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2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 04:38 AM on 28 September, 2023

Sysop, Thank you for allowing this conversation with scaddenp and myself to continue.

1562 scaddenp
You said "What I am asking is whether you can remember what switched you into looking for sites like CO2Science or temperature.global? Was it just disbelief about trace gases or were there other considerations?"

I've been thinking about an answer for you.
I started looking into "global warming" back in the mid 2000s, 25 years ago,
I think with this site https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html.
Many other places and books since then.
I find a lot, 1000s or more, of scientists that disagree with AGW.
One is Nasif Nahle who has calculated the emissivity of CO2 at less than .003 and and says that it doesn't absorb or emit much if any IR. You can see his calculations at https://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/03/total-emissivity-of-the-earth-and-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/
Then there is the Club Of Rome, a bunch of rich elitists that think they know best for the rest of us. Back in 1968-1974 they decided they needed a scare tactic to get people to reduce births, thus reducing the population of the earth and the resources used by them. They settled on AGW because CO2 is emitted when fossil fuels are burned. Reduce the available energy and you will reduce the birth rate.
The U.N. IPCC was not charged with finding out what makes the climate change but rather how to pin it on human causes. See https://shalemag.com/manmade-global-warming-the-story-the-reality/ and https://principia-scientific.com/the-club-of-rome-and-rise-of-predictive-modelling-mafia/
UN’s Top Climate Official: Goal Is To ‘Intentionally Transform the Economic Development Model’
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
You see, the goal was not to save us all from overheating the planet or acidifying the oceans. The goal was to scare everyone into giving up cheap fossil fuels.
I don't know what the goal of you and your colleagues at Skeptical Science is but I do know you can create logic and equations to describe anything, so I remain skeptical of your site.
Now you know where I'm coming from. See www.ourwoods.org.
Cheers

How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

daveburton at 01:45 AM on 14 July, 2023

Eclectic wrote, "Daveburton @22 ~ Please explain more of your first chart [ IPCC's decadal Carbon Flux Comparison 1980-2019 ]. The natural sink flux figures… show a rather steady proportionality to the total carbon emissions."

Glad to. Any two things which steadily increase are thereby correlated. There's only a possibility that the relationship might be causal if there's a possible mechanism for such causality.

There's no possible mechanism by which the rate at which CO2 emerges from chimneys could govern the rate at which CO2 is taken up by trees & absorbed by the oceans, or vice-versa, so the relationship cannot be causal — just as this famous relationship is not causal:

does cheese consumption cause death by bedsheet entanglement?

Eclectic wrote, "The land sink shows about 30-35% of total emissions, while the sum of land & ocean remains around 55-60%."

Yes, I usually say "about half," as in, "If our CO2 emissions were cut by more than about half then the atmospheric CO2 level would be falling, rather than rising."

It is important to recognize that the relationship is merely coincidental, not causal.

Eclectic wrote, "as the decades progress, the natural carbon sink flux in absolute terms rises with the rising emissions ~ but does not show a proportional increase."

The rate at which natural processes, such as ocean uptake, uptake by trees and soil ("greening"), and rock weathering, remove CO2 from the air, is affected in minor ways by many factors, but in a major way by only one: the current amount of CO2 in the air.

Our CO2 emission rate does not and cannot affect the natural removal rate, except indirectly, in the long term, by being one of the most important factors which affect the amount of CO2 in the air.

Eclectic wrote, "looking back in time ~ as the atmospheric CO2 level decreases, the size of the natural sink flux decreases also."

That is correct. It will also be correct looking forward in time, when CO2 levels are falling, someday.

Eclectic wrote, "this directly contradicts your hypothesis of 'if emissions were halved ... atmospheric CO2 level would plateau.'"

If you'll allow me to use "halved" as a shorthand for "reduced to the point at which emissions merely equal current natural removals, rather than exceed them," then those two statements are both correct, and perfectly consistent. It's pCO2 (level), not the rate of CO2 emissions, which (mostly) governs the rates of all the natural CO2 removal from the atmosphere.

