The thing(s) with climate change

[Theo520]

You have deliberately chosen to believe those who claim there is gross corruption in the field of climate science and ignore the claims of those I mentioned. Have you considered that the voices raised in opposition to these scientists are just as likely to be corrupt as the scientists they are criticizing? Extraordinary claims required extraordinary justification. It is extraordinary to claim that 50+ scientific organizations are all either corrupt or incompetent. You have not presented that extraordinary evidence. In fact, you have presented no evidence at all supporting your claim.

I think it’s highly appropriate for scientists to confirm

• man is pumping up the CO2 level
• CO2 radiative forcing has a warming affect of ~1.2C per doubling

What’s inappropriate is claiming the additional feedbacks (mainly H2O) are settled science and there is a consensus on the expected warming that will result.

25 yrs ago the IPCC made a prediction of 1.5-4.5C warming from CO2 doubling. This is a very wide margin, a swag. The target is the broad side of the barn, but it’s a start.

Last report the IPCC repeated their prediction of 1.5-4.5C warming from CO2 doubling. In 25yrs they’ve made zero progress in increasing the precision of their projection. This lack of progress should ring alarm bells for any sane person. The science is far from settled and the policy response is dramatically different for 4.5C than it is for 1.5C

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Let establish what kinds of evidence should convince a reasonable person that the climate science establishment is untrustworthy. I will then attempt to supply (and resupply) such evidence.

Let’s see. The climate science establishment is untrustworthy, eh? I’ll make it real easy on you. Just present some evidence to that effect that is deemed reasonable by at least 10% of the Catholic bishops.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Last report the IPCC repeated their prediction of 1.5-4.5C warming from CO2 doubling. In 25yrs they’ve made zero progress in increasing the precision of their projection. This lack of progress should ring alarm bells for any sane person.

Why do you think it should be inevitable that the precision of this projection would have to get narrower with the passage of 25 years? Sometimes a probability distribution is the best that can be done.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Let’s see. The climate science establishment is untrustworthy, eh? I’ll make it real easy on you. Just present some evidence to that effect that is deemed reasonable by at least 10% of the Catholic bishops.

Ha! You are indeed being generous. Think about it. You have just invented a new legal construct: The 10% of Catholic Bishops standard!
!

Well, OK, let’s get to work…(tomorrow)

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Ha! You are indeed being generous. Think about it. You have just invented a new legal construct: The 10% of Catholic Bishops standard!
!

Well, OK, let’s get to work…(tomorrow)

I’m looking forward to it. And remember, the evidence has to be about** trustworthiness** - not just a general doubt about AGW. You know - corruption, dishonesty, that sort of thing. The same accusations that have been leveled here.

 

[Theo520]

Why do you think it should be inevitable that the precision of this projection would have to get narrower with the passage of 25 years? Sometimes a probability distribution is the best that can be done.

What I cited was the breadth of the probability distribution, IT HASN’T NARROWED.
In fact, they even stopped referencing a “most likely” figure for ECS.

Net, there has been no discernible progress over 25 yrs in predicting the most essential figure in climate change.
There is your evidence, the science is far from settled!

 

[LeafByNiggle]

What I cited was the breadth of the probability distribution, IT HASN’T NARROWED.
In fact, they even stopped referencing a “most likely” figure for ECS.

Net, there has been no discernible progress over 25 yrs in predicting the most essential figure in climate change.
There is your evidence, the science is far from settled!

“The science is settled” is a nice strawman that you can easily refute with examples such as this - if by “settled” you insist that all the details be know to great precision. But for the looser claims of AGW, this lack of precision does not contradict them.

One could argue that the scope of the probability distribution as it now stands - even without any narrowing or refining - is sufficient for some of the most meaningful conclusions.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

I’m looking forward to it. And remember, the evidence has to be about** trustworthiness** - not just a general doubt about AGW. You know - corruption, dishonesty, that sort of thing. The same accusations that have been leveled here.

So the question is how one goes about making the case that a scientific community is untrustworthy.

I suggest we do it the same way we attack the credibility of any witness:

1. Bias
2. Actions in accordance with that bias.
3. Prior inconsistent statements.
4. Untruthfulness
5. Other bad acts
6. Reputation
7. Lack of expert qualification
   and so on.

But we also need to define scientific community. A loose way to define it is all those persons who study within a specific scientific discipline. But applied to “climate science,” keep in mind that climate science is an emerging discipline which encompasses many different fields ranging from physics, meteorology, computer science, and chemistry, to biology, ecology, sociology and economics.

But for the purpose of this exercise we need more precision and should put the focus on belief. So, with respect to climate science, the particular community we are focused on is that part of it which believes that CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming.

