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Climate Science Denial Explained

michael sweet at 03:40 AM on 14 March, 2023

Foster:

Fortunately Dr. Inferno at the Denial Depot site wrote a summary of this issue way back in November 2010. How thngs never change! They just blow up the Y axis and say there is no change.

How To Cook A Graph SkepticalScience.com Style

He even has Skeptical Science in the title of the post!! (Dr. Inferno is a tounge in cheek satire site). Unfortunately, Dr. Inferno has not posted since 2016. If anyone knows who Dr Inferno is tell him that his fans are waiting his next post with eagerness.

This is my favorite graph (link to blog post explaining the tilted baseline) from Dr Inferno showing that Arctic Sea Ice is increasing. Monckton actually used a graph in a presentation that had a tilted baseline like this.

graph

The escalator rises again

Eclectic at 13:12 PM on 9 February, 2023

The (Monckton) thread comments count is now up to 566. The monthly Moncktonian review of the New Pause has always been a very "popular" thread for the denizens at WUWT. This one, with over 500, is probably well above its usual level ~ but I am not going to bother to check back through the past 12 months of records there.

(A) As usual, Monckton turns a blind eye to Ocean Heat Content

(B) The long term UAH data trend continues to rise.

(C) The Monckton thread commenters have many wrangles about what constitutes statistical significance +/- confidence levels +/- Dr Pat Frank's peculiar ideas of Growth of Uncertainties. What many of them seem to have forgotten, is that this is not a case of statistical analysis of an abstract set of figures, but an analysis of physical events where the underlying causations are known.

The escalator rises again

MA Rodger at 05:59 AM on 9 February, 2023

I think Monckton was using RSS TLTv3.3 for previous rants flat warming trends. He now switches to UAH TLTv6.0 although the wobbly nature of the TLT record is the cause of this nonsense (not the slow rate of TLT warming) and which record you use thrugh recent years (since 2005) doesn't make a significant difference. I think using RSS TLTv4.0 would today only provide a 100-month of flat trend.

The escalator rises again

Eclectic at 14:29 PM on 7 February, 2023

at WUWT : "The New Pause lengthens again: 101 months ..."

At my time of writing, that WUWT thread has 462 comments (in roughly 3 days). Much of it is frothing-at-the-mouth stuff, including some also having total denial of any climate effect of CO2.

The WUWT author uses only the UAH satellite-derived temperatures of the middle/upper troposphere. And uses a magic wand on the data.

Jim Hunt at #6 (above) touches on the hydrological cycle. Which is getting uncomfortably close to the Great Unmentionable at WUWT blogsite. Which is the continued rise of the elephantine Ocean Heat Content. The OHC rise knocks the author's [Mr Monckton's] claims into a cocked hat. But it is never mentioned on Monckton's regular monthly "New Pause Lengthens" article. Is such mention normally deleted by the WUWT moderators ~ or is the monthly Monckton bunfight so engrossing that the participants never lift their eyes to see the forest itself?

The escalator rises again

Jim Hunt at 21:17 PM on 2 February, 2023

I feel sure that I count as a "scientifically-minded commenter", which is no doubt why Mr. Watts "banned" me from commenting on his eponymous blog many years ago.

We did offer Mr. Monckton the opportunity to reply publicly to the points raised by Bill The Frog’s culinary themed article, but for some reason he declined. As you point out he will no doubt shortly be proclaiming that there's been "101 months with no warming at all!".

The escalator rises again

Eclectic at 15:23 PM on 2 February, 2023

Mr Monckton is still at it. As it is the start of the new month, we will find (within a few days) a Monckton article on WattsUpWithThat blog proclaiming that there has been No Warming for X years & Y months.

X = 8 years or thereabouts. Year after year, the figure remains roughly the same. The figure X is arrived at by a methodology which is a blend of abstruse & absurd. And despite the step-like escalation of surface temperature [well, actually the UAH air temperature series is used . . . which is appropriate for the level near Everest's peak]. Somehow, each pause of the escalation is seen (by Monckton & acolytes) as being conclusive proof that AGW has permanently halted, and that the climate scientists are all wrong.

I confess I enjoy reading the the Monckton article each month ~ there is typically a surge of 200 - 300 comments underneath . . . where the Usual Suspects (the acolytes, plus occasional awefully astute comments by the Great Man himself) manage to rehash much of their creed. They also get to express outrage against the few scientifically-minded commenters who enjoy pointing out the deficiencies of the whole exercise.

The escalator rises again

Bob Loblaw at 05:03 AM on 2 February, 2023

That's a good read, Jim. It's always time-consuming to show the errors in what appear to be simple results by people of the ilk of Monckton.

As for predictions of when they'll come up with a "new" claim of "no warming since..."? We've had a few years of La Nina and we're due for a warm El Nino year, so I'm going to guess we'll see if coming soon.

I've posted the following graphic in the past, and I just checked the timing of the original. I created it in July 2016. By then it was obvious that 2016 was going to be a warm year. By then it was obvious that a warm year like 2016 was going to give start to a whole new "no warming since..." meme.

So, my prediction is that the next one will probably be "no warming since 2023..." or "no warming since 2024..." We know that the false skeptic's material will be updated by a simple search/replace like this one.

Search Replace 1998 2016

The escalator rises again

Jim Hunt at 19:40 PM on 1 February, 2023

Should you wish to predict the next time the "repetitious claim" will be reheated here is a 2016 preprint detailing a comprehensive mathematical model of "skeptical" behaviour:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/03/how-to-make-a-complete-rss-of-yourself/

"If Mr Monckton’s sausages leave an awfully bad taste in the mouth, it could be due to the fact that they are full of tripe."

Not to mention the obligatory quotation from Richard Feynman:

"Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #7

Eclectic at 11:47 AM on 27 February, 2022

Santalives @19 , it is always a fine day for me when I come across two good jokes in a day. (A) The first is that you say you've read "nearly every one of the [over 200] Climate Myth and many of the comments." And how you felt that the comments were not arranged by date. Thank you for your personal revelations in these matters. Difficult to top.

(B) The second joke: was the David Coe et al., paper which you linked to @ WattsUpWithThat blogsite. Hilarious. Even your paper by the good professor Koutsoyiannis looks half-way sane in comparison.

Santalives, sit down and put your thinking cap on. As Philippe Chantreau [above] says, the Coe paper is wildly . . . wildly . . . inconsistent with everything that's within arm-reach of conventional climate science. IIRC, only the good Lord Monckton has ever come out with a similar figure to Coe's ultra-low 0.5K figure for total climate sensitivity to CO2. And Monckton seems to produce new & wildly high/low ECS figures annually (but with a strong bias toward Zero).

Now, I've looked through the WUWT assessment of the Coe paper. Not encouraging, at all. As usual, a number of commenters there deny that CO2 absorbs radiation and/or deny that there is any GreenHouse Effect whatsoever. At my own time of writing [>80 comments] no expert scientist has appeared to make comment at WUWT . Especially no climate scientist. Yes, that is the usual lofty standard of scientific analysis at WUWT .

# However, Santalives, if you scroll down to a couple of comments by Rud Istvan [an intelligent & well-informed guy, if you make allowance for his bad case of motivated reasoning on climate] . . . you will find he shows that some semi-respectable "contrarian" scientists such as Judith Curry and Richard Lindzen give a climate sensitivity of 1.1 - 1.2 for CO2 alone [without the large additional feedback from H2O ].

'Nuff said. The Coe paper you mentioned is simply garbage. Santalives, please remember the acronym GIGO ~ where sometimes you see the Garbage going In . . . and sometimes (e.g. with Coe et al., ) you see the Garbage coming Out.

# Oh, Santalives, I did come across a joke yesterday :

"My math teacher really hated negative numbers. Hated them. He would stop at nothing to avoid them."

SkS Analogy 1 - Speed Kills: How fast can we slow down?

Eclectic at 10:38 AM on 19 February, 2022

Nigelj @38 :

speaking of Hockey Sticks and MWP's and vast lists of scientific papers

. . . leads us to one of PotHoler54's encounters with that well-known paragon of truthfulness, Lord Christopher Monckton :

(shown in PH54's video "Medieval Warm Period - fact vs fiction" )

Monckton speaks: "700 scientists from more than 400 institutions in more than 40 countries ... have contributed to papers that I know about, and can on notice list, saying that the Medieval Warm Period, which is well-known in history and archeology, as it is in climate science - was real, was global, and was noticeably warmer than the present."

in his video commentary, Potholer54 states :-

"Monckton was as good as his word, and when I asked him for the list, he gave it to me. Unfortunately, I am probably the only person who ever asked him - because the list doesn't live up to his claim. The 700 scientists who contribute to the papers listed, don't say the Medieval Warm Period was real, global and noticeably warmer than today - or anything like it."

Nigelj, I'm sure you won't be the least bit surprised.

[ There is more entertainment to be had, in a whole 5 (five) videos by PotHoler54, titled "Monckton Bunkum" . . . exposing Monckton's . . . er, taradiddles & self-contradictions. ]

SkS Analogy 1 - Speed Kills: How fast can we slow down?

Eclectic at 15:07 PM on 18 February, 2022

Santalives @25 ,

. . . as Evan says, you seem to be getting yourself bogged down with words & definitions. If the term "settled science" is something that sticks in your craw ~ then simply look at the science itself. Look at what is happening in the physical world of atoms, molecules, radiations and temperatures. The real world ~ not the rhetorical world of the propagandists & science-deniers.

# And thank you for the link to the list of papers provided by the notrickszone website (usually referred to as "NTZ").

From time to time, NTZ does come out with lists of 100's of papers, which NTZ alleges do overthrow the mainstream climate science. It is the "shotgun" approach, intended to impress the hell out of the layman who will never read anything more than the titles of the papers (if even that much). The layman who wishes to believe that all those 10,000+ scientists (worldwide) are massively wrong. The layman who doesn't wish to do some thinking (and legwork) for himself. This is very much the target audience for NTZ.

So, Santalives , please have a look in detail at about half-a-dozen of those NTZ papers, and get back to the readers here at SkS when you have identified one or two "killer arguments" from the papers (arguments or lines of evidence that the consensus climate science is wrong in some major way).

It is fair to warn you that NTZ has a track record of complete failure in this regard. (NTZ loves to "cherry-pick" ~ pick out a tree or two, while ignoring the forest.)

# Santalives , if you are not keen on doing a lot of climate reading (as is my impression so far) then you might enjoy viewing some YouTube videos by science reporter PotHoler54 who is a very knowledgeable guy ~ he debunks a lot of junk science & "fake media". His climate series (now 58 videos) range from 5 - 30 minutes. You could comfortably do one a day, and get up to speed about the climate controversies. All of the videos are informative, and most of them are amusingly humorous in parts !

One of the PotHoler54 videos from 2017 is titled: "Have 400 papers just DEBUNKED global warming?" And you guessed it ~ unsurprisingly the list of 400 papers comes via NTZ .

Another of his videos debunks Christopher Monckton's spurious claims about scientific papers regarding the Medieval Warm Period (MWP).

You will find PH54 very informative on the misrepresentations and deceptions practised by science-deniers such as Monckton, Heller, and others.

SkS Analogy 1 - Speed Kills: How fast are we going?

One Planet Only Forever at 08:17 AM on 3 February, 2022

Evan @10

That presentation of thoughts is indeed aligned with my current thinking, which I openly admit is ‘not the norm’, and which is open to improvement.

The following may be more than needs to be presented as further clarification. It should not change your understanding. But it leads to other thoughts related to nigelj’s point @8 and your comment @9 about the magnitude of impacts that are presented in the newer version of the SkS Analogy 1. I plan to make comments about that there.

The basis for my thoughts is what I would call ‘idealized ethics’. My thinking is based on Professional Engineering Ethics which are fairly thoroughly presented in the APEGA Guideline for Ethical Practice, supplemented significantly by the more fundamental ethical considerations developed and shared by Derek Parfit in his effort to develop a secular understanding of ethics that he presented in his 1984 book Reasons and Persons (and lots of other ethics related reading – including the basis for the Sustainable Development Goals).

I would clarify ‘idealized ethics’ to be: An ideal governing objective for human thoughts and actions in order to develop sustainable improving conditions for the diversity of humanity and its diversity of civilizations living as sustainable parts of the robust diversity of life on this planet now and into the distant future. That understandably includes the correction of harmful developed systems and activity and making amends for the harm done.

And I would currently briefly express the best way to achieve that ‘ideal objective’ as: Pursuing increased awareness and improved understanding in order to constantly learn to: Do No Harm and Help Others, especially helping those who have been or are being harmed.

I consider the ‘current norm’ discussions of ethics and related ‘development and application of rule of law’ (and the history of ethics and rule of law discussion) to have been harmfully compromised by the developed systems or ‘games of pursuit of personal benefit and perceptions of superiority relative to Others’. That competition can lead people to evaluate the Greater Good for current living humans without proper consideration of future humans (refer to the ways that people like Lord Monckton tried to justify more harm being done to future generations by significantly discounting, and underestimating, the future harm), and with harm being done to portions of the current population (see the ways that many people try to argue against ‘the more fortunate being obliged to help the less fortunate’). And the harm being done is also poorly justified, including claims that the perceived benefits obtained by those who benefit outweigh the perceptions they have of the harm done. The people who benefit most from the harmful activity can also be seen to misleadingly claim that people who are harmed are also benefiting so it is All is for the Greater Good (from the perspective of the people who benefit the most).

A key Ethical understanding is that Do No Harm means that no Person is to be ‘net-harmed’ by an action. Medical ethics are a clear example of that understanding.

Also note that future humans, and many less fortunate current day humans, have little or no influence. They lack legal standing, cannot vote, and cannot effectively question or challenge what is being done that alters the conditions or environment that the people being harmed have to deal with.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 08:24 AM on 16 January, 2022

Star-affinity @ #900 :

Thank you for the reference to the 2016 Forbes article by Earl Ritchie, who describes himself as a retired oil industry executive (not a scientist). I read the article with interest, and found it disappointing. It was more a propaganda piece, and not at all a rigorous logical examination of the issue.

Star-affinity, if one chooses to define things very loosely, and also use rhetoric like a lawyer-advocate ~ then one can come to any "conclusion" that is desired. (e.g. the good Lord Monckton - not at all a scientist - can re-define "3%" to be the result of the excellently clever Cook 2013 survey of scientific papers which produced the famous "97%" consensus figure.)

What is a consensus here? (See some of the comments upthread.) Broadly, consensus in non-scientific matters is all about opinion ~ and opinion is worth the price of the paper it is printed on [except in politics!]

But consensus in scientific matters (such as climate science) is all about the evidence. And that evidence is expressed in the scientific literature (peer-reviewed papers published in reputable journals). And there you will nowadays find a 99+% consensus in line with the mainstream science. Not an 80-90% consensus (not even in 2013 or 2016).

The 80-90% figure you (or Mr Richie) are mentioning, is a result of canvassing opinions of "scientists" ~ not of canvassing the evidence. And who is a scientist? And are their individual opinions relevant? The notorious Oregon Petition (of the 1990's) had "scientists" ranging from Wood Engineers to Spice Girls. In other words, it was a completely worthless survey, simply gathered for propaganda value.

In short, Mr Ritchie's article is worthless.

CO2 effect is saturated

MA Rodger at 23:19 PM on 13 September, 2021

Eclectic @625,

Of course, there is the point as to whether you should be referring to that paper as Wijngaarden & Happer (2020). Academic work is usually only dated if it is properly published or if it is presented at a conference. Otherwise it would be demoted to being a working paper which is thus not complete and thus not properly dateable. And I would suggest that up-loading a paper onto Cornell University's "free distributon service" arXvi doesn't count as 'publication', it being no-more 'published' than this comment I post here at SkS.

But the proof of the pudding and all that....

Whatever tha nature of a piece of work's origin, it is its usefulness to the science that is the proper measure of it. A look at google scholar for Wijngaarden & Happer (unpublished) 'Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases' shows today just four citations, which is pretty rubbish. And one of those is a reference from a further Wijngaarden & Happer paper posted @arXvi which is but an updated version of the same while accounting for two more GHGs, CF4 & SF6. Of the remaining three, one explicitly styles itself a working paper. (I note its reference list is stuffed full of denialist nonsense: Koonin & Jon-boy Christy, Lewis & Dicky Lindzen, McIntyre & McKitrick & Monckton, Svensmark & Woy Spencer.) The final two citations do initially appear to be by published work. But in tracking down both ♣Pascal Richet (2021): 'Climate and the temperature-CO2 relationship An epistemological re-examination of the ice core message', History of Geo- and Space Sciences, Vol 12, pp97-110. and ♣David Coe; Fabinski, Walter & Weigleb, Gerhard (2021): 'The Impact of CO2, H2O and Other "Greenhouse Gases" on Equilibrium Earth Temperatures' Int J. Atmos. & Oceanic Sci.,Vol 5, Issue 2, pp29-40. I see either a blank space in the pp97-110 page-numbering or the pages pp29-41 taken by another paper. So it appears that the final two citations have failed to gain publication; not so uncommon with denialist works which both these final two citing paper evidently are. (An on-line French version of the first of these two simply presents a common climate myth while a posting of the second's Abstract still visible on a denialist website shows its finding is an ECS=+0.5ºC.)

....turns out to be a large bowl of rather-sticky humble pie.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #31

Eclectic at 16:55 PM on 3 August, 2021

One Planet,

it really doesn't matter much, which baseline Spencer uses - since his main monthly publication site seems to be on the WattsUpWithThat* blog.

*Where "The Error-Prone Viscount" ( as science journalist Potholer54 terms Lord Monckton) has already posted another global temperature has paused for 6 years now . . . as per usual.

It is a pity - and absolutely quite inexplicable - that WUWT doesn't ever publish the Spencer UAH TLT graph overlaid with the RSS graph of TLT temperatures.

The WUWTers are frequently complaining how climate scientists mislead the ordinary public by giving temperatures as temperature anomaly figures instead of expressing a real Celsius temperature. Perhaps we can persuade Dr Spencer to chart his UAH TLT temperature figures in simple Celsius figures - where the TLT baseline is about Minus 26C . (If I have correctly understood commentary at RealClimate blog.)

Climate's changed before

Eclectic at 17:35 PM on 13 July, 2021

TVC15 , from experience, you know how anything & everything is grist for the deniers' mill, in their attempts to minimize and/or deny the climate science. It's always ABCD ~ Anything But Carbon Dioxide.

And their excuses come in cycles of excuse ~ first: It's Not Warming . . . then: It's only warming a bit . . . then: Yes, it's warming a lot, but it's Not caused by humans . . . then: Well yes it's half-caused by humans, but the Warming is really very very good for us and is saving us from disastrous cooling.

Then it's back to: the Warming has Stopped and it's cooling now (for at least 6 years' cooling, says the deluded Monckton) . . . and a Colossal Grand Solar Minimum will have all of Canada under a mile-thick ice sheet by 2050 or somesuch date.