Of course there are also minor factors which affect the removal rates. For instance, as we've already discussed, a 1°C rise in water temperature slows ocean uptake of CO2 by roughly 3%. Conversely, a rise in air temperature accelerates CO2 removal by rock weathering. (Sorry, I don't have a quantification of that.) But the main factor which controls the rate of CO2 removals is pCO2.

Eclectic wrote, "While the nutritive components of some food crops may reduce slightly as CO2 rises…"

Oh boy, another rabbit hole! That's the Loladze/Myers "nutrition scare."

It is of little consequence. That should be obvious if you consider that crops grown in commercial greenhouses with CO2 levels as high as 1500 ppmv are as nutritious as crops grown outdoors with only 30% as much CO2.

≥1500 ppmv CO2 is optimal for most crops. That's why commercial greenhouses typically use CO2 generators to raise daytime CO2 concentration to well above 1000 ppmv. It is expensive, but they go to that expense because elevated CO2 (eCO2) makes crops much healthier and more productive. (They don't typically supplement CO2 at night unless using grow-lamps, because plants can't use the extra CO2 without light.)

If elevating CO2 by >1000 ppmv doesn't cause crops to be less nutritious, then elevating CO2 by only 140 ppmv obviously doesn't, either.

Better crops yields, due to eCO2 or any other reason, can cause lower levels (but not lower total amounts) of nutrients which are in short supply in the soil. But that doesn't happen to a significant extent when agricultural best practices are employed.

I had an impromptu online debate about the nutrition scare with its most prominent promoter, mathematician Irakli Loladze, in the comments on a Quora answer. If you're not a Quora member you can't read it there, so I saved a copy here. He acknowledged to me that food grown in greenhouses at elevated CO2 levels is as nutritious as food grown outdoors.

Faster-growing, more productive crops require more nutrients per acre, but not more nutrients per unit of production.

Inadequate nitrogen fertilization reduces protein production relative to carbohydrate production, because proteins contain nitrogen, but carbohydrates don't. Likewise, low levels of iron or zinc in soils cause lower levels of those minerals in some crops. So, it is possible, by flouting well-established best agricultural practices, to contrive circumstances under which eCO2, or anything else which improves crop yields, causes reduced levels of protein or micronutrients in crops.

But farmers know that the more productive crops are, the more nutrients they need, per acre. Competent farmers fertilize accordingly.

Or, for nitrogen, they may plant nitrogen-fixing legumes — which benefit greatly from extra CO2.

If you don’t fertilize according to the needs of your crops, negative consequences may include reductions in protein and/or micronutrient levels in the resulting crops. The cause of such reductions isn't eCO2s, it's poor agricultural practices.

The nutrient scare is an attempt to put a negative "spin" on the most important benefit of eCO2: that it improves crop yields.

Eclectic wrote, "it is (as you state) beyond argument that higher CO2 benefits overall crop yield & plant mass."

That's correct. Moreover, agronomy studies show that for most crops the effect is highly linear as CO2 levels rise, until above about 1000 ppmv (which is far higher than we could ever hope to drive outdoor CO2 levels by burning fossil fuels). That linearity is obvious in the green (C3) trace, here:

CO2 vs plant growth, C3 & C4

That improvement is one of several major reasons that catastropic famines are fading from living memory.

If you're too young to remember huge, catastrophic famines, count yourself blessed. Through all of human history, until very recently, famine was one of the great scourges of mankind, the "Third Horseman of the Apocalypse." But no more. This is a miracle!

https://ourworldindata.org/famines

Ending famine is a VERY Big Deal, comparable to ending war and disease. Compare:

● Covid-19 killed 0.1% of world population.
● 1918 flu pandemic killed about 2%.
● WWII killed 2.7%.
● The near-global drought and famine of 1876-78 killed about 3.7% of the world population.

Eclectic wrote, "other CO2/AGW concomitant effects of increased droughts /floods /heat-waves can be harmful to crop yields in open-field agriculture. [And especially so for the staple crop of maize.]"

Well, let's examine those one at a time.