We will not only be examining the conduct of individuals, but also the conduct of institutions.

We also won’t be unmindful of history. Climate science has a discernible history. For an overview–albeit from a “warmest” perspective–read Spencer Weart’s book, The History of Global Warming or watch some of Naomi Oreskes’ earlier youtube lectures. The history of climate science since 1988 cannot be understood without reference to the IPCC, so our initial primary focus will be on the IPCC, the reputed ultimate authority on climate science.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ha! You are indeed being generous. Think about it. You have just invented a new legal construct: The 10% of Catholic Bishops standard!
!

Well, OK, let’s get to work…(tomorrow)

That’s a bit like being challenged to demonstrate that 10% of Catholic bishops believe an inverted yield curve in the bond market will produce a recession. Probably nobody has ever conducted such a poll, and there’s no particular reason for anyone to have done one.

So, while you’re trying to find some study somewhere concerning how many bishops think IPCC-touted studies are tainted with fraud, see what you can find about that inverted yield curve too.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

That’s a bit like being challenged to demonstrate that 10% of Catholic bishops believe an inverted yield curve in the bond market will produce a recession. Probably nobody has ever conducted such a poll, and there’s no particular reason for anyone to have done one.

So, while you’re trying to find some study somewhere concerning how many bishops think IPCC-touted studies are tainted with fraud, see what you can find about that inverted yield curve too.

Hi Ridge,

The original question was what kind of evidence should convince a reasonable person that the climate science establishment is untrustworthy. A “reasonable person,” of course, does not exist. It is a legal construct (fiction) employed in certain contexts.

Leaf’s 10% of US bishops standard, of course, is equally hypothetical (If, after presenting our evidence to all US bishops, would ten percent agree that the climate science establishment is untrustworthy?).

Bishops, being better educated than most folks, and being more acutely aware of their epistemic duty to test truth claims than most folks, I feel pretty confident I can pass Leaf’s test.

 

[Theo520]

“The science is settled” is a nice strawman that you can easily refute with examples such as this - if by “settled” you insist that all the details be know to great precision. But for the looser claims of AGW, this lack of precision does not contradict them.

One could argue that the scope of the probability distribution as it now stands - even without any narrowing or refining - is sufficient for some of the most meaningful conclusions.

Well, it’s the Global Warming advocates who have insisted the science is settled, and everyone should do as they are told.

The lack of ANY progress in refining the initial ball park estimate for ECS is important, it indicates an underlying problem or gross mismanagement in the billions spent on climate research.

I expect you are aware the policy response is vastly different between the two extremes, and wasn’t Paris all about the correct policy responses?.​

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Well, it’s the Global Warming advocates who have insisted the science is settled, and everyone should do as they are told.

Some of them may be saying that, maybe. But not all of them.

The lack of ANY progress in refining the initial ball park estimate for ECS is important, it indicates an underlying problem or gross mismanagement in the billions spent on climate research.

I disagree. Can you support that statement?

I expect you are aware the policy response is vastly different between the two extremes…

That I agree with.

 

[Theo520]

Some of them may be saying that, maybe. But not all of them.

The people in positions of power like Al Gore (previously) and Obama (now) have repeatedly confirmed the science is settled, obviously to drown out any meaningful discussion.

I disagree. Can you support that statement?

• In 1990 in AR1 (FAR), the IPCC estimated ECS at 1.5 - 4.5 °C (likely range)
• In 2014 in AR5, the IPCC extended their ECS estimate back to 1.5 - 4.5 °C (likely range)

Reports as far back as 1979 used the same ball park estimate.
Zero progress in 35yrs. Why shouldn’t the public be skeptical of expensive policy changes based on paranoia of rapid warming estimated from the high end of the range

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The people in positions of power like Al Gore (previously) and Obama (now) have repeatedly confirmed the science is settled, obviously to drown out any meaningful discussion.

The “people in power” are not so powerful as to be able to drown out meaningful discussion. As you can see right here, meaningful discussion is still taking place.

• In 1990 in AR1 (FAR), the IPCC estimated ECS at 1.5 - 4.5 °C (likely range)
• In 2014 in AR5, the IPCC extended their ECS estimate back to 1.5 - 4.5 °C (likely range)

Reports as far back as 1979 used the same ball park estimate.
Zero progress in 35yrs.

When I said “can you support that statement” I meant the statement that the above mentioned lack of progress in refining ECS “indicates an underlying problem or gross mismanagement”. I agree that ECS has not been refined. But I disagree that it indicates what you say it indicates. Can you support that statement?