For millennia, the US Southwest has been arid - the opposite of the Northeast. And you can find other regions of the world likewise arid. All it needs is a slight variation in climate, and you've got a mega-drought (a drought defined as >20 years) or a super-mega-drought (for centuries). Nothing very new about that ~ except that now our Anthropogenic global warming is exacerbating the droughty tendency. (The exacerbation being the point your denier wishes to deny.)

I haven't studied past Interglacials w.r.t. aridity & droughts. Presumably similar overall conditions in the past have caused rather similar episodes. But that's all rather irrelevant to the current situation, which must be dealt with on its own terms. And the current droughty tendency doesn't disprove the climate science, nor does it fail to point to more of the same trouble in future, as AGW worsens.

Of course, as we look back in time, the proxy evidence (in past Interglacials) gets fuzzier & fuzzier ~ so conclusions of any sort get more difficult to make.

The "Anthropocene" is a semi-humorous label. Not official. But the label does get up the deniers' noses. Still, it does rhetorically emphasize that the Holocene is transitioning into something significantly different from the "natural".

The New Climate War by Michael E. Mann - our reviews

Nick Palmer at 09:33 AM on 23 June, 2021

Just in case you lot are still resisting the idea that the politics relating to climate science have become extremely polarised - in my view to the point where ideologues of both the left and right think it justified to exaggerate/minimise the scientific truths/uncertainties to sway the democratically voting public one way or the other - here's a video blog by alt-right hero and part of the original Climategate team who publicised the emails, James Delingpole basically saying that 'the left' have infiltrated and corrupted the science for the purpose of using political deception to seize power for themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=866yHuh1RYM

Deconstruct or follow up Delingpoles' rhetoric elsewhere and you will find a helluva lot of intelligent articulate people who believe that the public's environmental consciences are being exploited by closet socialist forces to deceive them, using 'fear porn', into voting for policies which they otherwise wouldn't consider voting for, in a dark strategy to bring in some form of latter day Marxism. They insinuate this has got its tentacles into climate science which they assert has led to the reality of the science, as presented to the public, being twisted by them for political ends. It's absolutely not just Greenpeace, as I already said, who've 'gone red' to the point where it has 'noble cause' corrupted their presentations of environmental matters and, crucially, the narrow choice of solutions they favour - those which would enable and bring on that 'great reset' of civilisation that they want to see. It's much, much bigger than that.

I think we are seeing a resurgence and a recrystallisation of those who got convinced by Utopianist politics of the left and free market thinkers of the right taught at University - Marxist-Leninism, Ayn Rand, Adam Smith etc. Most of those students eventually 'grew up' and mellowed in time, leaving only a small cadre of incorrigible extremists but who are now, as the situation is becoming increasingly polarised politically, revisiting their former ideologies. In essence 'woking' up. I submit that the real battle we are seeing played out in the arena of climate matters is not between science and denialism of science - those are only the proxies used to manipulate the public. The true battle is between the increasingly polarised and increasingly extreme and deceitful proponents of the various far left and right ideologies and their re-energised followers.

It is now almost an article of faith, so accepted has it become, amongst many top climate scientists and commentators, that 'denialism' is really NOT motivated by stupidity or a greedy desire to keep on making as much money as possible but is rather a strong resistance to the solutions that they fear are just 'chess moves' to bring about the great Red 'reset' they think the 'opposition' are secretly motivated by.

Here's an excellent article by famous climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe identifying those who are 'solutions averse' as being a major factor in denialism. It touches on the 'watermelon' aspect. You can turn a blind eye to what I am saying if you want, but in that case you should also attack Hayhoe too - but don't expect many to applaud you...

https://theecologist.org/2019/may/20/moving-past-climate-denial

Also try this: https://www.thecut.com/2014/11/solution-aversion-can-explain-climate-skeptics.html

https://today.duke.edu/2014/11/solutionaversion

I think some people who fight climate science denialism still have the naive idea that just enlessly quoting the science to them, and Skepticalscience's F.L.I.C.C logical fallacies, will make denialists fall apart. I too used to think that if one would just keep hammering away, eventually they would give up. Anyone who tries this will find that it actually does not work well at all. Take on some of the smarter ones and you will rapidly find that you are, at least in the eyes of the watching/reading/listening public, who are the only audience it's worthwhile spending any time trying to correct, outgunned scientifically and rhetorically. That's why I don't these days much use the actual nitty-gritty science as a club with which to demolish them because the smarter ones will always have a superficially plausible, to the audience at least, comeback which looks convincing TO THE AUDIENCE. Arguing the science accurately can often lose the argument, as many scientists found when they attempted to debate such notorious, yet rhetorically brilliant sceptic/deniers such as Lord Monckton.

I haven't finished trying to clarify things for you all but right back at the beginning, in post#18, I fairly covered what I was trying to suggest is a more realistic interpretation of the truth than the activist's simplistic 'Evil Exxon Knew' propaganda one. In short, most of you seem to believe, and are arguing as if, the science was rock solid back then and that it said any global warming would certainly lead to bad things. This is utterly wrong, and to argue as if it was true is just deceitful. As I have said, and many significant figures in the field will confirm, I've been fighting denialism for a very long time so when denialists present some paper or piece of text extracted from a longer document as 'proof' of something, I always try and read the original, usually finding out that they have twisted the meaning, cherry picked inappropriate sentences or failed to understand it and thereby jumped to fallacious conclusions - similarly I read the letters and extracts that Greenpeace used and, frankly, either they were trying deliberately to mislead or they didn't understand the language properly and jumped to their prejudiced conclusions and then made all the insinuations that we are familiar with and that nobody else seems be questioning much, if at all. The idea that Exxon always knew that anthropogenic climate change was real (which they, of course, did) AND that they always knew that the results of that would be really bad and so they conspired to cover that bad future up is false and is the basis of the wilful misreading and deceitful interpretation of the cherry picked phrases, excerpts and documents that has created a vastly worse than deserved public perception of how the fossil fuel corporations acted. Always remember that, at least ideally, people (and corporations) should be presumed innocent until proven beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty. Greenpeace/Oreskes polemics are not such proof. Their insinuations of the guilt of Big Oil is just a mirror image of how the Climategate hackers insinuated guilt into the words of the top climate scientists.

Here's a clip from my post#18

NAP: "When activists try to bad mouth Exxon et al they speak from a 'post facto' appreciation of the science, as if today's relatively strong climate science existed back when the documents highlighted in 'Exxon knew' were created. Let me explain what I think is another interpretation other than Greenpeace/Oreskes'/Supran's narratives suggesting 'Exxon knew' that climate change was going to be bad because their scientists told them so as far back as the 70s and 80s. Let me first present Stephen Schneider's famous quote from 1988 (the whole quote, not the edited one used by denialists).

S.S. "On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.""

Stephen Schneider, as a climate scientist, was about 'as good as it gets' and he said that in 1988. Bear in mind that a lot of the initial framing to prejudice readers that 'Exxon knew' used was based on documents from considerably longer ago, so what are the activists who eagerly allowed themselves to be swept up in it until no-one questioned it turning a blind eye to? It's that the computer models of the time were extremely crude because computer technology back then was just not powerful enough to divide Earth up into enough finite element 'blocks' of small enough size to make model projections of much validity, in particular projections of how much, how fast and how bad or how good... Our ideas of the feedback effects of clouds and aerosols back then was extremely rudimentary and there were widely differing scientific opinions as to the magnitude or even the direction of the feedback. The scientific voices we see in Exxon Knew tend to be those who were suggesting there was lot more certainty of outcome than there actually was. That their version has been eventually shown to be mostly correct by a further 40 years of science in no way means they were right to espouse such certainty back then - just lucky. As I pointed out before, even as late as the very recent CMIP6 models, we are still refining this aspect - and still finding surprises. To insinuate that the science has always been as fairly rock solid as it today is just a wilful rewriting of history. Try reading Spencer Weart's comprehensive history of the development of climate science for a more objective view of the way things developed...

ExxonMobil spokesperson Allan Jeffers told Scientific American in 2015. “The thing that shocks me the most is that we’ve been saying this for years, that we have been involved in climate research. These guys (Inside Climate News) go down and pull some documents that we made available publicly in the archives and portray them as some kind of bombshell whistle-blower exposé because of the loaded language and the selective use of materials.”

Look at the phrases and excerpts that were used in both Greenpeace's 'Exxon Knew' and 'Inside Climate News's' exposés. You will find they actually are very cherry picked and relatively few in number considering the huge volumes of company documents that were analysed. Does that remind you of anything else? Because it should. The Climategate hackers trawled through mountains of emails - over ten years worth - to cherry pick apparently juicy phrases and ended up with just a few headline phrases, a sample of which follow. Now, like most of us now know, there are almost certainly innocent and valid explanations of each of these phrases, and independent investigations in due course vindicated the scientists. Reading them, and some of the other somewhat less apparently salacious extracts that got less publicity, and comparing them with the 'presented as a smoking gun' extracts from Greenpeace/Oreskes/Supran etc I have to say, on the face of it, the Climategate cherry picks look more evidential of serious misdeeds than the 'Exxon Knew' excerpts. Except we are confident that the Climategate hackers badly misrepresented the emails by insinuating shady motives where none were. Why should we not consider that those nominally on the side of the science did not do the same? Surely readers here are not so naive aas to believe that everyone on 'our side' is pure as the driven snow and all those on the 'other side' are evil black hats?

Here's a 'top eight'

1) Phil Jones "“I’ve just completed Mike’s [Mann] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s [Briffa] to hide the decline.”

2) “Well, I have my own article on where the heck is global warming…. The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” [Kevin Trenberth, 2009]

3) “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple." Keth Briffa

4) Mike [Mann], can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Trenberth] re AR4? Keith will do likewise…. Can you also e-mail Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his e-mail address…. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.” [Phil Jones, May 29, 2008]

5) “Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were….” [Tim Osborn, Climatic Research Unit, December 20, 2006]

6) “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” [Phil Jones, July 8, 2004]

7) “You might want to check with the IPCC Bureau. I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 [the upcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report] would be to delete all e-mails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember it.” [Phil Jones, May 12, 2009]

8) “If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s warming blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say 0.15 deg C, then this would be significant for the global mean—but we’d still have to explain the land blip….” [Tom Wigley, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, to Phil Jones, September 28, 2008]

Please at least consider the possibility that Greenpeace, who have been deceiving the public about the toxicity and carcinogenicity of this, that and the other for decades (ask me how if you want to see how blatant their deceit or delusion is... showing this is actually very quick and easy to do) were, in a very similar way, and motivated by their underlying ideology, deliberately (or delusionally) misrepresenting innocent phrases to blacken names excessively too.

Why scientists shouldn't heed calls to 'stay in our lane'

Eclectic at 23:01 PM on 6 May, 2021

Nevertheless, there seems to be an increase in "positive" reviews of Koonin's new book. True, to some extent this is to be expected with any new book. The real test will be the test of time ~ will the book be a Nine-Day Wonder, or a 90-day, or a 900-day?

Ordinarily, for any new book, one might suspect the hand of the publisher is pushing the perceived enthusiasm. But with the Koonin book, one might also suspect the climate-science-denying Establishment is adding its own weight of propaganda. ( I noted that, inter alia , the book's review on WUWT was nauseatingly fawning . . . much as WUWT fawns on Lord Monckton's ludicrous & often self-contradictory emanations. Possibly a consequence of their very slim pickings for such purposes.)

Koonin is certainly running "out of his lane" regarding science. And the question is : Why is he doing such a political Propaganda Piece of half-truths?

Nothing unusual for paid shills to go deceiving the public. And nothing unusual for crackpots, crazies, and rabid right-wingers to try the same. But why is Koonin doing it? Yes, there are a few elderly eminent scientists (you know their names) who have Gone Emeritus for presumable reasons of mild early dementia / religious fundamentalism / loss of inhibition of their underlying Maverick tendencies / and so on.

But Koonin is in his late sixties, and so is rather below the usual age of elderly pre-frontal brain deterioration. Moreover, I recall his work on a subcommittee of the American Physical Society's review of the APS climate change statement. That was seven years ago (2014) and he was even then showing the same sort of eagerness to undermine a reasonable assessment of mainstream climate science & the reasonably-expected consequences of modern global warming.

So, no, I don't understand where his mind is coming from. And I am glad he is a rare case.

Why scientists shouldn't heed calls to 'stay in our lane'

Eclectic at 23:31 PM on 5 May, 2021

Jim Hunt @20 :

An amusingly ambiguous comment about the ephemera of Twitter !

And thanks for your good work at Great White Con .

And for your very recent amusing appearances at WUWT , regarding Professor Monckton's continual nonsenses on his "Pauses". I see that the good Anthony Scissorhands has now excised your comments. But, pleasingly, you have a several staunch companions who have not (yet) been banned there. (If it weren't for those few guys, the comments columns would be unmitigated dreck of anger & drivel.)

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Eclectic at 05:43 AM on 3 April, 2021

Rkcannon, permit me to add a comment, as a non-expert in these matters. Measuring the alterations in outgoing IR radiation from Earth, is a matter of measuring a very small quantity against the background of a very large quantity. Rather like measuring your bodyweight on ordinary bathroom scales ~ with and without wearing your wristwatch. It is hard to get an accurate assessment of the weight of your wristwatch, even though you repeat the measurements daily over many years!

(Nevertheless, basic physics and common sense do combine to tell you that the wristwatch has a real positive weight, not a negative or zero weight.)

Taking a step back and looking at the climate situation :- over many decades, the observed surface temperature is rising, and the observed Ocean Heat Content is rising, and the observed planetary ice-sheets are melting, and the observed sea-evel is rising. And these changes are in accord with our understanding of radiational basic physics, too.

So only a fool (or scoundrel) would assert that Global Warming is not occurring. (Despite the difficulties inherent in a situation of continual variations and distributions of planet-wide cloud types.)

Speaking of which :- the NoTricksZone website has an appalling track record of presenting distorted and/or misleading information. It is clear that "NTZ" has a strong agenda of presenting disinformation via misquotes and misinterpeting of scientific papers. Yes, I am making an ad hominem comment ~ and it is a very well deserved ad hom in the case of NTZ and its chief editor. Whenever you see something "scientific" reported on NTZ website, your own proper skepticism should immediately go to Triple Red Alert overdrive status.

There are several versions of reporting circulating about an initial study (Kramer et al., 2021). NTZ's effort mentions a Zoe Phin, who is IIRC one of these "GreenHouse Effect does not exist" people ~ so again, your skepticism should result in a close examination of what's being put forward. (Unless you wish to dismiss it all as a huge waste of time for you to investigate. Just as you do when faced with a complicated "proof" of Flat Earth . . . or a new Perpetual Motion Machine . . . or a complicated screed of mathematics supplied by AGW-deniers like Christopher Monckton.)

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #1

Eclectic at 11:58 AM on 16 January, 2021

Philippe @31 ,

Greetings. And no offense taken by me. For anyone interested in the science of climate science, the WUWT blog is indeed an almost complete waste of time.

However, as a student of human nature, I must say that WUWT illustrates some of the human response to the challenges of AGW ~ and in that connection WUWT is a marvellous microcosm of mental pathologies. And being somewhat of a gentleman of leisure myself (sadly, far more a bourgeois gentilhomme than a true gentilhomme ) it is easy for me to find time to indulge my hobby there. Also helps me to keep some practised ripostes at the ready, against Denialists.

But I must not deflect further from this thread's topic. Despite the WUWT attractions of the ridiculous Christopher Monckton and the slightly less ridiculous Andy May, Willis Eschenbach, et alia. And despite the "peanut gallery" as you call it ~ a gallery rich in old chestnuts as well as peanut ideations, and even including some Brazil nuts (well, one or two from Chile or Argentina actually, as expatriate Yankees).

So I had better get off my hobbyhorse, and return the thread to its main topic, which seems to be the good Doctor Reddy.

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic at 07:50 AM on 28 October, 2020

Aoeu @587 , permit me to add my 2 cents as well.

The WUWT article is a "nothingburger" - and worse.

The WUWT editor has given a completely fallacious headline. (Typical for WUWT) The article is based on a paper - unpublished - by two scientists, one of whom is the eminent Dr Happer. It is claimed that Happer's paper has been knocked back by three major journals . . . and reading the paper soon shows why a scientific journal would not bother to publish this paper.

You will see from the above comments by MA Rodger and Tom Dayton, that the Happer paper comes out with a CO2-doubling Climate Sensitivity of 2.2 degreesC . . . a finding which is wildly misrepresented by the WUWT editor. This 2.2C sensitivity is slightly below the 3.0 figure which is a fairer "average" of sensitivity assessments (based on paleo and modern empirical evidence). So really nothing new there.

The paper has two weaknesses. It makes no allowance for cloud effects (the paper is a "clear sky" model). And as a minor point, it uses constant relative humidity in its modeling. Apart from that, I have no particular criticism to make . . . other than the humorous one where a typographical error shows "temperature region" where "temperate region" was meant ;-)

Clearly the Happer paper is not worth publishing.

Sadly, the blog WUWT is trumpeting this paper to the skies (excuse pun). WattsUpWithThat and its denialist clientele are always desperate to make much of anything at all which comes even within a million miles of casting some doubt on mainstream climate science.

Aoeu, have a look at the WUWT comments column below the article. There are all sorts of frothing-at-the-mouth comments . . . that this new paper overthrows all previous climate science / disproves the Greenhouse effect / exposes the incompetence & corrupt criminality of all the thousands of climate scientists worldwide. Etcetera. All the usual WattsUpWithThat nonsense and crackpot lunacy. But among all the madness, you will find a few pearls of wisdom by the genuine scientist Nick Stokes (who is thoroughly hated by the usual WUWT clientele).

We can expect the Happer paper will be a Nine Day Wonder in many parts of the bloggy Deniosphere . . . until they abandon it for the Next New Thing (by Lord Christopher Monckton or whoever). It is all very entertaining . . . but it ain't science.

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35

Eclectic at 23:06 PM on 7 September, 2020

Gseattle , thank you for giving me a good laugh ~ with your re-rendering of some of my earlier commentaries at SkS. You are a treasure.

I hope the Moderators will leave your lengthy post untouched and unedited, for the entertainment of the general readership here at SkS. Perhaps, in your haste to collect a bag full, you made one or two errors in quotation (not to mention a lack of context) . . . but hey, let's not quibble ! And quite rightly, you have been unable to dispute the accuracy of my observations [on the clientele at WUWT website and science-deniers more generally].

MARodger , it was very kind of you to devote so much time to Gseattle, to point out to him some of the fundamental errors in Ed Berry's thinking. Let's hope Gseattle won't now demand you explain all the gross errors in the thinking of each & every one of the 31,000 "scientists" who signed the Oregon Petition of yesteryear !