Heat-waves. Overall, temperature extremes are not worsened by the warming trend. Heat waves are slightly worsened, but by less than cold snaps are mitigated. That's because, thanks to "Arctic amplification," warming is disproportionately at chilly high latitudes, and it is greatest at night and in winter. The tropics warm less, which is nice, because they're warm enough already.

1°C is about the temperature change you get from a 500 foot elevation change. (That's calculated from an average lapse rate of 6.5 °C/km.)

On average, 1°C is similar in effect to a latitude change of about sixty miles, as you can see by looking at an agricultural growing zone map. Here's one, from the Arbor Day Foundation:

From eyeballing the map, you can see that 1°C (1.8°F) = about 50-70 miles latitude change.

James Hansen and his colleagues reported a similar figure: "A warming of 0.5°C... implies typically a poleward shift of isotherms by 50 to 75 km..."

1°C is less than the hysteresis ("dead zone") in your home thermostat, which is the amount that your indoor temperatures go up and down, all day long, without you even noticing.

In the American Midwest, farmers can fully compensate for 1°C of climate change by adjusting planting dates by about six days.
Des Moines temperature by month

Floods. Theoretically, by accelerating the water cycle, climate change could increase the frequency or severity of floods. But the effect is too slight to be noticeable. AR6 says no change in global flood frequency is detectable:

AR6 on floods

Droughts. Droughts have not worsened. In fact, the global drought trend is slightly down. Here's a study:

Hao et al. (2014). Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system. Sci Data 1(140001). doi:10.1038/sdata.2014.1

Here's the U.S. drought trend (the bottom/orange side of the graph):
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/uspa/wet-dry/0

U.S. very wet and very dry

Not only does climate change not worsen droughts, it has long been settled science that eCO2 improves plants' water use efficiency (WUE) and drought resilience, by improving CO2 stomatal conductance relative to transpiration. So eCO2 is especially beneficial in arid regions, and for crops which are under drought stress.

Maize (corn) has been very heavily studied. Even though it is a C4 grass, it benefits greatly from elevated CO2, especially under drought stress. Here's a study (one of many):

Chun et al. (2011). Effect of elevated carbon dioxide and water stress on gas exchange and water use efficiency in corn. Agric For Meteorol 151(3), pp 378-384, ISSN 0168-1923. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2010.11.015.

EXCERPT:
"There have been many studies on the interaction of CO2 and water on plant growth. Under elevated CO2, less water is used to produce each unit of dry matter by reducing stomatal conductance."

Here's a similar study about wheat:

Fitzgerald GJ, et al. (2016) Elevated atmospheric [CO2] can dramatically increase wheat yields in semi-arid environments and buffer against heat waves. Glob Chang Biol. 22(6):2269-84. doi:10.1111/gcb.13263.

However, I agree with you that putting a monetary value on the benefits of CO2 for crops is difficult. In part that's because the price of food soars when it's in short supply, and plummets when it's plentiful. So, for example, if we were to attribute, say, 15% of current crop yields to CO2 fertilization & CO2 drought mitigation, and value that 15% using current crop prices, we would be underestimating the true value, because absent that 15% boost the prices would have been much higher.

Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation

peppers at 01:31 AM on 19 June, 2023

Eclectic,

You are more than welcome to call me out on misuse of premises or data. But I think you slipped in to some all or nothing thinking to cancel out my logic. I dont think Einstein updating Newton's laws of gravity, from all objects exterting an attracting force to thier interplay with space and time and warping the fabric of space itself, invalidates Newton's advance on the subject to him point in time. Bur more is always coming in science. One can never say something is settled. Einstein is now (and he knew it) unable to explain the deepest space questions within black holes, where his formulas now fail. My only point is to ask you to question anytime someone says an area of science is settled, and the derogations of any still continuing to ask questions, to be deniers. Thx D

Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation

peppers at 21:19 PM on 16 June, 2023

I have an ex wife who a year or so later, was 'fond' of me. I have an adversion to the word now!

How do we reconcile these 2 premises:

1. Characterizing another who does not conclude at this juncture, as; someone who is fond of misunderstanding climate science matters.
2. Oxford Dictionary; The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained (the definition of Science bearing no mention of conclusion, and also applies the inference that a conclusion would be an impediment to the process of science).
I dont think you mean to have a conflict with others still observing and testing theories.

