home.

Life cycles of PV equipment:

oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OIPP/docs/solar_panel_lifecycle.pdf?ga=t

Life Cycle of Solar Hot Water equipment should be at least 20 years for pumps and could be longer for the rest of the collection systems: homepower.com/basics/hotwater/

there are hundreds of other links, perhaps you should upgrade your system to one that will not be breaking all the time. Or at least do not imply that your experience is what can generally be expected from most systems.

Peace

Thanks for the links - I will have my Brother look at them.

Actually, I was not implying anything - except we are not happy with the systems

 

[kimmielittle]

Rajendra Pachauri – who was installed by the Bush administration

I have heard this claim made BUT no evidence - would you provide it, please. To me, it sounds much like a try at conservatives, Basically, saying " You conservatives put him in office - so if you don’t agree with him …"

I don’t believe President Bush had the whole say in the matter. IT might have happened during his administration…BUT that is a far cry from Mr Bush Or his administration - appointing him. I think he was elected by the assembly.

 

[kimmielittle]

CO2 is both a forcing and a feedback. This is actually one of the things that makes it so serious. As Richard Alley says in that video I linked to above, the CO2 molecule doesn’t know why it’s there, it’s just doing it’s thing. It might have been emitted by humans, making it a forcing, or it might have been emitted in response to warming caused by other CO2

** OR ANY OTHER EXCITER **

Accepting this hypothesis - That would require / hold true, for ALL GHE’s Including water vapor