Thank you as well, MARodger , for linking to the "serious nutcases" at Principia Scientific International (PSI). And thus the Desmogblog exposure of PSI. Just when I thought Gseattle's efforts could not be topped . . . I saw the letter [April 2013] where Christopher Monckton described the Numero Uno at PSI as "confused and scientifically illiterate". Ah, such black humor (of the Pot and Kettle type).

Poor PSI's Numero Uno, being looked down upon by that well-known scientific exemplar Lord Monckton. It gives fresh meaning to the old saying: "Lower than a snake's belly".

All getting a bit Off-Topic for this thread, though. But worth it.

Priceless !

Spreading rock dust on fields could remove vast amounts of CO2 from air

Eclectic at 11:24 AM on 14 August, 2020

Bob Loblaw @12 ,

your criticism is a bit harsh . . . but fair ! Daveburton's "No problem with CO2" was the sort of statement that belongs in the pseudo-science commentary found at WattsUpWithThat blogsite.

Don't get me wrong : as a semi-regular reader at WUWT , I do see occasional bits of real science in the comments columns there (most notably by the excellently-scientific Nick Stokes) ~ but most of the comments are crazy-extremist political stuff mixed with fruitcake anti-science. Still, it's kind of entertaining : especially the utter nonsense there coming from Mr Monckton or the half-nonsense coming from Mr May et alia.

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #25

Eclectic at 00:42 AM on 22 June, 2020

MA Rodger @6 , I gather that the "industrial energy" converted into temperature rise ~ is calculated according to Slarty's own special system. I have been enjoying reading some of Slarty's blogsite, but I have only dipped my toe into it, so far. He displays a great number of algebraic equations, which I have (perhaps wrongly) not looked into ~ this is a failing of mine, deriving from my past experience of the reams of equations publicized by Lord Monckton (the Moncktonite mathematics suffer major revision every so many months . . . yet always lead to absurd conclusions).

Slarty seems to calculate on the basis that any industrial (i.e. Anthropogenic) heat energy produced in [say] England, will remain within the national borders. No flow of wind or water across those borders, nor any transfers per evaporation/condensation.

There are other peculiarities in his blog. He states that the Milankovitch cycle produces a 10 degreeC oscillation of global temperature. Perhaps he thinks Vostok represents the entire planet. Also, he seems to feel that the CO2 in the atmosphere produces "Greenhouse" by reflecting infrared radiation back to the Earth's surface.

There were one or two other points he made which seemed in error, at my first glance at his blog : but I've forgotten what they are, now. Perhaps I can dig them out later. Of course, his blog may not be quite as bad as I first gathered ~ I may have been mistaken in my own thoughts, and too hasty in my skimming, and some of the errors may be more a matter of him expressing himself in an odd way or through excessive abbreviation of ideas. Still, it's always a red-flag worry when the earnest blogger seems to arrive at a different conclusion than the world's scientists. There's usually some blunder at the bottom of it all.

YouTube's Climate Denial Problem

Eclectic at 23:51 PM on 10 April, 2020

Thanks Nigelj , yes I do read Realclimate from time to time (and note your presence there too ).

Now I am reporting back after reading the first article listed on Page One of climatescience.org.nz

# It is a fine example of one style of Denialist propaganda.

The article is titled, in very large blue letters in upper case :- [ * Moderators please excuse my use of upper case for this exact quote] :-

" DROP IN NUMBER OF SUNSPOTS SIGNALS IMMINENCE OF A COOLER WORLD "

~ this is followed by a single paragraph in small font, commencing:

" An important new paper by Dr David Whitehouse for the Global Warming Policy Foundation reveals that 2019 was mostly without sunspots. ... [and finishing:] This paper discusses some of these issues." With LINK to the GWPF important new paper .

Note the typical Denialist technique:

(A) The huge headline indicating Imminence of a Cooler World ( i.e. that the mainstream scientists are wrong about ongoing global warming)

(B) An entirely unrigorous newspaper-supplement-like report (by Dr Whitehouse) is implied to be a respectable scientific paper. It is no such thing.

# The editor of this website knows that many of his Denialist clientele will not bother to read past the headline, and they will proceed elsewhere holding the comforting knowledge that the planet is about to enter a cooling phase.

And that those who do actually read the single paragraph, also will proceed elsewhere, holding that same "Cooling" impression.

(C) Those who do follow the link, are met with a multi-page essay headed by beautiful huge photos & artistic illustrations of close-up views of the sun (all looking a bit National Geographic sciencey). Followed by 8 pages (plus sciencey reference list) of Whitehouse's text ~ discursively discussing cherry-picked famine in 17th Century France; horrible child mortality in Europe during the Little Ice Age; dire comments from a sermon by a contemporary English preacher . . . and various other irrelevancies including historical aspects of sunspot observations.

In the end, Whitehouse has given no quantification of the implied Grand Solar Minimum which is "imminently" about to strike us. Indeed, regarding future climate, he hasn't really said anything at all. His "important new paper" is lurid but vacuous commentary.

As such, it all comes as no surprise to regular readers of SkS.

Nigelj , I fear that the rest of the NZ website's headlines probably have a similar modus operandi. Is that correct? (And does that website have comments columns?)

I am very much reminded of that propagandist, the marvellous Lord Monckton who boasted that 400 scientific papers demonstrated the worldwide nature and much-higher-than-today warmth of the Medieval Warm Period. When science-journalist Peter Hadfield (Potholer54) challenged him for the list, Monckton blandly supplied the references [actually a list by Dr Idso]. Hadfield said that he carefully studied the first 6 papers on the list, and found none of them supported Monckton's MWP claims. So no point reading further down the list. (Monckton is well known for his bold mendacities/errors.)

YouTube's Climate Denial Problem

Eclectic at 23:08 PM on 8 April, 2020

MA Rodger , the marvellous WUWT that you call rogue planetoid, is not a planet nor a planetoid. It is more of a moon or lunar body, orbiting the real universe yet not truly part of it. Yet it draws sustenance from the real universe, just as a tick draws sustenance from its unwilling host. (You can see that I am laboring to get lunar & tick into the same sentence, to describe WUWT . . . but sadly the intended pun is an uphill labor, and I had better retract it, and move on.)

For my sins (and for the pleasure of Schadenfreude ) and for my education in the field of psychopathology I am often reading parts of the comments columns at WUWT. (Of the lead articles there, I would say that 80% of them are not worth reading or maybe just worth a very high-speed skim.) But the comments columns are a goldmine of mental pathology.

Not every commenter there is intellectually and/or morally insane. There are a few notable exceptions ~ pre-eminent is Nick Stokes, who is always worth reading. Nick is a very well-informed scientific thinker who is regularly (and blandly) correcting the the usual errors & inanities of the run-of-the-mill commenters at WUWT. He is balanced and scientifically accurate . . . in short, he is the complete opposite of the typical on-line Denialist. And they hate him for it, and bay for his blood. Most non-denialists are quickly booted out by the website proprietor (Mr Anthony Watts) and his Moderators. Yet Nick Stokes endures, year after year (and AFAICT he is unfailing correct in his observations). I am sure Anthony Watts keeps tolerating Nick Stokes ~ partly as a demonstration of the [cough] civilized & open-minded nature of the WUWT website . . . as a token "contrarian" [i.e. mainstream scientist] . . . and possibly also as a piece of raw meat to keep inflaming the rabid dogs who frequent the WUWT columns (and who keep the website hit-rate high, for the benefit of the routine on-line advertisers).

And yes, just recently WUWT has been serving up quite a bit of Covid-19 headlines ~ that's out of the ordinary for the site, but surely no worse than all other media outlets at present. The usual WUWT articles are sourly scoffing or sneering [e.g. anti-Thunberg] or generally anti-renewables . . . spiced up with the occasional mathematical clangers from Christopher Monckton as he comes up with his bi-annual mathturbational "proofs" that the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity is only 1.1 degrees or 0.5 degrees or whatever (or that the scientific Consensus was not 97% but actually 33% or 4% or whatever). And sometimes other scientific Mc Experts demonstrate (in completely different & incompatible ways) how the mainstream scientists are all wrong about climate.

WUWT puts up several new headlines each day. It's important to keep the flock supplied with fresh clickbait. And I must admit they occasionally have a brief but interesting article of general interest, including astronomy news. After all, this is a serious science-based website !

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Eclectic at 18:23 PM on 22 March, 2020

Sorry Duncan, but you are still not giving any real evidence that the scientists are ignoring data.

Science is published in peer-reviewed papers in respected scientific journals. Not by Al Gore or Christopher Monckton or Tony Heller in shonky crap like Breitbart or NoTricksZone or WattsUpWithThat.

Reputable scientific journals, Duncan, where it gets examined and criticized by experts. The data can also be extensively discussed on reputable websites (such as this one).

If you are having problems in understanding the real factual state of things, Duncan, then it is likely because the real scientists know something that you don't know about climate. The scientists are not ignoring data. And so far, you have not demonstrated any data that they are (allegedly) ignoring.

Duncan, you are well off-topic for this thread, which concerns CO2 and Warming. If you can find some genuine examples of what you believe is ignored information /data, then please bring it to everyone's attention in the proper thread for that topic.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020

Eclectic at 08:09 AM on 16 January, 2020

Seqenenre :- As Doug says, the amount of extra heat energy involved is enormous in total. As well as producing a sea level rise (with its own major effects on coastal humanity) you find the heat energy "sloshing about" in uneven distributions. Heat coming to the surface to produce El Nino surges of global air temperature. Heat driving the "fewer but stronger storms/ hurricanes". Heat undercutting & melting the Antarctic ice, and increasingly melting the arctic sea-ice. Heat leading to increased flooding & droughts & heat waves.

The surface air temperature (that we live in) is a sort of "tail of the dog" ~ the oceanic dog moves itself slightly . . . and the tail moves a lot.

Even within the ocean, you see important fluctuations as the overall water temperature rises. Vast areas of coral can bleach and die, as shallower water experiences "watery heat waves". Tropical / warm-water fish must move to cooler habitats, further away from the equator. The effects on marine life are much larger than you would intuitively expect.

"Tiny" changes can sometimes have large effects. We are used to the large swings of temperature with the seasons: typical winter/summer change might be 20 degreesC or more . . . yet (counter-intuitively) a sustained gain of 1 or 2 degrees can build up to a colossal effect on the whole planet. We must look at "small numbers" with a scientific eye, rather than with our usual "everyday eye".

I am always amused by science-deniers such as Lord Monckton ~ how, one day they can be arguing that 0.04% of the atmosphere (as CO2) is such a tiny amount ("and which has only increased by one part in ten thousand, in the past 100 years") and is so tiny as to be entirely unimportant in this world . . . and the next day they argue the 0.04% is so very important because "it sustains all life on earth".

Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

BillyJoe at 06:57 AM on 4 December, 2019

Doug_C, when James Hansen said the seas could boil, he was wrong. It cannot be wrong to point that out. When AOC said the world will end in 12 years, she was wrong. She was wrong to say that even if she meant it as hyperbole. It cannot be wrong to point out that it is wron. The climate deniers have been using James Hansen's howler for decades and will probably use AOC's silly hyperbolic statement for decades to ridicule climate science. That is a bad outcome. And it cannot help to pretend that it didn't happen. Point out that it is wrong. Accept that it is wrong. That's the only way to help prevent the same sorts of errors happening again.

Also, I think you should watch Potholer's video on AOC again. He was spot on in his criticism about the negative effects of her hyperbole. It is all over the climate denying blogosphere. The have been blasting climate science as "catastrophism" for years and now they have proof. They are ridiculing her and the climate science in general.

You also misrepresented Potholer's "Science vs feelies" video. Please watch it again. It is not about not being emotional about the consequences of climate change. It is about not relying on intuition to come to conclusions such as "the Sun revolves around the Earth. It is just obvious". Yes, it is obvious, and wrong.

And I have to disagree with your general criticsm of Potholer. I quite enjoy Potholer looking down on the likes of Christopher Monckton and Steven Crowder and various other politcians and bloggers. They either don't have a clue or do have a clue and are blatantly lying. They deserve to be taken down on and ridiculed. But you can't then just dismiss errors by James Hansen and AOC.

Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

BillyJoe at 09:14 AM on 3 December, 2019

Doug_C, James Hansen's "boiling oceans" was a ridculous comment, as he himself has admitted. It even got into his book though he promised to amend it in the next edition. Apparently there would have to be 5 times the carbon reserves we actually have and it would all have to be burnt to produce enough CO2 to cause a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth.

But Potholer simply shows a video of him making his claim and then says "I think we can safely say that the oceans won't boil" and then moves on. He doesn't get stuck into him. Elsewhere he put James Hansen in a favourable light though I can't remember where.

I'm surprised you say that you don't want entertainment but at the same time write in support of Climate Adam. He is almost all entertainment - if you like that type of entertainment. You do. I prefer Potholer. No problem. As I say, each to his own.

But, seeing that you made the claim, I would like to see you provide an example of where Potholer misrepresents someone's position. As for him not being a researcher, no he is not, and he is at pains to explain that he is not even clever having graduated bottom of the class. He is simply giving an account of climate change as advocated by climate scientists. I haven't been able to fault him except for some minor tangentially realted points mentioned above. But he gets the climate science right.

He also exposes frauds like Monckton and Crowder - who are blatantly misinforming the public about climate change - by tracing down their original sources and showing how those sources do not say what those climate deniers say they are saying. In fact, often the opposite. I have no problem him being "rude, condescending and supercilious" towards these frauds.

Welcome to Skeptical Science

Eclectic at 01:00 AM on 1 December, 2019

Markovnikov, if you enter the name "Wrightstone" in the search box [top left], you get a couple of entries for April 2019.

The second one ( 27th April) takes you to a recent lengthy piece by Willard MacDonald, discussing the extensive disinformational propaganda by Wrightstone.

It sounds like Wrightstone is someone who can't even lie straight in bed. So I think you will be completely wasting your time if you are trying to understand whatever mathematics he is proposing. It is the same case with Monckton ~ who generates specious (and ultimately wrong) grand calculations "showing how the world's scientists are all wrong". Every year or two, it's a new doozy.

Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

Hank at 23:05 PM on 30 November, 2019

I agree with Billy Joe about this presenter being annoying. But more importantly it seems to me he is trying to use comedy to discuss climate change. I can’t find any humor in what we are doing to the planet.

Eclectic is right about Potholer54. It has great videos. In addition to debunking Monckton Bunkum, the 4 back and forth interchanges with Tony Heller who operates realclimatescience is just a pleasure to watch. One by one he demolishes Tony’s erroneous climate change statements until Tony refuses to continue the debate. And he does this all without making the audience feel like he is in an attack mode.

Video: Is CO2 actually dangerous?

Eclectic at 13:37 PM on 30 November, 2019

BillyJoe , you might care to look at the Youtube video series by Potholer54 (science journalist Peter Hadfield).

I'm not sure if it's the ideal Climate Change explainer for the general public . . . who might rather prefer an Attenborough-ish 25 minute program of hi-rez superbo photography and rich voice-overs. Though perhaps with Yankee drawl?

However, the Potholer54 videos (from low-rez 2009 to higher-rez 2019) are very good value for a video-watcher who has already started to develop an interest in climate topics. All the videos are reasonably up-to-date in their science. They range from mostly short ( five to ten minutes) through to a few long'uns (twentyish minutes).

They are very informative, and they have the slant of debunking the myths & lies put about by the denialist propaganda industry.

There's a lot of them (48) ~ but they are easy-going to digest, because of their brevity and their entertainingly humorous style. Especially amusing, are the 5 Monckton Bunkum videos, regarding the "error-prone Viscount".

Top 10 most viewed rebuttals in September and October 2019

Eclectic at 10:29 AM on 14 November, 2019

Thanks, Nigelj.

I will make a few points about website WUWT, and then shut up ~ since it's getting somewhat off-topic. The comparison of the two websites has some interest here in "numbers" comparison only. There's no real other comparison . . . I think of SkS as an eagle flying in the sunshine, while WUWT is more like an octopus slithering in the murky depths.

For those readers wise enough to be unfamiliar with WUWT:- Anthony Watts & team run the WattsUpWithThat website. Allegedly they don't receive Big Oil funding these days. Be that as it may, they want to receive a lot of hits/views, partly in order to have enough high rank to pull in advertising of the incidental sort ( e.g. I myself am plagued with telescope advertisements when I click on the WUWT site).

Accordingly, WUWT has a high turnover of lead articles. Most articles are brief, and many are slanted propaganda against the reality of AGW and often are rather childish whinges about the teething problems of the gradual transfer to renewables (versus fossil fuel power stations) . . . or whinges about Greta Thunberg, James Hansen, and so on. There's the occasional leavening with articles about technical developments, or astronomical news, or things of general interest [but not many!]. Then we get the re-posts of Heartland propaganda articles, of GWPF, and of assorted Media op-ed propaganda pieces. And a succession of crackpot ideas from Lord Monckton, Dr Pat Frank, and similar fringe dwellers of Dunning-Krugerism and Delusion Land.

WUWT maintains a high hit rate, by having an open-door policy on its comments columns ~ provided that the comments do not support mainstream climate science nor support "climate action". (A tiny dribble of such comments is permitted by moderators . . . but mainly I suspect to act as red meat and keep the regular clientele in a savage mood. A prominent exception, is comments by scientist Nick Stokes, who often has something pertinent to say, which punctures the usual rubbishy comments. He is loathed by the standard clientele, and I suspect he is not moderated out . . . because his is a token presence to illustrate the respectabiity & toleration of the WUWT website!)

In short, WUWT is an echo-chamber for the Angries, the extremists, and the deluded. Comments tend to be repetitious ventings. But the sheer number of these, is part of what keeps the site ranking high enough to attract advertising dollars. Does the WUWT ranking intimidate politicians into thinking there's a lot of Denialists around? I don't know.

My own interest in the WUWT website, is to observe the ways that some intelligent minds engage in rampant Motivated Reasoning. And to a smaller extent, to keep in touch with the Dreck found in the murky depths. Know thine enemy!

Sorry, Nigelj, for my own lengthy vent of a post ~ but I hope it provided some "edutainment".

Top 10 most viewed rebuttals in September and October 2019

Eclectic at 21:36 PM on 13 November, 2019

(This post is transferred from an erroneous position in another thread)

Independently, I can supply a confirmation (semi-quantitative) of a spike in "climate inquiries" in September this year. Though I wouldn't care to speculate whether the surge of interest comes from the activities of "St Greta of Arc(tic)" or from the Extinction Rebellion actions or from climate action week or whatever.

I am a fan of the excellent & amusing Youtube video series produced by Potholer54 (science journalist Peter Hadfield). These debunk climate myths and expose the fabrications and misrepresentations of some of the prominent Denialist propagandists.

As a little project to engage some of my spare moments, in June this year (and through until today) I jotted down at intervals the cumulative viewing numbers for each of Potholer54's videos. Now typically, a new video receives a flurry of viewings, presumably mostly from notified subscribers of the series . . . and then the viewing rate decays to a lower level (which might be only 5~10 per day for certain videos, yet over a 100 per day for the more popular videos).