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Attacking the credibility of the IPCC

In this endeavor I am first of all borrowing heavily from Donna Laframboise and her book The Delinquent Teenager (DT).

Why begin with the IPCC? Because it has been presented to the world as the ultimate authority on climate change. And in fact no other entity has undertaken such a long-term, comprehensive study of climate. No one, not the AAS, the Royal Society, and none of the other 50+ come even close. And besides, they all acknowledge the IPCC as their authority.

See pp 3-4 of DT. One newspaper even call the IPCC’s pronouncements as Holy Writ.

But we will let Obama’s science advisor John Holdren sum it up:

The IPCC is the source of “the most important conclusions” about climate change and that these conclusions rest on: “…an immense edifice of painstaking studies published in the world’s leading peer-reviewed scientific journals. They have been vetted and documented in excruciating detail by the largest, longest, costliest, most international, most interdisciplinary, and most thorough formal review of a scientific topic ever conducted.”

So the climate science establishment, indeed the entire Global Warming Movement, has presented the IPCC as the Bestest Authority in the Word. At CO2’s trial the IPCC was qualified as the prosecutions’s expert witness, the IPCC testified as to CO’2 guilt, CO2 was found guilty, and now we supposedly arguing only about how the sentence (drastic cutting of CO2 emissions) should be implemented.

But, in retrospect, there were good reasons not to trust the IPCC’s testimony, and we will now examine (and re-examine) them.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Bias

The IPCC is biased against CO2 and is incapable of writing fair and objective reports. It serves the UNFCCC, a convention which has already accused, tried, and convicted CO2. Its founding purpose is to find evidence that CO2 is guilty of causing dangerous global warming, not to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

It’s leaders are biased. Former IPCC Rajendra Pachauri (resigned recently in disgrace) was notoriously partisan. It ranks are filled with members of environmentral organizatoons such as Greenpeace.

Admittedly, its assessment reports have sometimes been fairly objective. Richard Lindzen once said he was proud of the work his group did on one of the reports. However, the bias shows up in the summaries, which often deviate significantly from the underlying assessment reports.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

Bias continued

The IPCC has acted in accordance with this bias in ways too numerous to count. It has systematically ignored evidence which exonerates CO2 (natural cycles within the climate system, solar influences, etc.). Read The Neglected Sun by Varenholt and Luning for a good account of, well, the neglected sun. Also important but neglected work on solar influences has been done by Shaviv and Svensmark.

It has not kept its distance from environmental activists and has let hundreds of them into her ranks where they have served as administrators, lead authors, contributing authors, and expert reviewers.

Her leaders have expressed their biases openly and are hardly models of dispassionate objectivity. (Chairman Pachauri wrote a forward to a Greenpeace publication, and on another occasion wished that IPCC critics would rub asbestos in their faces.)

Expert reviewers who object to biased positions taken in the draft reports are ignored. And on and on.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

The IPCC’s scientific reputation is undeserved.

The IPCC is ultimately a governmental body comprised of 195 member governments in which the politicians rule, not the scientists. Each government selects the scientists who will participate, which compromises their independence. The governments choose the bureaucrats who conduct the day-to-day operations and control the review process. The politicians write the all-important Summary for Policymakers, and even reserve the right to edit the underlying scientific reports themselves so that they conform to the summaries.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

The IPCC’s scientific reputation is undeserved.

The expertise of the IPCC is not as advertised. Former Chairman Pachauri boasted that only the world’s top experts are chosen to participate in the IPCC review process and the writing of the reports. However, Canadian investigative journalist Donna Laframboise has shown that many world-class experts are excluded from the IPCC process. In fact many lead authors have been mere graduate students years away from getting their doctorates. Michael Mann’s Phd was only months old when he was named lead author of the paleoclimate chapter.

 

[ferdgoodfellow]

The IPCC’s scientific reputation is undeserved.

The number of participating scientists and the implied agreement among them is greatly exaggerated. We are often told about the thousands of scientists (4,000 according to some) who contribute to the IPCC reports. However, once duplicate names are removed, the actual number drops down below 2,900 according to one auditor.[mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_numbers.pdf]](http://mclean.ch/climate/docs/IPCC_numbers.pdf])

In addition, if we count only those who contribute to the writing of the all-important Summaries for Policymakers, the number drops down below 100. It is completely unjustified to infer agreement among all the participating scientists solely by reason of their participation. Many participants are reviewers who have submitted comments critical of the IPCC’s conclusions. Also the reviewers contribute only in their areas of expertise or on topics that interest them, not the entire report. And again, the number of scientists who draft the summaries and explicitly endorse the IPCC’s central claims is very small.