However, I noticed a surge in viewing rates in late September through to mid October. The most prominent surges were for about 10 particular videos ~ where the viewing rates rose to around 3~5x the usual background rate.

So, quite a remarkable increase. (Numbers have fallen away since then.)

My record-keeping has been more casual than rigorous, and I don't have a spreadsheet record to permit better analysis.

Not sure how much more can be teased out of this information: but for those who are interested, these are probably the "most surged" titles :-

1. 1.Climate Change - the scientific debate

25. 23-Medieval Warm Period - fact vs fiction

28. 26-Science vs the Feelies

33. Response to "The Global Warming Hoax Lord Monckton & Stefan Molyneux"

34. Response to "DEBUNKED : Top 5 "Climate Change" Myths by Louder with Crowder

35. Are humans contributing only 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere?

39. Top 10 climate change myths

40. A conservative solution to global warming (Part 2)

47. How accurate are scientific predictions about climate?

Warning: the left-hand numbers are the numeration used by Youtube for the videos. But some of the early videos have an older numeration which is incorporated in the video title [as you see, above]. Easy to confuse!

Science vs the Feelies is a particularly amusing and instructive video, regarding the "intuitive" thinking behind some Denialists.

Regular readers at SkS may enjoy the videos, and may gain something useful from the comment columns underneath. Of course I don't mean from the Usual Suspects / the trolls / the loonies etc ~ but I mean that one must admire the deft way Potholer54 responds to them. He emphasizes that he is not presenting his opinions, but is simply presenting the science (which is found not in newspapers & blogs, but is found in the peer-reviewed scientific papers of respected scientific journals).

The Experts Have Spoken: Disbanded Particulate Pollution Panel Finds EPA Standards Don’t Protect Public Health

Eclectic at 20:15 PM on 12 November, 2019

We don't have the means to shift your comment but please feel free to copy and repost it to the appropriate thread. It's certainly congruent with our observations, and worth noting in the right place.

As a little project to engage some of my spare moments, in June this year (and through up until today) I jotted down at intervals the cumulative viewing numbers for each of Potholder54's videos. Now typically, a new video receives a flurry of viewings, presumably mostly from notified subscribers of the series . . . and then the viewing rate decays to a lower level (which might be only 5~10 per day for certain videos, yet over 100 per day for the more popular videos).

So, quite a remarkable increase. (Numbers have fallen away since then.)

My record-keeping has been more casual than rigorous, and I don't have a spreadsheet record to permit better analysis.

Not sure how much more can be teased out of this information: but for those who are interested, these are probably the "most surged" ten titles :-

1. 1.Climate Change - the scientific debate

25. 23-Medieval Warm Period - fact vs fiction

28. 26-Science vs the Feelies

33. Response to "The Global Warming Hoax Lord Monckton & Stefan Molyneux"

34. Response to "DEBUNKED : Top 5 "Climate Change" Myths by Louder with Crowder

35. Are humans contributing only 3% of CO2 in the atmosphere?

39. Top 10 climate change myths

40. A conservative solution to global warming (Part 2)

47. How accurate are scientific predictions about climate?

Science vs the Feelies is a particularly amusing and instructive video, regarding the "intuitive" thinking behind some Denialists.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 20:18 PM on 9 October, 2019

CThompson ,

insight is not your strong suit, apparently. Your claim of familiarity with carbon isotopes etcetera, is not congruous with your dismissal of mainstream physics & biology.

Just as (by analogy) someone who claims familiarity with mathematics . . . yet who alleges that 2+2=3 . . . is someone who is a tad less expert than he supposes.

But perhaps, CThompson, you can achieve some credibility by staying on topic. [Short musical interlude here, while orchestra plays Pride of Erin B . . . and readers wait for you to also mention Galileo, as well.] You have been repeatedly asked to say something substantive about the scientific consensus, to back your "beliefs". But you have produced nothing, so far.

A good start would be, if you can name a list of some credible scientists who have produced some evidence that the mainstream science is seriously incorrect. (And you must show what that evidence is ~ not just handwave at something unspecified.) If at all possible, please list a sufficiency of names to demonstrate that these alleged contrarians exist in numbers way beyond 1% of climate scientists. Would 20% "climate-skeptical" genuine climate scientists be achievable for you? Otherwise, surely your consensus claim falls flat on its face.

Hint: don't bother to use the delusional citizen-scientist crackpots, such as Lord Monckton, Dr Tim Ball, or (the late) John Coleman . . . 'cos they ain't no scientists !

And bear in mind, that the evidence is even more important than the exact percentage of contrarians. And that is where the contrarian scientists make a double Fail ~ their numbers are shrinking and their hypotheses [cosmic rays; 100-year oceanic cycles; Lindzen's "Iris" ; etcetera] have failed the reality test.

CThompson, the consensus exists because the evidence is clear.

I can see that you believe what you want to believe ~ and I was never under the illusion that you would be convinced by anything factual.

BTW, CThompson, you can educate me on one point ~ what is the meaning of the word "symmantic" which you use so often e.g. the "symmantic gymnastics" you mention in your last paragraph of #841 . The OED failed to list the word. Is it a new term for the latest display trick by that amazing young gymnast Ms Simone Biles ?

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 15:09 PM on 30 September, 2019

Errata @830 ,

no, those "500 scientists" are not fully 100% wrong. But if they were an aeroplane . . . then they'd be so far from flightworthy, that no engineer would let them out of the hangar ~ for fear that they'd crash just moving along the taxiing strip.

In less humorous terms: the "500" letter is so error riddled, that it would take a large number of paragraphs to detail it all. Not just errors, but deceptive rhetoric.

Politics :- as of those extremists who think that all the world's scientists are in a century-long plot/conspiracy to impose a communist world government, and are faking all the data to that end.

Religion :- as of those extremists who think that the Christian Deity is/will step in to correct any significant global warming. And Prof Lindzen who takes an [Old Testament] view that Jehovah won't allow more than slight warming (at least, that was his view during a 2006? interview with a sympathetic interviewer ~ and I haven't detected any change since.)

All these guys are intelligent (though the vast majority do not research or publish in the climate field) and all are so strongly influenced by Motivated Reasoning (political/religious) that they end up producing nonsense.

Errata, if you are not inclined to some hours of heavy reading at websites like NASA, AAAS, U.K. Royal Society, etc . . . . then you might enjoy some youtube videos by Potholer54 (science journalist) on climate matters. He debunks a lot of the common myths which have been circulating.

Potholer54 is polite & amusing [ how refreshing ! ].

You will be especially amused by his 5 short videos exposing the "Monckton Bunkum" mendacities of Lord Monckton (who is a sort of pop star among denialists . . . denialists who fawn on him, especially at WattsUpWithThat website.)

The partisan "Green New Deal" is just local American politics, and is not a consequence (or reflection) of genuine climate science. Best to first understand real climate science: and only then give thought to remediation of the AGW situation.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 21:41 PM on 29 September, 2019

My apologies to MA Rodger. I was overly brief in my comment above ~ I meant that the sort of "discussions" usually following on the tail of the "12 years" statement (wherever it gains headlines) . . . are discussions/posts which turn into an opinion-fest.

The statements by author Myles Allen were very calm and reasonably objective, and illustrate how very little time we have to get things on the right path. The exact amount of time & tonnage of burnt carbon we can "afford" is, of course, rather fuzzy ~ as is the 1.5C figure itself. It's a reasonable best estimate . . . and we shouldn't let rhetoric (by denialist propagandists) conceal the unpleasant reality of it all.

The comments following the Myles Allen OP were fairly civil, but slid off into an opinion-fest. But it was extraordinary to see that the comments were not bombarded by avalanches of bots & intellectually-insane trolls & rabid political extremists & CO2-physics-denying crackpots. It's almost as though a sensible moderation policy was in full effect !

OTOH, there's no getting away from the conclusion that "the 500 scientists" was an example of scientific nonsense & false/misleading propaganda . . . so typical of anything involving the hand of "the error-prone Lord Monckton". Or anything involving the hand of the Heartand Institute or the GWPF or their ilk. Nothing new, there.

Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

LFC at 07:41 AM on 26 September, 2019

Impressive letter coming from 500 "scientists"! There are 14 "ambassadors" signing the letter so let's have a look. Richard Lindzen? OK, he's a scientist though of course one that has been wrong repeatedly. Now HERE's a name that stands out; "The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, United Kingdom". Yes indeed, the bug-eyed man who is literally nuts is one of their "ambassadors." That's more than enough for me to dismiss the entire thing without even attempting an analysis.

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

Eclectic at 16:34 PM on 20 August, 2019

Doug_C @25 ,

Quite so. No reasoning with denialists. At the present state of climate scientific knowledge, one can only be a "denialist/skeptic/contrarian" by being intellectually insane.

Fair enough, to point out to Dr Tim Ball (self-alleged "Professor of Climatology") how wrong he is . . . but in doing so, you are "playing to the audience", but you waste your time playing to him himself.

# Despite years of complete disappointment, I still read some of WUWT (and ClimateEtc ) from time to time, in the ongoing hope of discovering some important & valid argument against AGW. Nothing at all of that sort discovered, yet. (You may know ClimateEtc as a kind of upmarket WUWT , but with much less frothing-at-the-mouth in the comments columns.)

Occasionally in WUWT articles, there are some minor points of interest (points I had been unaware of). Most of the articles are tiresome in the puerility of their propaganda slant. The comments columns, I skim at speed (looking for the several "names" where I can expect sensible/insightful comments e.g. Nick Stokes, Steve Mosher, and a very few others — all of whom get excoriated by the hoi polloi of usual commenters). There is some entertainment value in viewing the bedlam antics of the usual commenters — of whom, half or more are in full denial of the GHE and the physics of CO2's radiative properties. And I confess to a feeling of Schadenfreude in viewing the insanity of these people's delusional Motivated Reasoning . . . but I find a spoonful goes a long way !

To return to Dr Tim Ball — if I see his name as author of an article, then I skip reading any of it. Along with a few other names there, such authorship indicates that reading the article will always be an utter waste of time. Utter. Similarly to reading the computations & ratiocinations of Monckton (or any inventor of a Perpetual Motion Machine) -— you know that somewhere in the verbiage is a serious error . . . and so you needn't bother reading any of it.

Monckton's various "re-calculations" of the 97% consensus, are in the same boat.

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

Eclectic at 13:38 PM on 20 August, 2019

Nigelj @23 , perhaps you should say something more. New ideas?

I don't think there's a point in doing any hand-wringing about the imperfections of the past (and hindsight will always allow us to be wiser). But conceivably there might be some future way of making a brilliant chess-move to stymie the nit-pickers/nay-sayers in the deniosphere. Myself, I can't think what that move could be. As Philippe C. says @16 , the denialists will simply do what they do . . . with or without them having any ammunition to use.

For 2013, John Cook & associates were I'm sure very conscious of the likelihood of strong opposition to the Consensus study's conclusions . . . but they may not have anticipated the intense fury it stirred up. (Even more fury than a certain Emperor might have felt as his lack of clothes was pointed out.)

As you know, John Cook made the brilliant pre-emptive move of having an author-self-rated section in the study, to confirm the study's validity. (A confirmation which the denialists strenuously ignore, to this day.)

But all that being so, we still find Monckton & cronies going to vast lengths of absurdity in order to re-define 97% as e.g. 34% or 0.3% . In the face of such blatant and persistent insanity, I suspect it is futile to try to use reasonable evidence to convince the denialists. And the various consensus studies are aready done — and they are all essentially in agreement with each other — and there's probably no point now in re-confirming 97% or 98% or 99% .

What remains, is to "get the message out" more effectively into the ears of the general public.

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

MA Rodger at 20:27 PM on 18 August, 2019

Postkey @14,

While Monckton continually lays on the bunkum, his grand work Monckton, Soon, Legates, Briggs, Limburg, Jeschke, Whitfield, Henney & Morrison (2018-unpublished) 'On an error in applying feedback theory to climate' surely demonstrates the apex of his incompetence. (I should mention that some of the many co-authors may be unaware of their co-authorship.) According to the write-up on the planet Wattsupia, Monckton's grand work was supposed to set out how:-

1. It can be proven that an elementary error of physics is the sole cause of alarm about global warming – elementary because otherwise non-climatologists might not grasp it.
2. It can be proven that, owing to that elementary error, current official mid-range estimates of equilibrium sensitivity to anthropogenic activity are at least twice what they should be.

Monckton's bunkum certainly goes beyond incompetence, but Monckton's grand work takes it to a new mind-numbingly high level.

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

Postkey at 17:22 PM on 18 August, 2019

"Monckton Bunkum"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM&list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP&index=18&t=94s

Millions of times later, 97 percent climate consensus still faces denial

Eclectic at 12:26 PM on 18 August, 2019

Fair comment, BillyJoe @10 .

Mainly , primarily , and largely . . . are all well-justifiable. But extremely is a bit . . . er . . . extreme . Yes, it's a logical consequence of the other three descriptors, but it doesn't present well.

Word choice is close to irrelevant, in some ways. The "climate denying blogosphere" will attack anything, anything at all, that it dislikes. Words, logic, arithmetic — all can be perverted to serve the denialist agenda.

# Only just today, I was admiring Lord Monckton's assertion that the climate science consensus was 0.3% rather than the more truthful 97-ish percent. And I am sure every reader here can think of multiple examples of other intellectual insanities promulgated in the "deniosphere".

And speaking of the good Lord M — I have begun reading the (very lengthy) "Lord Monckton's Rap Sheet" from the Climate Asylum blogsite [ bbickmore.wordpress.com ]. Amusing +++ . As the blogger says: "Nobody could make this stuff up". But we already knew we were dealing with a most peculiar personality !

In 1982, Exxon accurately predicted global warming

Eclectic at 20:39 PM on 30 July, 2019

MsG @15 ,

If you seek some audiovisual presentations, then you may like the Youtube videos by Potholer54 (a science journalist by the name of Hadfield). Excerpts permissible, I'm sure !

Informative & often amusing & encouraging of critical thinking. The videos now number 50 (fifty!) but are mostly short (though some over 20 minutes).

Potholer54 avoids political partisanship, and is careful to give facts based on the scientific papers published in reputable peer-reviewed journals i.e. based on the actual science. Many of his videos are given with a humorous facet or two ~ which is (IMO) bound to appeal to you and your students.

Always , always , he emphasizes the importance of careful critical thinking wherever one encounters "facts" / information / hysteria / blogs / newspaper articles . . . and the need always to check the sources, find the original sources and evaluate their reliability, and be skeptical of the headlines.

# Be careful with the numerical label of each video ~ Youtube nowadays numbers the videos 1 - 50 , but the main video screen prominently displays an older numerical notation.

All are worth seeing (as fresh info for the climate science novice, and as humorous chuckles for the climate Old Hands . . . especially the five videos under the Monckton Bunkum heading ! )

If I may suggest a few :-

the 1st : "1- Climate Change - the scientific debate" [ 10 minutes]

the 23rd : "21- "Earth facing a mini-ice age!" [ 6 minutes]

the 25th : "23- Medieval Warm Period - fact vs. fiction" [ 20 minutes]

the 28th : "26- Science vs. the Feelies" [ 16 minutes]

the 29th : "27- The evidence for climate change WITHOUT computer models" [ 16 minutes]

the 31st : "28- The consequences of climate change (in our lifetimes)" [ 18 minutes]

the 40th : "A conservative solution to climate change - part 2" [ 21 min]

(The videos range in date from about 2009 'til 2019. None obsolete ! )

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Eclectic at 16:07 PM on 10 May, 2019

Jake S @370 , yes it is quite evident that you "skimmed" the Cook paper . . . and that you skimped on thinking it through ( +/- a prompter ).

As for the shape of the Earth being "universally accepted by scientists and rational laypeople" [your quote] . . . it is interesting that you fail to use that criterion for AGW (which has a similar weight of evidence supporting it).

Clearly, Jake S , you need to educate yourself about climate science.

And if I may hint [not prompt!] ~ you will find that all science is advanced through peer-reviewed scientific papers in reputable journals. ( Not by Op-Eds in Breitbart or the WSJ or FoxNews ). The heart of the matter for this particular thread, is that the "Consensus" is the result of that science. And FYI, the reputable scientific journals are very keen to publish contrarian papers provided the papers seem to have valid supporting evidence ~ indeed, a number have been published, but every such paper has later been found to be faulty/invalid by subsequent scientific research.

You will not find climate science in journals such as Energy Policy (a journal which explicitly describes itself as being about "Political, Economic ... and Social Aspects of Energy" unquote). Many of the articles in Energy Policy are open-access and not peer-reviewed. Possibly you know what that implies !! You referenced Energy Policy re a "short communication" by Dr Richard Tol ~ the same Richard Tol who later backed off his Consensus criticism, and admitted that in his opinion the Consensus was more like 90%. ( Not 33% or 13% or 4% or whatever is the latest fantasy of Lord Monckton his WattsUpWithThat colleagues.)

Jake S , to be more accurate, I should point out to you that the 97% Consensus was based on scientific papers centered at about the year 2005. The consensus in say 2014 was well over 99% , as judged by the scientific papers published over a 59-week period [why 59 not 52 weeks?] . . . a study of [IIRC] around 2,200 papers showed only 3 [three] papers that were "contrarian" [and each of those 3 was rubbish].

Education, Jake S. And you will find that there are close to zero actual climate scientists who take a contrarian viewpoint about AGW . . . and you will find absolutely zero who can supply any valid evidence to support their position(s). (All they have is rhetoric and religious beliefs.)

My apologies, Jake S , for mentioning Lord Monckton, in post #369 ~ it is just that he is a prominent speaker (not a scientist in the slightest) who is remarkably innumerate & ignorant in actual climate science, and who typifies many denialists by asserting that AGW is a hoax invented by (worldwide) scientists who are plotting to set up a Communist World Government. 'Nuff said, about his intellect.

But it is interesting, Jake S , that you raised the matter of lobotomy (perhaps you meant leucotomy) . . . which has prompted me to think of a Monckton nexus there. It would explain much.

Jake S , as for your list of "many refutations" of the 97% consensus figure . . . there seem to be few, if any, that are scientifically peer-reviewed papers. And much worse, they present no valid argument. And your list includes Dr R. Tol in Energy Policy (!) ; and Breitbart (!!!) . . . not to mention American Thinker (!!) and 3 from ClimateEtc (!) and 6 from JoNova (!!) .

And 15 (fifteen) from WUWT blog (a favored home of Monckton) which is mostly a blog of remarkably puerile propaganda, with comment columns half-filled by commenters who are in full denial of the physical properties of CO2. (Mr Watts says they are quite wrong . . . but he encourages them to rant. It's that sort of blog / echo-chamber. Almost no rational laypeople and almost no real scientists.)

In short, Jake S , you have provided nothing in the way of rational reasons.

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Jake S at 11:49 AM on 10 May, 2019

Eclectic I have not read the entire paper. I read the abstract and skimmed the rest. Also I can think without prompting, but thanks for the advice.

The subject of the earth being an oblate spheroid is a terrible comparison to the cause of climate change. The shape of the earth is universally accepted by scientists and rational laypeople, based on thousands of years of observations, photography from orbit, orbits themselves and a number of other undisputed facts.

For this reason there is no point in astronomers or earth scientists mentioning this obvious fact in any papers, except where it's relevant or necessary, such as when Copernicus was advancing his heliocentricity theory.

The cause of climate change is not universally accepted among scientists. How could it be? Studying the last 100 years of global climate without our pollution contributions is impossible, and studying future implications is impossible beyond simplified projections and computer models.

This cherry-picked study is the best attempt at quantifying such a consensus. And since the Cook study is being used to establish the belief in a human cause for climate change science and the public, this is definitely a case where proof of an real consensus would be required.

Your point seems to be: a human cause of climate change is true because it's true, despite any inconvenient facts to the contrary. It sounds like the authors even went back and offered the scientists a chance to clarify their positions, so likely if the 2/3 who were excluded for having the wrong opinion actually believed in a human cause, they would have mentioned it.

I have not mentioned Monckton — and didn't know who he was until I looked it up just now — so I'm not sure why you brought him up or disputed his ideas: this sounds like a straw man argument.

And I have not mentioned emotions, so I'm not sure why you tried to dismiss my arguments with this topic. I fully believe in evidence and logic, which is the reason I'm disputing the circular logic of this study and yourself. On the contrary, it sounds like you are arguing orthodoxy rather than facts or logic.

This is the danger with science: bad ideas and methods can continue for long periods because dissenting scientists realize that contradicting the status quo can mean the end of their reputation and career. This is why Moniz won a Nobel prize for the terrible idea that is the lobotomy, despite the tragic side-effects of this procedure.

Similarly, climate change scientists testifying before Congress have discussed the pressure to conform to human cause ideology, and the understanding among their peers that papers suggesting a human cause are much more likely to be published, including letters from prominent scientists suggesting it's better to go along with the program. If scientists must be pressured to conform, this shows that educated people do not in fact universally support the human cause hypothesis.

Here is a list of some of the many refutations of this silly 97% study by peer-reviewed journals, independent organizations and the media:

http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/12/97-articles-refuting-97-consensus.html

Skeptical Science Study Finds 97% Consensus on Human-Caused Global Warming in the Peer-Reviewed Literature

Eclectic at 08:31 AM on 10 May, 2019

Jake S , it sounds like you have not actually read the "consensus" paper (by Cook et al., 2013) or given it serious thought.

Take your time. Read the Cook paper - both parts - then think about it. Think it through.

Or we could say that more than 99% of geophysical scientists have not suggested the Earth is Round, and their stated consensus leans more toward the "Flat" conclusion. That is, if we were to use the logic of the good Lord Monckton.

But Monckton says anything he pleases ~ and then often contradicts himself at a later date. That's one of the perils of nonsensical thinking. When you tie your thinking into a pretzel, it is possible to come to any conclusion at all. Easily done, apparently, if your emotions would have you believe there is no such thing as evidence & logic.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 01:12 AM on 30 April, 2019

Pl @793 ,

< "Consensus" can mean either the proposition itself, or the fact that there's an agreement. For me, the former is rather clear ("AGW is a thing"), the quantification of the latter is what I'm commenting. > unquote .

"Consensus" is potentially a very large Venn Circle indeed, and we would do well to define it more closely and pragmatically. (Semantic confusion can easily be a Black Hole that swallows up any effectual discussion.)

"AGW is a thing" is far from correct. AGW is much more than "a thing" in the colloquial sense ~ AGW is a physical reality. Likewise, choosing to label the Consensus as a proposition, is a choice of even more nebulous terminology.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, for climate purposes Consensus is essentially a term for the established science. (There have been rare occasions when the established non-climate science has been overthrown or enormously modified - think Newtonian/Einsteinian physics of motion - but the established climate science is the product of a century of work by countless thousands of modern scientists, not the work of a single English genius in the 17th Century . . . and the chance of the mainstream climate science being seriously overthrown by startling new insights, is such a vanishingly small chance, as to be ridiculously fanciful.

In looser terminology, "Consensus" is often used in climate matters as a type of numerical proxy for the scientific position. It is this latter meaning which gives rise to public confusion/uncertainty about the actual underlying science (a confusion magnified by numerous propagandists who injected much deliberate obfuscation).

The purpose of the Cook et al., 2013 study was to achieve an improvement over earlier studies/surveys : to achieve a more definitive figure for the numerical consensus, and to greatly reduce the scope for any [as you yourself quote:] "lines of attack from deniers". The Cook study was very clever - and award-winning - and produced the very widely cited 97% figure, which has become notorious (and which has become infuriating & nauseating, to all the science-deniers).

As might be expected, the denialists' fury has resulted in massive eruptions of Motivated Reasoning. The gigantic brain of Lord Monckton (and cronies) has produced very "creative accounting" which has variously redefined the Cook 97% figure down to 33% or 13% or 4% or similar absurd figures. Yet that's hardly surprising, coming from intellects which are in full denial about the physical properties of CO2.

As I mentioned earlier, the 2013 Cook study is now quite dated ~ centered on approximately 2005. More modern studies [e.g. 2014] show a consensus well above 99%. And more importantly, the "contrarians" have still produced nothing valid in the way of support for their skepticism. Nothing at all.

Pl , the 2016 link you gave earlier (to Cook and other consensus investigators) is merely a meta-analysis.

"Circling back" to your original comments ~ Pl , I had hoped I had already answered your "two examples" ; answered them directly as well as en passant. If that is not so (in your own mind), then perhaps I have not expressed myself clearly enough. Or perhaps you are doubling-down on your "Devil's Advocacy". Either way, you will need to state your objections in a far more precise & thorough manner.

At the same time, you might care to expand on the "non-binary nature" you mentioned ~ although once you have eliminated the obscurity, it might well be that we find it rather off-topic for this thread.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 18:04 PM on 27 April, 2019

Quite agree, KR @791 . . . and longish post follows.

There are probably rather more than four categories of denialist . . . but the madness/badness of the human psyche is so commonplace, that it would be tiresome for you (or anyone) to allocate further mental effort to refine categories beyond your four !

As you say, KR, science-deniers (and here I include some well-educated scientists who nevertheless deny climate science directly or indirectly) have a tendency to occupy more than one category.

Perhaps they start off in a single category, and then some amplification or or positive feedback process causes them to swell and overflow into neighbouring categories? Do you know of any psychological study which quantifies the TCLS (Transient Climate Lunacy Sensitivity = number of years until Climate Lunacy has doubled in an individual denialist) . . . or quantifies the ECLS (Equilibrium Climate Lunacy Sensitivity) ?? Though I suspect that the ECLS is a difficult matter to quantify, because ECL is only reached at the moment of death.

If I am permitted to name names which fit primarily into your fourth category, it would be easy to pick Richard L and Judith C ~ being scientists who in earlier decades have made some contribution to climate science, but whose contribution history has been more ordinary than illustrious. Yet they are only human, and doubtless enjoy the perks & celebrity status awarded by the general denialist community (who have a desperately thin field of champions to choose from).

Now a "Fourther" who has puzzled me is Dr Koonin ~ does he justify a fifth category, or is it merely a case of "opportunism"? Perhaps he suffers from LDS (Limelight Deprivation Syndrome) as he moves out of public life . . . but then again, LDS would also explain some of the motivation of emeritus professors & other retirees who occupy category 4.

Returning more closely on topic : we have the multi-category award winner Mr Monckton. Lord M has been lauded by (Mr Watts and his cronies at) WUWT website, for his innumerate [in both meanings!] and strenuous denunciations of the consensus demonstrated by Cook et al., 2013.

Now, at various times I have touted the excellent Youtube video series produced by science journalist Potholer54 on climate matters & climate myth debunking. In particular, Potholer has an amusing 5-part video exposure of the mendacity of Lord M. (Look for "Monckton Bunkum".) And I gather that Potholer also posted on WUWT, to show the utter falsity of Lord M's positions & calculations (especially regarding Consensus figures) . . . and before very long, Mr Watt banned & expunged Potholer from the website. I did not witness these events ~ but I know that Potholer makes a point of always being civil or showing icy politeness. So it seems Mr Watts was infuriated by the relentless logic provide by Potholer . . . and Lord M's denunciations of Consensus are still extant on WUWT (or were so, last time I looked).

Climate's changed before

Eclectic at 10:53 AM on 26 March, 2019

@668 : let it slide, TVC15 .

In the end, it's rather futile to debate the origin of metabolic carbon ~ since the terrestrial carbon cycle moves C around continuously [not counting fossil carbon]. As David Kirtley says, its ultimate origin is from some distant stellar source, pre-dating our own sun.

If anything, one might say that lifeform C in evolutionary terms originated from lipids and/or carbonates/bicarbonates in the primordial ocean. And there can be other arguments too . . . all getting a bit Angels on a pinhead. But your denier friend wasn't entirely wrong in his point about carbon ~ though it certainly was a pointless point he made.

I hope you've had time to enjoy a few of the Potholer54 videos on climate science. He has five [FIVE] on the asinine antics of the eloquent Lord Monckton ~ quite amusing to see the "error-prone Viscount" [unquote] shoot himself in the foot repeatedly.

Next self-paced run of Denial101x starts on March 5

One Planet Only Forever at 02:48 AM on 15 March, 2019

Eclectic,

Rereading your comment @53, I understand that you may have clarified the goal posts regarding your initial comment @45 (which only asked for Prominent names incorrectly used to gain credibility). You may be seeking 'very frequently used Prominent names'.

I agree that Darwin is not frequently used, though there actually are cases where Darwin has been abused by climate science denial promoters like Monckton (as the DeSmogBlog item I provided a link to showed).

What I see related to Darwin that is frequently abused (by the likes of Monckton) are the many suggestions that it is acceptable for current day people to not give up some of their developed perceptions of prosperity and comfort just to reduce the harm done to future generations because 'those future generations will be able to adapt, the incorrect Darwin link'.

Examples of this incorrect link to Darwin are the economic claims that the artificial developed perceptions of wealth, prosperity, or reduction of poverty that are the result of the unsustainable and harmful burning of fossil fuels will somehow be sustained into the future (perceived positive results of unsustainable harmful behaviour are very unlikely to be sustained positives in the future).

Similarly incorrect are the related claims that the perceptions of loss of status by portions of the current generation if 'they had to adapt' to the reality of the unacceptability of harming the future generations must over-rule the fundamental understanding of the need to minimize the required 'adaptation to the harmful future consequences of the current generation dragging its feet about correcting what has developed (foot dragging because they - collectively - do not want to correct their incorrectly developed perceptions, they want to allow everyone to continue pursuing 'their happiness any way they have developed a liking for'.

Efforts to improve the awareness, understanding and acceptance of climate science cannot be separated from the related need for increased acceptance of the need to achieve and improve on all of the Sustainable Development Goals (not just the minimization of climate change harm), which cannot be separated from the related reality that some people will have to lose developed perceptions of status relative to others (not just the coal barons). That is a lot of incorrect developed popularity and profitability to over-come, but the future of humanity needs the corrections to be done, and be done by the current generation because they are the only ones doing anything and everything, including creating the future for humanity through their actions (or lack of correction).

Monckton Misrepresents Reality (Part 3)

leslie dean brown at 17:38 PM on 14 January, 2019

Monckton is a fool with zero scientific training. I'm surprised you gave him this much attention.

IPCC overestimate temperature rise

MA Rodger at 00:07 AM on 6 November, 2018

Samata @65,

The Monckton YouTube video you link to appears to be the 'work' presented in Monckton et al (Unpublished) which remains unpublised because it is total nonsense. You ask for the mathematical errors. There may be many but the central problem Monckton has is his insistence that climate sensitivity can be calculated on the back of a fag packet in the following manner:-

If the black body temperature of a zero GHG Earth is 255K and there is, according to Monckton, enough forcing pre-industrial to add 8K to that temperature directly from those forcings (giving a temperature without feedback of 263K), then if the actual pre-industrial temperature with feedbacks is 287K, the feedback mechanisms have raised the temperature by 24K. Monckton then calculates the strength of these feedbacks as a portion of the full non-feedback temperature (287/263-1) = 0.09. [This, of course, is a big big error.] Thus ECS(Monckton)= 1.1K x 1.09 = 1.2K.

(See Monckton's explanation of his basic method at Roy Spencer's, a climate denier who refutes Monckton's methods).

The big big error is in attributing pro-rata feedback to all the black body warming. It is also an error to run with these back-of-fag-packet calculations all the way to zero LL-GHG (what Monckton calls NOGS) but not as dreadful a mistake as using them pro rata all the way down to absolute zero.

His back-of-fag-packet calculation should be saying that 8K LL GHG-forced warming results in 33K of warming at equilibrium, thus ECS = 1.1K x 33/8 = 4.5K, a value that is high but not entirely implausable.

A more sensible analysis would not consider that ECS is a constant value over such large temperature ranges. And there will be feedback mechanisms operating without LL GHGs being present. But they will bear no resemblance to the feedback mechanisms facing a world at 288K.

IPCC overestimate temperature rise

Sarmata at 08:04 AM on 5 November, 2018

What about how he debunks this equation here:

"Monckton's Mathematical Proof - Climate Sensitivity is Low"

youtube

What errors does he do in this math there?

Arctic was warmer in 1940

Anne-Marie Blackburn at 06:25 AM on 30 March, 2018

Hello Napin, welcome to Skeptical Science! Your question is an interesting and important one because what we choose to do as a society depends on our understanding of the problem we’re facing. If we don’t understand the problem properly we might make decisions that fail to address it. So how can we make sure the information we’re given is correct?

One of the first steps we can take is to check the source of the information. In the case of the claim that Arctic temperatures were warmer in the 1940s, the author is Christopher Monckton and his article was published on the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) website. Christopher Monckton is not a climate scientist and the SPPI is not a scientific publication. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the information is incorrect but it does mean we have to evaluate his claims carefully. If we look at his graphs on Arctic warming we notice a few things. First, there is no reference given for the graphs so it’s not possible to check whether they’re reliable. Without access to the data so that we can produce our own graph, we can’t say that this graph is accurate.

In the case of the second graph, it seems that Monckton is only looking a small selection of weather stations. It’s hard to tell because he hasn’t provided a reference to the data in question. As Robert writes in his article, Monckton doesn’t seem to an analysis that covers the whole of the Arctic. In other words, Monckton has cherry-picked a few weather stations that support his argument rather than looking at all the evidence. In the case of the third graph Monckton once again fails to provide a reference so we face the same problem as with the two other graphs. Also the graph ends just after the year 2000 so it misses out a lot of the recent warming.

So I think we have good grounds to question Monckton’s claims at this point, especially as no scientific institution agrees with him. But more broadly there are things we can do to protect ourselves against misinformation. This is important because it can help us assess the validity of all claims made about a scientific topic. Skeptical Science has produced an online course which highlights the ways in which misleading arguments are constructed. Once we understand what to look for it becomes easier to spot misinformation. For instance, Monckton implies that since Arctic temperatures have changed naturally in the past, then current warming must also be natural and we don’t need to worry about CO2 emissions. This is not a scientific position. Climate has changed in past because of a number of factors - variations in solar activity, the Earth’s orbit around the sun, volcanic activity, changes in atmospheric composition, including CO2 levels, etc. We can only understand current and future climate change by looking at what’s happening now. Past climate change can help us make predictions about what will happen in the future, but it tells us nothing about the causes of current change.

If you’d like to learn more about the various ways misleading information is used, you might be interested in our online course, which can be found here. Week 1 and Week 6 are particularly useful. Also John Cook and some fellow scientists have published a recent handbook in which you might find useful information. I hope I have answered your question and if there's anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

How we know the greenhouse effect isn't saturated

MA Rodger at 19:52 PM on 23 March, 2018

Further to my assertions @104 concerning the requirement for CO2 warming to maintain H2O in the atmosphere, a paper looking at the impact of the zeroing of LL GHGs has featured in the evidence resulting from Judge Alsup's call for an AGW tutorial. The evidence in question is from Monckton, Soon et al (its contorted thesis of high humour content) which cited Lacis et al (2010) 'Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature'. While the description @104 was bravely considering a zero-CO2 steady-state, all LL GHG are something like 75% CO2 but those other LL GHG will be much reduced in a colder world so there won't be a great difference between zeroing CO2 and zeroing all LL GHG.

Lacis et al show by zeroing all LL GHG the world begins to cool at 4ºC/year thus becoming colder than ice-ages in 18 months. The cooling continues but at a far lower rate after the first seven years, and temperature will still be sinking beyond the 50 years of the modellng. At 50 years, average annual temperatures at the equator remain just above freezing allowing atmospheric H2O at 20% of pre-industrial values but 50% of the oceans are frozen over.

The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party

villabolo at 09:09 AM on 6 December, 2017

Nigelj #14,

Something weird and dangerous is happening in America. It's a whole combination of things, extreme partisan divisions, crazy economics...

The political extremism has been 30 years in the making though it's gotten to be real noticeable since the Bush administration.

This is the result of 30 years worth of hate radio, starting with Rush Limbaugh, and 20 years of hate television, starting with Fox News. Hate sells (Limbaugh's $400 million contract for 8 years!) and is used to control people.

Throughout those 30 years our productivity has doubled but the salaries of most has not. Except, of course for the upper 1%.

Unfortunately, I see no end for this in this country (USA). Fortunately we're flanked by

Europe we all know about. Lesser known by the public is that China is getting into the renewable energy bandwagon. Their wind energy productivity is increasing by about 50% per year and they plan to phase out gasoline and diesel cars by 2030. So much for Lord Monckton's Chinese "socialist" conspiracies.

The United States appears to be the world's village idiot.

The Mail's censure shows which media outlets are biased on climate change

MA Rodger at 21:36 PM on 30 September, 2017

nigelJ @39,
Note that within her spreading of doubt and denial about AGW, Curry is even happy to trash the temperature record. (This is perhaps odd as the temperature record is about the only thing she has to base her grand theory of there being a humongous natural climate wobble which has amplified the recent AGW over 1970-98 to create the present climate 'hysteria' with Wyatt's Unified Wave Theory being Judy's candidate for such an oscillation back in 2015.)

Her stance in the temperature record is basically that 'there has been warming, but...' with the 'but' being followed by the buckets of doubt and denial. In many ways her comments about the temperature-record exemplifies her highly unscientific method. She will raises issues but almost always fails to set out clearly what she concludes from such issues. If she did, she would be slammed for promulgating serious denial with sky-high Monckton-ratings.

Consider her testemony about the temperature record in front of this 2015 Senate Committee:-
♠ Her citing of the hockeystick graph as showing "overall warming may have occurred for the past 300–400 years. Humans contributed little if anything to this early global warming," rather misrepresents the hockeystick. She is strongly suggesting that the possible 0.2ºC warming over a recent 300-year period (1600-1900) somehow brings into serious doubt the IPCC's attribution of the 1.2ºC warming since 1900.
♠ Her evidence on the relevance of the 'hiatus' never concludes. Rather it rambles on about "The growing discrepancy between climate model predictions and the observations", the raging debates over the recent Karl et al (2015), the 'hiatus' "clearly revealed" by satellite data (helpfully plotted by denialist Roy Spencer so the graph shows the now-superceded RSSv3.3 and the then-yet-to-be-released UAHv6.0 and with the RSS data re-based and curiously shorn of some of its maxs&mins and for good measure the graph stops short of the latest 2015 warmth), scientific disagreement over discrepancies between TLT & SAT records (and note where she stands on that with her oral testimony "we need to look at the satellite data. I mean, this is the best data that we have and is global"), convoluted statistical probability of 2015 becoming warmest-year-on-record, discrepancies amongst temperature data sets, a five years requirement to be sure the 'hiatus' has actually ended. It rambles on but the relevance of the 'hiatus', the message she is meant to be delivering, is never set out.
♠ Beyond her written testimony, Curry also expounds on SAT record adjustments, spreading yet more doubt:-

"... And the adjustments, as you can see, are rather huge, OK?
So should we—so, to me, the error bars should really be much bigger if they are making such a large adjustment. So we really don’t know too much about what is going on in terms of, you know, it is a great deal of uncertainty. Yes, I do believe that we have overall been warming, but we have been warming for 200, maybe even 400 years, OK? And that is not caused by humans."

After the digression onto the pet "warming for even 400 years,OK" Curry returns to adjustments but specifically ocean adjustments stating "I mean, the land datasets are sort of starting to agree, but there is a great deal of controversy and uncertainty right now in the treatment of the ocean temperatures." Poor Judy has failed to note that Chariman Cruz was asking for comment on USCHN data adjustments and her comment relevant to that data solely comprises "the land datasets are sort of starting to agree" and thus that the adjustments Cruz is complaining about are perfectly appropriate. Yet that is certainly not the take-away message she provides.

Curry gets away with talking this rubbish, even in written reports presented to a Senate Committe. She really should be taken to task for it.

New study finds that climate change costs will hit Trump country hardest

One Planet Only Forever at 11:39 AM on 26 August, 2017

NorrisM,

To clarify my points regarding the unhelpfulness of the likes of Bjorn Lomborg and Lord Monckton regarding the appropriate awareness and understanding of the changes of human activity that climate science has identified as being required to improve the future for all of humanity, it is important to understand that 'anything that does not improve the future for all of humanity is unhelpful'.

Another way of saying that is 'only activities that have a net-zero or net-positive impact on Others are acceptable'. That is the fundamantal ethic behind sustainable rule of law. Any law and application of law that does not meet that measure ultimately deserves to be rewritten or revoked (like revised definitions of what Environmental Protection must include). And it is a rational consideration from the perspective the person affected, not the person making the impact, that determines if there is a net-negative impact.

The burning of fossil fuels, therefore, only becomes acceptable if there is no net-negative impact on any Others, with future generations being considered to be Others.

The likes of Lomborg and Monckton (and Trump) appeal to the selfish interests among the current generation. They try to claim that it is OK for some among the current generation to benefit from an activity that is understandably creating net-negative impacts for Others. They base their claims on showing that, from their perspective, the opportunity that has to be given up by current day people is less than the harm, costs and challenges that are being created for Others. And they attempt to justify more future harm by applying what is called a net-present-value assessment (or discounting of future costs) that reduces the value of future costs the further into the future they are. And they do not acknoweldge the 'Others' aspect. They instead claim that the harm done is acceptable as long as it is less than the opportunity to benefit that they evaluate would have to be given up by current day people since the result is a net-neutral or net-positive from their perspoective. That type of evaluation can easily be seen to be ridiculous, yet it continues to be used and be popular.

It is undeniable that much of the developed economic activity of the supposedly (perceived and claimed to be) most advanced nations and corporations was developed in the wrong direction (unsustainable activity). Those who continued with that incorrect direction of development since 1990 (and even earlier, potentially as early as 1972 when the Stockholm Conference identified the required changes of direction), have only themselves to blame for the current developed fact that making the required changes as rapidly as they need to be made is 'to their significant disadvantage'.

Bad news for climate contrarians – 'the best data we have' just got hotter

Jeff T at 08:08 AM on 6 July, 2017

John, thanks for the explanation of the RSS changes and your many other efforts to encourage action on climate change. One complaint though: the graph that compares old and new RSS data shows trends since 1998. The trend lines were clearly computed by ignoring data prior to 1998. Consequently, there is an implicit discontinuity of temperature in 1998 that makes the trend steeper than it ought to be. Skeptical Science has correctly faulted people like Christpher Monckton for similar calculations. Please make it clear in the text that you don't consider it proper to ignore some of the data.

SkS Analogy 8 - I'll take the specialist

ubrew12 at 03:46 AM on 16 June, 2017

Excellent analogy. I have a similar analogy regarding eyesight. It occurred to me that the climate debate can be simplified to determining just one number: the ECS (equilibrium climate sensitivity to doubled CO2). If the ECS is greater than 2 C, then we need to take action. If it is less than 2 C, then we can relax.

Can the public use its science-eyes to 'see' the ECS? No. The public's right eye definitely sees something: Climate science has been calculating the same ECS for over a century, and today converges on this average value, 3 C, from at least twenty different directions. But there is a problem. The public cannot trust what it's right eye sees because an entire fossil-funded doubt-industry has dedicated itself to throwing shade at the Climate scientists.

The public is thus blind in its right eye. To make policy, however, it still needs to 'see' the ECS. Lets ask the left eye, the eye of the Skeptics. What do Skeptics 'see' for ECS, and can they please show their work? But, there's a problem: the left eye is closed. It turns out the only purpose of the left eye is to invent reasons why the right eye can't be trusted, not to see anything on its own. There will always be a reason why they cannot calculate the ECS, or cannot show their work, but 'just know', intuitively, that ECS is less than 2 C (Rarely someone like Christopher Monckton will calculate ECS, and show his work, and people will find the error in that work usually on the same day).

Thus the public is blind in both eyes. One eye cannot be trusted, and the other eye is closed. So, until our vision improves, we'll just stumble along blindly in the same direction, hoping for the best. Which is the entire reason a powerful industry funded the left eye in the first place.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 00:29 AM on 7 June, 2017

True, CycleGeek @752, there are people who are so divorced from reality as to believe what they want to believe, in defiance of the actual state of affairs.

If you yourself are not one of these people, then you will now (having read so many pages) be able to give a brief summary of the "legitimate arguments" against the existence of the scientific consensus.

Reading this thread, and using the most strenuous skepticism, I have been unable to find any such "legitimate arguments" — so I very much look forward to being enlightened by your reply (assuming you can find any arguments that are not simply delusional and unrealistic as Monckton's ).

NY Times hired a hippie puncher to give climate obstructionists cover

Charles S at 18:54 PM on 2 May, 2017

ño

Michael Sweet: you can contact the New York Times public editor at: public@nytimes.com

joe: current rate of warming is 1.7 C/century, but that rate is accelerating because the rate of release of CO2 is accelerating (and will continue to do so in the RCP8.5 scenario.

Glenn: That really is impressive that macquigg's ridiculously inaccurate penultimate paragraph then led accidentally into their reasonably accurate last paragraph. The ball is going to go down the river, however the turbulence may bounce it up and down along the way.

Just who are these 300 'scientists' telling Trump to burn the climate?

chriskoz at 17:41 PM on 28 February, 2017

Desmog provides some more trivia about the subject Lindzen list. I find especially funny this one:

...in reality, Lindzen’s list is a rehash of previous “open letters” and petitions going back almost a decade, carrying many of the same names and making the same worn-out arguments that CO2 is good for the planet

and this final one:

Lindzen’s list also includes several members of Principia Scientific International — a UK-based group that has claimed carbon dioxide is not even a greenhouse gas.
Climate science denier and British peer Lord Christopher Monckton once described a founder of that group, John Sullivan, as “confused and scientifically illiterate.”
This is terrifically ironic because Monckton is also on Lindzen’s latest list, except his name is spelled “Mockton.”

Cannot be any more ironic. And of course indicative that Lindzen may well made this list up and people who "signed" it don't even know of its existence.

US election: Climate scientists react to Donald Trump’s victory

Lionel A at 08:36 AM on 18 November, 2016

Monckton has been writing silly things about John Abraham, amongst other things, below that Carbon Brief article.

US election: Climate scientists react to Donald Trump’s victory

Lionel A at 01:37 AM on 17 November, 2016

Visiting the original article at Carbon Brief I note that somebody using the name 'monckton' has opened the comments batting with long debunked disinformation for which his Lordship is so well known.

How climate science deniers can accept so many 'impossible things' all at once

Tom Curtis at 08:24 AM on 26 September, 2016

Art Vandelay @10, the issues you raise are discussed in the paper explicitly under section 1.4. In that section the authors point out that they have documented instances of incoherence in the positions of several individuals in Table 2, including Plimer (3 examples), Christy (1 example), Watts (2 examples) and Monckton (3 examples). Their table 2 is certainly not exhaustive in the cases of Plimer, Watts and Monckton, and is from my experience not exhaustive as to individuals demonstrating this sort of incoherence.

Further, they argue that even if the incoherence were within the group, but not within particular individuals, "...there are several reasons why this would not be reflective of “healthy debate” or “scientific diversity”". They go on:

"First, as we noted at the outset, science strives for coherence (e.g., Douglas 2013; Laudan 1984; Roche 2014; Thagard 2012) and there is little room for incoherent theories in science (and any incoherence contains within it an impetus for reconciliation). ... It follows that if climate denial were to constitute scientific reasoning—as is its purported purpose (e.g., Solomon 2008)—then it would exhibit coherence notwithstanding the presence of multiple agents and actors. The fact that it fails to achieve this and that incoherence is manifest at the aggregate (Table 1) as well as at the individual level (Table 2) leaves little doubt about the non-scientific nature of denial.
Second, the theoretical coherence of consensual climate science does not prevent robust debate. ... No such corrective processes can be observed in denialist discourse which focuses entirely on its opposition to mainstream science and does not entail any debate among the incoherent positions we have revealed in this article.
The absence of any corrective resolution process among climate contrarians raises the question to what extent incoherence is perceived or recognized as a problem by people who hold contrarian views. This question is difficult to answer with any degree of certainty, although one can attempt to make an inference by examining the “revealed preferences” (cf. Beshears et al. 2008) of contrarians. In the context of climate change, one way in which preferences might be revealed is by the willingness to incur financial risks to back one’s position in a bet. Bets have a long history as a tool to reveal people’s preferences.
...
It is notable that although contrarians readily claim that the Earth will be cooling in the future, most are unwilling to bet on their stated position (Annan 2005). ... The unwillingness to bet is thus indicative of the over-arching rationality of denial, notwithstanding its argumentative incoherence and non-scientific nature."

Obviously you should read the full text in the original rather than my quote alone, as I have ellided much of the text for brevity.

For myself, I have often noted within the "skeptical" community a tendency by individuals to comment appreciatively on any claim purported to refute AGW, even when such claims contradict the favoured theory of the individual. That indicates fairly clearly to me that the purpose of the theories advanced is not to vindicate those theories, but to "refute" AGW. If in fact the proponents of the diverse theories of AGW denial were primarilly motivated by the science, those who thought warming was caused by the rise in GHG, but that climate sensitivity was low would have as much of a problem with those who thought the warming was primarilly due to the Sun as do proponents of AGW, and similarly with those who thought the recent temperature increase was due to the PDO or AMO. Instead, there behaviour clearly indicates that they reject AGW, and will give a favourable reception to almost any theory that similarly rejects AGW, even when that theory is as incoherent with, or more inchorent with their own theory than it is with AGW. (This might be considered an aspect of the authors second point quoted above, but I think it is different.)

All that said, there are two fuzzy divides within the AGW denial community. First, there is that between those who reject the possibility of an enhanced greenhouse effect altogether, and those who do not. This is illustrated by another of Anthony Watts incoherences, for while he rejects the label "denier" as applied to himself as being a deliberate, and odious moral comparison with holocaust deniers (rather than an indication that his doubt is based on pseudoscience), he is happy to call the "dragon slayers", ie, those deniers who reject an enhanced greenhouse effect entirely deniers). The weaker barrier is between deniers who reject any possibility of AGW being either significant or harmful, and those who merely insist it will be moderate (ie, that the mean Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity lies between 1 and 3 C, and that increased damage with increased GMST is low). These categories are fuzzy because not all deniers accept that one or either category represents a significant division in the community, and because a number of those in the second category deliberately misrepresent their position by labelling it as belonging to the third category. It should be noted in passing that not all members of the third category, the "luke warmers" are in fact deniers, ie, those whose rejection of AGW shows the hallmarks of pseudoscience.

Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer

KR at 23:15 PM on 10 June, 2016

Mike Hillis - I've looked over this thread a couple of times, and I one major question for you:

What is your point?

The archived and published temperature data for Alley 2000, using "...ice-isotopic ratios, borehole temperatures, and gas-isotopic ratios" (emphasis added), indeed starts at 1855 and goes back, entirely appropriate for examining the Younger Dryas cold period - the entire point of the Alley 2000 paper.

Gas-isotopic ratios aren't usable until the firn packs, borehole temps near the surface become increasingly noisy due to local weather, and most of all, Alley wasn't using paleo data for the last few hundred years of temperatures. Whether or not it's possible to extract paleotemperatures from the top few meters of recent snow is simply immaterial - you don't need paleotemperatures when there's an existing instrumental record, and Tom Curtis and others have correctly pointed out that recent years aren't in the published data from that ice core. Easterbrook, Monckton, and others (mis)using the Alley 2000 and GISP2 data made fundamental dating errors in their arguments, local temps aren't global temps, and so the myth discussed in the OP is, indeed, busted.

IMO you made some extremely strong and unsupported claims against the OP in your first post ("this fabrication"), and have since been dancing around the corrections provided to you; trying to retain some kind of issue to be "shocked" about. As far as I can see there is no issue with the OP, and you are now arguing about (possible) data of no interest to Alley 2000, data that wasn't collected or published, data irrelevant to either the paper or to the dating errors made by (among others) Easterbrook and Monckton.

Arguing about the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin would be just as relevant to the opening post. If you have an actual issue with the OP, please state it - otherwise, you're just making noise.

Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer

MA Rodger at 21:53 PM on 7 June, 2016

I find it all quite amusing to see folk bashing on regardless of the trail of nonsense they leave behind them up-thread although it is rather cruel to let them continue without comment.

Mike Hillis @68.

You appear on this thread @52 with all guns blazing & accusations of "fabrication" because, you tell us, (A) Alley (2000) uses data that does not end in 1855 & (B) Alley (2000) does not use 1855 as any sort of "present" & (C) that you can get usable isotope measurements from firn & snow.

Yet @57 you roll back the (A) accusation on 1855 being the latest data used by Alley (2000) & (B) that 95ybp = 1855 but (C) insist the isotope data does exist for later years.

(Note this already provides what the Moderator Response was asking for @68.)

As this position didn't appear to constitute a "fabrication" any more, and "fabrication" being such a strong position, you were asked & did restate your position @63, but an entirely different one, a whole new ball game. (D) It is a fabriation to assert that Easterbrook & Mad Lord Monckton have perpetrated a lie about holocene temperatures being mainly warmer than today. (E) The bulk of the holocene was warmer than today, but you then present a graphic of holocene temperatures which amusingly shows the exact opposite.

Now @68 we find Easterbrook is pshawed so persumably we can consider (D) & (E) to be retracted but (C), unmentioned since your comment @60, is restated @68.

Is it truly a "basic error with the OP" to state that "it takes decades for snow to consolidate into ice"? The OP statement quoted here is correct in itself. Further it does explain why Alley (2004) stopped his temperature reconstruction in 1855 which is a fundamental part of the post. I do not see here any "basic error."

Perhaps a challenge should be set for Mike Hillis. Isotope data can be and is taken from snow and this data can be and is dated and added to ice core isotope data. But where is this data published authoritatively as a temperature series? Alley (2004) provides such a temperature series but only to 1855. Is there an ice core/snow temperature series that continues to a later date?

Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer

Tom Curtis at 09:20 AM on 4 June, 2016

Mike Hillis @63, point by point:

1) The quote by Monckton at the head of the article is simply an example of the myth being propogated. It is not, as you suggest, part of an evidentiary chain other than to the point that the myth exists, and is propogated by at least some climate change deniers. What is more, by claiming that it is a fabrication that "the "myth" ... is based on a comment made by Monkton", you imply that Monckton has been misquoted. Following the link for the quote and scrolling down to the second box on page three proves that to not be the case. Monckton was not misquoted. He has used the myth. But the article made no claim that Monckton is the only denier to use the myth, or that he was the primary person to propogate the myth, contrary to your suggestion.

Monckton also explicitly ties his opinion to the GISP 2 record in another document (PDF) where he produces this graph:

He captions it, "Warmer than today: most of the period since the end of the last Ice Age has been
warmer than the present by several degrees Celsius" and writes:

"Seen in the geological perspective of the last 17,000 years, the 300 years of recent warming, nearly all of which must have been natural, for we could not have had any significant influence except in the past 25 years, are manifestly insignificant."

The comment about the 300 years shows clearly that he is treating the terminal period of the graph, which actually ends in 1855, as ending in approximately 1995.

As a side note, he (not unusually) mislabels the source of the data, which is Cuffey and Clow (1997).

2) You also dispute that Monckton got the idea from Easterbrook, but Easterbrook propogated the idea in 2008 (PDF), where he produced this graph the below graph, saying:

"The global warming experienced during the past century pales into insignificance when compared to the magnitude of at least ten sudden, profound climate reversals over the past 15,000 years (Figure 5)"

Again, the graph is claimed to depict "global warming during the past century" even though the last data point on the graph in fact occurs in 1855.

Easterbrook even predates Monckton on the "some 9,100 of the past 10,500 years were warmer" meme, with an article on WUWT in December, 2010 claiming that:

"So where do the 1934/1998/2010 warm years rank in the long-term list of warm years? Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010. Thus, regardless of which year ( 1934, 1998, or 2010) turns out to be the warmest of the past century, that year will rank number 9,099 in the long-term list."

As a side note, I am puzzled as to how he determines that ranking. Using the GISP 2 temperature data cached by Alley, from 8,905 to 8,915 of the 10,500 years BP in that record are warmer than the terminal data point. For Easterbrook to gain his ranking, he must conclude that 2010 was significantly cooler than the year he considered to be 1905.

As a further side note, the 2010 article by Easterbrook is the one discusses by Gareth Renowden above.

3) No claim is made in the OP that Easterbrook came to his conclusion as the result of just one study. The claim that he did so is false, but the only fabrication involved is your attribution of that claim to the OP.

4) You claim it is absurd that Easterbrook, as a geologist, did not know that Before Present refers to before 1950 unless otherwise specified, but in the 2010 article, his reproduction of the Alley data clearly labels the x axis "Years before present (2000 AD)", thereby indicating that he took "present" in this data to refer to 2000, not 1950. So far as I am aware, he still does so.

5) Regardless of his reasons, the paper trail clearly shows Easterbrook labeling the data that terminated in 1855 as "present global warming" thereby indicating the tail of that graph to be the warming during the 20th century (see graph above). Later he clearly labelled that data on an axis for years BP, glossed as being 2000 with a final data point at 95 years BP, ie, 1905 according to his axis.

To summarize, the purported fabrications are easilly proved to be true from the paper trail, except for two cases where the "fabrication" consists entirely in your misrepresenting the OP.

Your record on "the facts" is equally poor. It is true that, but entirely irrelevant, that the Holocene was labelled long before Easterbrook was born. The studies of Holocene temperatures that lead to the "spaghetti graphs", however, are all recent (last thirty years or so), and the spaghetti graph you used does not come from a peer reviewed paper, and was originally produced in 2005. Easterbrook has in fact used that graph, as you would know if you followed the links to the original version of the article, and back to prior history. However, he first used the current version of the graph (produced on the 19th of July, 2010, less than a week before he used it, but only after considerable editing to make it look like this:

Compared to the original, you will note that he has removed the "spaghetti". More importantly, he has also removed the indication of the 2004 temperature, the inset showing recent proxies, together with the rapidly rising instrumental record. That is, he has removed any indication that modern temperatures are in fact higher than those shown. He does not note that the zero point on the axis is "mid 20th century average temperature", but instead inserts a line approximately 0.3 C below the mid 20th century average which he deceptively labels "Present day temperature". In all, his treatment of this graph is much worse than his treatment of the Alley 2000 data, and cannot be construed as anything other than a deliberate attempt to deceive his audience.

It is, however, extraordinarily unlikely that Easterbrook, who obtained his graduate degree in 1958, saw any spaghetti graph of Holocene temperatures in highschool (none having existed back then).

Finally, the graph you cite clearly shows even mid 20th century temperatures to have been warmer than the bulk of the Holocene, while late 20th century temperatures were warmer than the multidecadal average over the entire Holocene.

In short, your "facts" are fictions. In some cases ridiculous fictions you invented without basis. In others, fictions you invented in direct contradiction to known evidence - indeed, evidence presented in the OP in one case. Skeptical Science is not a form where you are permited to just spin tissues of fabrication. You are expected to support your claims with facts, something you have signally failed to do at any point in this discussion. It is also hoped (though not required) that you change your views if fae moderators take a dim view of any further unsupported claims, or gish gallops by you.

Checking Ted Cruz's climate science denial howlers

Jim Hunt at 23:20 PM on 17 February, 2016

It may surprise Ted Cruz to discover that a variety of Antarctic sea ice metrics have taken a terrible tumble this (Southern Hemisphere) summer.

Messrs Monckton, Soon and Legates also seem remarkably reluctant to discuss this perhaps surprising turn of events:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2016/02/for-life-on-earth-ice-is-not-generally-a-good-thing/

A Response to the “Data or Dogma?” hearing

Ceist8 at 17:45 PM on 18 January, 2016

Cruz should have also been questioned on why he would use a graphic from "Steve Goddards" blog. Tony Heller even boasts about it on his blog (see "Ted Cruz used my graph").

The 'hasn't warmed in 18 years etc" graph is Lord Monckton's deceptive graphic that does the rounds of contrarian blogs.

A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments

Eclectic at 08:35 AM on 3 January, 2016

MA Rodger @55 , and KR @57 , your comments are appropriate, though a tad harsh perhaps.

Yes, even from post #2 of this thread, there have been strong whiffs of the denialist tribe of fairytale sub-pontine dwellers.

Nevertheless, there has been a degree of entertainment value in the dazed ramblings ( ?circlings? ). It is almost as if the "Quill" (prose-generating) software has been married to a Monckton-simulating algorithm.

If true, that marriage represents a "marvellous" technological development : and adds a whole new dimension to the Turing Test ~ in that we readers must now seek to discriminate between human psychopathology vs. intellectually-vacuous software.

A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments

Eclectic at 18:13 PM on 31 December, 2015

Dazed & con. @ #37 ,

My apologies for not explaining myself to you in a way that is more "water-tight". I was (and still am) rather reluctant to undertake the very lengthy amplification that would be necessary to eliminate all possible misunderstandings / misinterpretations of my comments. A lengthy discourse would derail the thread from its proper topic . . . and yet, I will post a few comments now, because they may indirectly assist the thread to proceed more efficiently. (And I hope they will be of general interest, anyway.)

Because of my (intended!) brevity, I must ask you yourself to meet me halfway ~ and not look for minute exceptions and "legal loopholes" ( where we could spend endless time wrangling about over-fine points . . . wrangling in a manner dear to the heart of Lord Monckton! ) .

~ First: your quote, "What I was trying to say was that I agreed that a contrarian argument would require more proof, but that whether or not (either way), the requirements for presenting the case should be the same, including citations." [unquote]. My reply ~ fair enough, where the opposing cases are roughly equal ( or at least, within a few miles of equality! ). But in the present case, of climate science versus contrarian ideas, the comparison is very much more like Round Earth Hypothesis versus Flat Earth Hypothesis. Here, it is very reasonable for the established/proven science to pass over the requirement for continually repeated citations (etc) . . . while holding the "challengers" to an asymmetrically higher standard. Unequal, but fair. The very-thoroughly-established science should not be expected "to drop a cannon ball off the Tower of Pisa" day after day and every day!

~ On Lord Monckton, and his "intellectual" activity : If you were previously unaware of that gentleman, then my kindly-meant advice is that you avoid the time-waste of reading his expositions (unless you find some entertainment value in observing some of the follies mankind is capable of). I am sure that no lawyer would assess Monckton as failing to meet the legal standard of sanity . . . yet I am less sure that psychologists would be unanimous on whether he meets the intellectual standard of it.

~ (lastly) : re my quote, ". . . a true skeptic cannot be a contrarian. Nowadays, to be a contrarian is to be a denier of evidence . . . "

(and your own quote), "Isn't that what they told Einstein? Or was it Schrodinger, I can't remember. Oh, wait, maybe it was Hubble. If you conclude that you (or what you believe in) are so right that anyone who opposes you can't be . . . [etc] ".

Hmm, Mr Dazed, you were being a bit naughty there (though I appreciate your restraint in not throwing Galileo into the pot, as well! )

No, the cases you mention, from the early or adolescent days of fundamental physics/astronomy . . . are not at all a reasonable comparison to the huge "pyramid" of modern climate science. The appropriate comparison is something like the Round Earth Hypothesis ~ where the overall picture is something proven beyond reasonable doubt : and where the "contrarian" must be a denier of evidence.

Yes, I paint with a broad brush : but the exceptions (if any) are terribly few . . . and probably also afflicted with a form of the Monckton mindset.

(Again: my apologies for my insufficiency of brevity.)

A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments

dazed and confused at 12:33 PM on 31 December, 2015

@Eclectic

You have asked some profound questions that touch on the philosophy of science that has spurred a lot of thinking on my part on how best to answer you. I owe you an answer on this, but I don't have time right now.

Let me address a couple of other minor points meanwhile:

The pyramid is nowadays so huge . . . that a true skeptic cannot be a contrarian. Nowadays, to be a contrarian is to be a denier of evidence ~ and so, impervious to science-based persuasion.

Isn't that what they told Einstein? Or was it Schrodinger, I can't remember. Oh, wait, maybe it was Hubble. If you conclude that you (or what you believe in) are so right that anyone who opposes you can't be, aren't you guilty of exactly what you are accusing contrarians of?

Practically speaking, I know a contrarian that I am pretty sure is open to persuasion. He's as far off the edge as it gets; he emails me articles that take things out of context and claim things like "Kerry admits that any US efforts to reduce carbon are futile." Recently, I discussed with him what I've read so far. He hasn't renounced yet, but he didn't reject the case for AGW out of hand either. He certainly was willing to listen to reason. I believe if confronted with enough evidence (which I don't yet have a handle on), he could be persuaded. I don't think it's a good idea to paint contrarians (or anyone else, for that matter) with too broad a brush.

Moncktonian methodology

Believe it or not, I had to look that up. I guess Monckton is some arch enemy of global warming, so I suppose it wouldn't be good to Gish Gallop too much.

Seriously, I appreciate you friendly criticism. I aim to stay relevant. #27 was a response to Kevin C, and I pretty much responded paragraph by paragraph. Maybe I should have quoted him more to make that obvious?

I would actually appreciate more specific criticism on this point, but I'm not sure this comment section is the best place, as it would be way off topic, and probably boring for most besides. Perhaps as a compromise, if you find me erring too far in this direction in the future, let me know.

Thus triggering my question: "As either way as what?"

What I was trying to say was that I agreed that a contrarian argument would require more proof, but that whether contrarian or not (either way), the requirements for presenting the case should be the same, including citations.

A Buoy-Only Sea Surface Temperature Record Supports NOAA’s Adjustments

Eclectic at 23:20 PM on 30 December, 2015

Kevin C @ #25, Thank you for a fine reply.

Dazed & con. @ #26, Please be as long-winded or brief, as you wish. Please though, be careful not to succumb to the Moncktonian Malady of endless buzzing around points of trivial importance ( combined with his usual Gish Gallop that approaches "word salad" status ). Indeed, if I may provide a friendly caution ~ your reply #27 shows a leaning towards the Moncktonian methodology. I would like to think that, having noted the danger, you will be able to pull back from the brink!

On your final point [of #26] : of science being "just as [rigorous] either way" . . . you have used a rather ambiguous or confused phrase. Thus triggering my question: "As either way as what?"

To explain more clearly where I am coming from about that ~ please let me propose the far-from-novel point that the mainstream climate science is a sort of large pyramid composed of a "consilient myriad" of blocks. Blocks of somewhat varied rigour [ but not, I hope, including rigor mortis ;-) ] which are mostly gradually improving in rigour individually . . . and which altogether have formed a large and unmistakable pyramid.

Is the pyramid now (in your words) decently "rigorous"? Yes, it is. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the consilience is very great. Furthermore, there are no other pyramids in sight. Not even micro-pyramids. Nor dream'd of. (Please excuse the non-rigorous Shakespearean quote! )

But to return to your point ~ the mainstream-science pyramid is a proven pyramid . . . and it is up to the claimants (for any new pyramids) to demonstrate their pyramidal existence, moderately rigorously. Demonstrating by any reasonable means, with or without citations. It is the context, the bigger picture, which is important. ( Hence my interest in why you yourself would wish to focus on a single block of stone. )

(b) Does this SkS website exist to convince "contrarions" or even contrarians? No, I don't think it does have that purpose. It exists to convince skeptics i.e. those open to reasonable evidence and reasoned argument.

The pyramid is nowadays so huge . . . that a true skeptic cannot be a contrarian. Nowadays, to be a contrarian is to be a denier of evidence ~ and so, impervious to science-based persuasion. Rather like with the Flat-Earther situation.

Why climate contrarians are wrong

Richard Lawson at 22:03 PM on 21 December, 2015

Scadden, yes I agree that they have an endless number of talking points, each of which has its own implicit hypothesis, and yes, some, for example, Monckton, are way beyond the reach of reason.

Nevertheless, the hypothesis I have identified above covers every other sub-hypothesis, rational or irrational. It is their operational hypothesis: science demands decarbonisation, and their whole effective effort is to block and/or delay decarbonisation.

We need to refute their hypothesis not in the expectation that they will give up and see the light, but in order to demonstrate to uncommitted bystanders, especially journalists and commentators, that their position has no validity. Journalists may not understand the philosophy of science, but they can grasp when a position has been disproven, and it is time for us to demonstrate that this is what has happened to the contrarian's case.

There is a detailed account of falsifiability here http://greenerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/climate-science-falsifiability.html?m=0

How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming?

Tom Curtis at 07:58 AM on 14 December, 2015

saileshrao:

First, while the phrase "rabid vegan" is certainly ad hominen, and inappropriate, there is no doubt that you are pursuing a vegan agenda.

Second, I find your cooption of the principle of ahimsa to veganism dubious at best. For those who do not know, ahimsa is the principle of non-violence espoused by Ghandi, and which has deep roots in Indian religious tradition. I do not think there is any doubt that Ghandi was its most prominent, and foremost proponent in the modern era yet he was a lacto-vegetarian. Granted he aspired to veganism, but drank goats milk for health reasons. In doing so he made a clear moral distinction between eating dairy products, and eating meat (which he said he would not do, even at risk of his life - see second link in the previous sentence).

On a side note, despite my very great respect for Ghandi, I do not accept ahimsa as a moral principle on the basis that a moral code should not be a suicide pact. While ahimsa worked for Ghandi in India, it would not have worked in South Africa, and would certainly not have worked for the jews against Hitler.

Third, and more directly on topic, the cooption of Net Primary Production (NPP) by humans is significantly overstated by the XKCD cartoon shown on your website (and by Andy Skuce above). While the 110 MtC in domestic animals and 40 MtC in humans is massively more than the vertebrates, it pales in comparison to the 400 MtC in marine invertebrates, 700 MtC in land invertebrates, 4500 MtC in fungi, and multiple tens of thousands of MtC in prokaryotes. (Sourced from the same source used by XKCD, see apendix F.)

Fourth, turning to your poster at the AGU, you postulate that restoring 19.6 million Km^2 of land to forest would sequester 265.2 GtC. Given that the cumulative emissions from LUC since 1850 amounts to 170 GtC, that is dubious. You appear to require the reforestation to sequester >55% more carbon then the deforestation emitted. Poster's not being papers, and hence not self explanatory, I cannot see your justification for that assumption. It may be premised on the CO2 fertization effect which show prominently. However, the global CO2 fertilization effect amounts to 30 GtC, 32% of the shortfall. So, in the first instance it is unreasonable to expect the CO2 fertilization effect to make up the discrepancy from 15% of the land; and in the second instance, if the reversion of the land has a sufficient sequestration effect as to reduce the atmospheric CO2, it will also reverse the CO2 fertilization effect - turning the biosphere (and ocean) into net sources rather than net sinks.

Your refuge from these inconsistentcies appears to be that the IPCC got it wrong because the world's scientists are biased by their meat eating habit. This strikes me as far too similar to Monckton's similar charge of bias based on the world's scientists percieved authoritarian, internationalist and bureaucratic political views. A conspiracy view of science is a conspiracy view of science no matter what the politics of the proponent. However, even granting you are correct on this point, if biomes contain more carbon than previously estimated (as is required by your figures), then equally the airborne fraction of CO2 from combined FF&LUC emissions must be much smaller than IPCC estimates. It follows that your 256 GtC will result in a reduction of significantly less than 50 ppmv of CO2. That would make it a very minor player relative to industrial emissions with regard to future CO2 concentration history.

Bringing in my meat eating bias, it would also make it a very economically and gastronomically expensive sequestration measure.

Scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal re: Ridley and Peiser

dcpetterson at 05:03 AM on 6 December, 2015

Regarding frequent reference above to claims from WUWT that global warming "stopped" or "paused" or "slowed" or whaever beginning 1998 or so...

Most of the articles at WUWT regarding this were written by Chris Monckton, who proclaims whenever RSS releases its monthly data, "No global warming for xxx months!" and provides a graph to prove it. Put aside 1) the reality of regression to the mean, as has already been mentioned above, and 2) Mockton's flatline of "no temperature increase" is at a point significantly higher than the current temperature trendline over the last century (which means some natural phenomenon, unexamined by Monckton, created a sudden climate discontinuity that raised global temperatures far above the current ~1 C warming that most climate scientists accept).

This means, if one were to accept the Monckton/WUWT thesis that there has been no warming since c. 1998, then one would also have to accept not only that regression to the men doesn't happen, but also that the world is significantly warmer than any dataset currently shows, and that this sudden discontinuous leap was caused by a phenomenon no one has even hinted at, no one understands, and even Monckton hasn't acknowledged.

But as I said, put that aside. The biggest problem I see with the Monckton/WUWT thesis is that the date of when the "pause" started keeps changing. If you examine Monckon's graphs over the last couple of years, you'll see his start date keeps creeping forward in time. (I have documented this elsewhere, in an article where I also steal a graph or two from SkS.) Whatever physical process started the "pause" keeps altering its starting point somewhere in the past. Mockton doesn't adequately explain how this happens.

The alteration of "pause" start date indicates the "pause" itself is nor more than a statistical oddity, not a reflection of any physical reality or actual physical process. It also indicates the denier meme about a "pause" is based on an intentional and clumsy bit of fraud.

Exxon climate revelations are just part of a long history of science misinformation

Tom Curtis at 13:40 PM on 18 November, 2015

ryland @6, the NSW government has a policy of replacing a planning framework that takes IPCC projected sea level rises into account using a single value for the entire state with one that takes into account IPCC projected sea level rises but allows variation across local government areas based on differences in sedimentation and erosion, subsidence and uplift and (presumably) the fact that sea level rise is partially abated as you move northward (and exagerated as you move south ward) due to uplift in northern regions related to the colission of the Australian continental plate with that of Asia. You glossed that as "NSW government is advising councils to no longer follow the predictions of the IPCC" even though no such statement was made by the NSW government, the minister or any of the spokepeople, and indeed the minister has made statements directly contradicting that delusion. That is your fantasy.

You have additional fantasy's evident above in your belief that not only are their people who think "they are subject to misinformation campaigns" by people reporting the findings of the IPCC, but you think they are rational in that assessment. In fact such people are delusional on a conspiracy theorist level - something quite evident from the facts that:

a) They in fact subscribe to a conspiracy theory with regard to the findings of the IPCC; and

b) They appear untroubled by the even more delusional conspiracy theories from the likes of Christopher Monckton.

Climate change set to fuel more "monster" El Niños, scientists warn

grindupBaker at 15:02 PM on 29 September, 2015

Wol @2 Ogemaniac @3 Tom Curtis @5 But but we counter the 0.00 warming 2016-2032 gambit with the warming 2019-2032 defence (at least, you do. I could counter in a seance). I've been doing it since I saw Monckton's (?) hoot at WUWT. It's +0.00/decade GMST 1996-10 to 2014-10 (WUWT) but then it's +0.12/decade GMST 1999-02 to 2014-10 (moi). Since 1999-02 is more recent than 1996-10 this shows clearly that "global warming" has increased since 1996-10 and furthermore 1.2 degrees / 0.0 degrees = an infinite rate of increase. I love this nonsense that they do. Science gets really tedious with lots of "studying" and "analysis" and "thinking" and stuff, but this entirely other stuff is great fun.

Global warming deniers are an endangered species

mancan18 at 10:19 AM on 25 July, 2015

In Australia, Climate Change denial does pay. Australia is one of the world's largest coal exporters, a significant proportion of it's power generation comes from coal, and coal products are an important component the national income that underpins Australia's wealth. As a result, attitudes towards climate change follows party lines, with one party, Labor, promoting it as a serious issue and the other, Liberal/National Party, while giving it token support, take a "lukewarmer" position. This is the reason that the Government has implemented it's clayton's climate change policy, "Direct Action" and has attacked the climate advisory bodies, climate change funding arrangements for developing needed technologies, and promoted many climate change deniers to important positions upon it's economic advisory bodies.

The reason for this is actually quite simple. One of the main Liberal/National party policy think tanks is the Institute of Public Affairs (the IPA). It is Australia's equivalent of the George C Marshall Institute. The IPA, along with other Liberal Party policy think tanks like the Menzies Research Centre and the H. R. Nicholls Society, all actively promote Climate Change denial. Scientists like climate change deniers, Ian Plimer and Bob Carter are attached to the IPA, providing advice related to climate change policy. Plimer is also an important member of the Mining Council of Australia, having been it's chairman, and he influences it's political stance. Gina Reinhart, Australia's wealthiest person, who made her money from huge mining projects, is also related to the IPA. She funded a Christopher Monkton speaking tour of Australia, at the height of the ETS/Carbon Tax debate when Labor tried to introduce an ETS. The IPA is also an important source of climate change denial material and underpins the political stance of Murdoch media outlets who reach around 83% of the Australian population, where right wing commentators like Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, and Piers Ackereman, and right wing shock jocks like Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, disseminate IPA inspired climate change denial material to their readers and listeners.

Also, the IPA, through it's journal, provides climate change material to its readers, and it's latest effort comes in the form of a book called "Climate Change - the Facts 2014" with contributions from Ian Plimer, Richard Lindzen, Bob Carter, Nigel Lawson, Bill Kininmonth, Willie Soon, Christopher Monckton, Garth Paltridge, Richard Tol, Brian Fisher, Bob Carter, Donna Laframboise, Anthony Watts, Alan Moran amongst others and other climate change deniers. Also, this book seems to form the basis of Matt Ridley's latest essay in June's Quadrant magazine "How the Climate Wars Undermine Science", where John Cook's Consensus Project is discredited, (in their eyes), by referring to it as being biased and unrepresentative.

Now I don't know about you, but, I don't think that climate change deniers are being marginalised in Australia. If anything, they are still pre-eminent due to the IPA's political and media reach. Trying to take effective action to tackle climate change in Australia has already seen the toppling of two prime minsters and a leader of the Liberal Party who did think that the issue was important. It will be a significant issue in the next election but whether the electorate will embrace it, after a fear campaign related to the hip pocket nerve and xenophobic fears related to asylum seekers, is questionable.

While it is easier to have a debate with like minded people; what is happening in Australia, while the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian do present material properly conveying the 97% consensus; demonstrates why climate change advocates need to be more engaged with the climate change deniers from the IPA, the Murdoch press, and the right wing shock jock community, because, at the moment the denier/lukewarmer argument is still pre-eminent and not getting it's proper voice with Australia's public.

The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator

cunudiun at 02:08 AM on 23 June, 2015

@ Tristan

Thanks for clearing that up so quickly! (I was going to try to play with WoodForTrees but mistakenly abandoned the effort when I saw that it didn't have Karl's data.)

With this big gap between the pre- and post-1999 trend lines, why should the presence or absence of a "pause" have depended on making the two slopes the same? But that was the chief talking point about Karl's paper: that it dispatched the "pause" to oblivion by making the two trends match up. That was the thing from Karl's paper that made deniers' heads explode, almost Papally.

Karl: "[T]here is no discernable (statistical or otherwise) decrease in the rate of warming between the second half of the 20th century and the first 15 years of the 21st century." Karl certainly performed a great service by improving the accuracy of the data, and this is a very interesting fact, but it's clear even from your graph based on HADCRUT4 data that there was no pause, even without Karl. Neither trend line, pre- nor post-, captures the big jump in temperature around the great 1998 El Niño, and so an analysis simply by comparing the two trends just ignores this surge.

I'm actually a little embarrassed that I didn't pick up on this without your help, being the author of this Tamino-inspired Monckton takedown: https://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/2095/6070/original.jpg

The Skeptical Science temperature trend calculator

Philip Shehan at 00:38 AM on 10 June, 2015

Have been getting all sorts of grief over at Bolt for pointing out a number of problems with "skeptics" use of temperature data, and using the trend calculator for this purpose.

I am told that I should contact directly the people whose interpretation I criticise and offer tham right of reply. Just like the "skeptics" do with scintistrs they bucket on blogs. (Yes, sarcasm.)

Actually I have on occasion have failed to do so in the case of Fred Singer, David Whitehouse and Patrick J. Michaels, Richard S. Lindzen, and Paul C. Knappenberge

I have told one critic, on numerous occasions that i have checked the trends with those produced by , among others, Monckton, McKitrick, and those who leapt on Jones' "admission" that a 15 year warming trend was not statistically significant, but nearly so, and the trend calculator results match theirs. I have also explained repeatedly the necessity for autocorrelation to be used with temperature data and referred him to this link.

Yet he wrote today.

The calculation that he [that is me] uses is a method written by a shill that just doesn’t make sense and comes out two to three times larger than you would get if you treated the noise as just random.

I will encourage him to represent his argument here.

But thank you for this valuable tool

Of interest this week are the following posts of mine;

On Anthony Watts blog, Patrick J. Michaels, Richard S. Lindzen, and Paul C. Knappenberger dispute a recent paper by Karl et al which questions whether there has been a “hiatus” in global warming.

This new paper, right or wrong, does not affect my primary argument on claims of a “hiatus”.

Which is that such claims do not meet (in fact do not come within a bulls roar of) the criterion of statistical significance.

What is of interest is that the criticisms of Michaels, Lindzen,and Knappenberger again demonstrate the way that skeptics apply totally different standards of statistical significance depending on how they want to spin the data.

The critique of the paper says:

“The significance level they report on their findings (0.10) is hardly normative, and the use of it should prompt members of the scientific community to question the reasoning behind the use of such a lax standard.”

True, the usual standard of statistical significance is the 0.05, 95% or 2 sigma level. The 0.10 level means that there is a 90% probability that the trend is significant

Yet further on Michaels, Lindzen,and Knappenberger claim:

“Additionally, there exist multiple measures of bulk lower atmosphere temperature independent from surface measurements which indicate the existence of a “hiatus"…Both the UAH and RSS satellite records are now in their 21st year without a significant trend, for example.”

Here are the trends for UAH, RSS and Berkeley data (the most comprehensive surface data set ) from 1995 at the 0.05 level

0.124 ±0.149 °C/decade

0.030 ±0.149 °C/decade

0.129 ±0.088 °C/decade

The Berkeley data shows statistically significant warming trend, as do 5 other surface data sets, with mean trend and error of

0.122 ± 0.093 °C/decade

So, Michaels, Lindzen, and Knappenberger object to statistical significance at the 90% level used by Karl et al.

Yet they base their claim of “multiple measures of bulk lower atmosphere temperature independent from surface measurements which indicate the existence of a “hiatus” on two data sets which have a probability of a “hiatus” or a cooling trend of 4.8% (UAH) and 34.5% (RSS).

I mean, these people have the chutzpah to write “the use of [a confidence level of 90%] should prompt members of the scientific community to question the reasoning behind the use of such a lax standard” yet pin their case for a “hiatus” on such a low statistical probability for two cherry picked data sets.

What you need to know about the NOAA global warming faux pause paper

BC at 23:41 PM on 9 June, 2015

Thanks for the explanation (Scaddenp @12 and Tom Curtis @ 15) for outlining this difference between surface temps and satellite readings and why 2014 wasn't a record year according to satellites.

Also, because satellite readings are more sensitive to the El Nino and volcano contributions they'll show up more of a hiatus than the surface readings, which would be why Monckton is using them.

What you need to know about the NOAA global warming faux pause paper

BC at 13:19 PM on 9 June, 2015

As part of the Denial 101 MOOC course I had to select a myth to write an article about. I picked a Christopher Monckton article on WUWT about the pause.

wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/03/el-nino-strengthens-the-pause-lengthens/

It wasn't a problem debunking the myth - I mainly used info from the Kevin Cowtan video shown on SKS in Dana's post of 3 June. However I was surprised at one aspect of the RSS satellite data shown by Monckton. While 2014 is recognised as the warmest year so far an eyeball of the RSS data shows it quite low, much lower than 1998 and 2010 and probably down to about number 5 or 6. I looked on an RSS site but couldn't find much of use. Can anyone explain this please? Maybe he's using the TMT data too.

BTW the MOOC course was great!

Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming

Tom Curtis at 08:54 AM on 8 June, 2015

Tristan @9, Monckton et al say of their Fig 6:

"If, for instance, the observed temperature trend of recent decades were extrapolated several decades into the future, the model’s output would coincident with the observations thus extrapolated (Fig. 6)."

Thus they claim that the model output in Fig 6 are extrapolated in the same way as observations in Fig 6. Ergo, it is not correct to simply take the 2050 projections. Rather, the model projections to 2012 should be extrapolated to 2050 in the same way as are the temperature projections. So, Monckton et all's technique of extrapolating the 1996-2025 mean temperature increase exagerates the model trends relative to the observed trends. Using temperature increases to 2050 exagerates it even more, something I suspect they have done for all stated trends prior to AR5. (Their final version AR5 trend is not the model trend, contrary to their claimed technique, as previously noted.)

On this point, I digitized the Hansen 88 Scenario A temperatures from 1988-2012 from this graph:

The trend over that period was 0.293 C per decade. That is substantially less than the trend to 2050 as used by Monckton et al (and calculated by you), yet following their stated method it is the value they should have used. (That leaves aside the point that forcings have in fact been less than those of scenario B, so that using scenario A rather than scenario B or even C is itself a gross misrepresentation.)

For what it is worth, digitizing the first decade of temperature increase from HK's graph @10 yields a temperature increase of 0.23 C/decade.

Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming

Tom Curtis at 00:40 AM on 8 June, 2015

Tristran @5&6, HK @7, Monckton determines the trends from Fig 11.25 of AR5 in the published edition, and the corresponding Fig 11.33 in the 2nd Order Draft.

In Fig 11.25, the mean temperature for 2016-2035 is given as 0.3 - 0.7 C above the 1986-2005 mean. That represents a 0.5 C median increase over three decades, giving a trend of 0.167 C per decade. In Fig 11.33 of the 2nd order draft, the mean temperature for 2016-2035 is given as 0.4 - 1 C, giving a trend increase of 0.233 C per decade. Monckton states that these graphs are the source of his estimates in a blog post that preceded his paper on WUWT (dated Jan 1, 2014). On the blog post he produces the following graph, which is an obvious precursor of Fig 6 in his paper (the third figure in the OP).

I do not know why he switched from the marginally justifiable 0.17 to the totally unjustifiable 0.13 C shown in the paper.

As a side note, the final version of AR5 shows a lower trend solely because they start the predicted trend from 2012 rather than from the mean of 1986-2005. As such, the difference does not represent a disagreement about the trend which is the same in both cases. Rather it represents a preference for using the most recent historical value (at time of publication) as the start point of the trend prediction rather than the mean over a 20 year period. Monckton is wrong, therefore, to represent it as a different predicted trend. In fact, of the two factors that determine the mean predicted temperature for 2016-2015 (ie, stard point and trend) he ascribes it to exactly the wrong cause.

That point speaks to rkrolph's question (@4). Specifically, there is no difference between the predicted trend between the 2nd order draft and the final version of AR5. Rather, there is a difference in start point in predicting a mean value that Monckton misrepresents as a difference in trend. From past performance, it is likely that Monckton also misrepresents the trends on earlier IPCC reports (and Hansen scenario A), but he does not detail how he determined the values, and he is not worth the leg work to try and work out how he did it.

Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming

HK at 23:40 PM on 7 June, 2015

#4 rkrolph:
If figure 3 is from the Monckton paper, it seems that they have misrepresented IPCC, because figure (a) on page 11 in IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers tells another story.

In the most extreme emission scenario (RCP8.5) the estimated warming in 2050 (average for all model runs) is about 1.75°C relative to the period 1986-2005. If we use 1995 as a midpoint, this gives a warming rate of 0.32°C per decade, or 2.5 times more than 0.13°C. Even the most moderate emission scenario (RCP2.6) gives a warming of about 1°C in total or 0.18°C per decade until 2050 – nearly 40% more than Monckton’s number.
In the RCP2.6 scenario the temperature is estimated to level off and stay nearly constant after 2050, so we will get 0.13°C of warming per decade if we extend the period to about 2070. It’s worth noting that the RCP2.6 scenario requires the CO₂ emissions to peak within 5 years and gradually drop to zero within the next 50-60 years. (see figure a on page 9)

Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming

rkrolph at 17:12 PM on 7 June, 2015

I noticed in figure 3 that IPCC projections have dropped from .38 deg/dec in 2007 to .13 deg/dec in 2013, which seems like a very big change. And the Monckton "simple model" shows 0.09 deg/dec. Despite all the mentioned flaws in the Monctkton paper, their model is still predicting warming, although less than current IPCC values. But the difference between the two doesn't seem that large, especially compared to how much the IPCC projections have dropped since 2007.

At least from the figure, it looks to me like the IPCC values are converging toward the simple model value of 0.09 deg/dec. Is that an incorrect assessment?

Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned

dana1981 at 00:24 AM on 6 June, 2015

Tom, thanks. Personally I don't have a big problem with averaging the surface temp data sets for illustrative purposes, although in a scientific paper it's probably better just to show the individual data sets separately.

Note that we've received a draft copy of the Monckton et al. response to our paper, and it's quite poor, even juvenile in places. It will be interesting to see if it goes through a more rigorous peer-review process than their initial submission, and if it survives in a state similar to the draft copy.

Real-world measurements contradict paper claiming little global warming

chriskoz at 13:53 PM on 5 June, 2015

It's worth to recall M15 is not the first piece where Monckton's "fantasy".

Fig 3 in M15 show "Observations" until 2050, whereas Fig 2 in this RC post by Barry Bickmore (dated & Aug 2010) show Monckton's Fantasy IPCC "Prediction" of CO2. Two pieces complement each other nicely.

I don't realy need to remind it, but those who may not seen it before, look how M compares scientists and his opponents to Nazis here and here. The guy is simply a lunatic nutter and the best way to deal with such nutter is to simply ignore him. Everyone, even AGW deniers, can agree that tying to bring him from his "fantasy world" back to earth is simply a waste of time.

Unforfunately, Science Bulletin opened their forum for his spin to reach peer reviewd literature. That's is simply fuel for his fire: he won't stop proudly arguing his case, no matter how unreasonable his arguments are shown to be.

Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned

One Planet Only Forever at 14:54 PM on 4 June, 2015

chrisoz,

Based on other observations of what is going on around the planet it appears to be quite likely that there is a correlation of the publishing of the Monckton document with funding to key individuals in the publishing organization by parties like the ones that fund Willie Soon's making-up of claims.

Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned

chriskoz at 12:10 PM on 4 June, 2015

The quality of M15, having Monckton as the lead author, is of no surprise: it underpins the utter lack of any scientific credentials of the author.

The only interesting question is: who was the editor/reviewers who allowed such piece appear in peer reviewed literature, rather than in some obscure anti-science blog or proceedings of anti-science organisations like NIPCC, where Monckton is known to have published his previous work.

Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned

Tom Curtis at 08:28 AM on 4 June, 2015

1) Dana, congratulations on publication of the response.

2) @3, it is certainly inappropriate to average surface temperature records with satellite temperature records to produce a combined record. Not only that, even averaging surface temperature records is dubious. As there is considerable overlap between the stations used for the different records, the effect is to downweight the effect of stations not represented in all records. As HadCRUT4 ignores the Arctic, de facto assuming arctic temperature increase equals the global average, averaging temperature records also downweights arctic temperature trends.

In fact, if you want to use a single record it is difficult to justify using anything other than that record which employs the most raw data, and uses the best statistical approach. At the moment this is the BEST record. HadCRUT4, which is the most commonly used record, is the worst on both of those criteria (ie, it has the least raw data, and employs the worst statistical method). Ergo, as good practise scientists should currently employ either only the BEST record or (as replication is important), all records shown seperately.

3) When I read the abstract of the paper, I thought it one of the most damning critiques of another paper I have ever read. Well worth a read:

"Monckton of Brenchley et al. (Sci Bull 60:122–135, 2015) (hereafter called M15) use a simple energy balance model to estimate climate response. They select parameters for this model based on semantic arguments, leading to different results from those obtained in physics-based studies. M15 did not validate their model against observations, but instead created synthetic test data based on subjective assumptions. We show that M15 systematically underestimate warming: since 1990, most years were warmer than their modelled upper limit. During 2000–2010, RMS error and bias are approximately 150% and 350% larger than for the CMIP5 median, using either the Berkeley Earth or Cowtan and Way surface temperature data. We show that this poor performance can be explained by a logical flaw in the parameter selection and that selected parameters contradict observational estimates. M15 also conclude that climate has a near-instantaneous response to forcing, implying no net energy imbalance for the Earth. This contributes to their low estimates of future warming and is falsified by Argo float measurements that show continued ocean heating and therefore a sustained energy imbalance. M15’s estimates of climate response and future global warming are not consistent with measurements and so cannot be considered credible."

Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned

dana1981 at 05:15 AM on 4 June, 2015

DrMcoy @1 - Monckton et al. (2015) shows the average of RSS, UAH, NCDC, HadCRUT4, and GISS in its Figure 1. We didn't make this point in our rebuttal, but averaging together the satellite estimates of lower troposphere temperatures (RSS and UAH) with surface temperature measurements (NCDC, HadCRUT4, and GISS) doesn't make sense. Since it's a comparison to model surface temperature projections, UAH and RSS shouldn't have been included. But the misrepresentation of the model projections was far worse, so we focused on that.

Research downplaying impending global warming is overturned

DrMcoy at 02:30 AM on 4 June, 2015

I had the pleasure of being at the RSE meeting on Climate Change and Society last week, about which Christopher Monckton wrote a lovely piece - misrepresenting most it and highlighting his own predujices. It lead me into reading a bit more of his published material.

One question - the plots he shows for the observed temperature change look completely different to most which I assume is down to the datasets he chooses to average but can you give some more details? Unfortunately I don't have access to your paper if it's in there.

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