Milgram's Six Degrees of Separation famously said that a butterfly can flap its wings in Peking, and in Central Park, you get rain instead of sunshine. As opposed to being settled, you cannot operate a scientific understanding without first not knowing. If you are steering to a conclusion, thats not science nor even close.

To add a bit more meat to the above poetic insertion, I'd like to add 2 observations. On November 22nd 2022 the world hit 8 billion, having increased exactly at the pace and curve of the famous hockey stick graph from 1 billion in the same time span. For a discussion about the planets ability to handle such a change, the clouds and atmosphere contain all the energy and ability to moderate that. However it is impossible to model any of it.

I say we need to observe, experiment and add theories to our incomplete knowledge of our world and of the solar system. More warmth, more moisture, more clouds, more albedo, etc.

Theories do not require immediate citations or proofing, however that would be the next thing sought. For the sake of theory ( not a belief nor desiring antagonizing), if we stay to any natural progression of things, the increase of our species having caused changes, if the natural offset were more warmth, moisture, cloud cover and albedo to offset this, are we interferring with natures response just because we would not want a warmer world, more weather, higher coastlines, etc.?

There is no consensus

Albert at 09:03 AM on 22 April, 2023

"a) If you had bothered to read the actual paper it's explained why the figures are organized as they are."

I have read the paper multiple times and the so called explanation groups 1,2 and 3 together and compares them to groups 5 6 and 7 and as I have said, most sceptics would be in group 3.

The "minimise" option Is a red herring as most sceptics believe in an ECS of 1.2C which is both group 3 and groups 56 and 7.

"b) Your 1.6% figure only relates to papers that explicitly quantify human contribution. With that you'd have to compare that to other papers that explicitly minimize human contribution."

Nonsense. It is a clear indication that only 1.6% of the papers thought that humans were causing most of warming.

You can't count, for example, a paper that explicitly quantifies against a paper that implicitly endorses human contribution.

Nomsense. Most sceptics who write papers would be in several categories and that is the lie in Cooks paper.

The only time that a scientific organisation has polled its members was by the AMS in 2016 and it explicitly asked members if they vpbelieved humans were responsible for the majority of warming and 67% said yes.

They didn't play the pretend game of setting up false categories and compare warmists against sceptics like Cook did.

The AMS were extremely embarrassed by this and tried to spin the result saying it was misinterpreted blah blab blah but since this no scientific body has ever dared poll their members again.

Roh you still havenot explained why Cook went to considerable lengths to hide the category numbers. It took me a couple of days to eventually figure out how to chuck the file into a spreadsheet and extract the totals.

I am passionate about truth in science, you're not, so let's just agree to disagree.

PS engaged with you on this subject because I have an open mind on all matters and wanted to read whether there were aspects of the "97%" I wasn't aware of, but your comments show me that there aren't.

Last comment

A few years ago the Australian sceptic society had a comment on their home page saying nothing was exempted from scepticism but also had a manifesto on global warming saying the science was settled and gave theit reasons.

I went through the manifesto line by line discrediting it by referring to data and submitted it. However next day it had disappeared and I contacted the editor and he said he had passed it on to "experts" to see if it was valid. He said he would get back to me but never did.

So a sceptic society now determines what you can be sceptical about. You can challenge the theories of Newton and Einstein but not the high church of climate change. That makes it a faith, not science.

Very last comment

In the sixteenth century, 99.9% of scientists believed the Sun orbited the Earth.

i Won't be commenting on this thread again.

The Big Picture

NoRightsNoProblem at 08:20 AM on 22 March, 2023

I feel like I just stepped on Mars.

Does the data confirm that we humans will be so restricted in our activities that life won't be worth living?

Please tell me why children as youg as FIVE are the target of your agenda.

Assuming that preventing a climate catastrophe is your goal, would you like to completely remove all

humans in pursuit of obtaining it?

Mr moderator— these are questions. Not statements. I do NOT agree with the "settled science," as science is NEVER settled. But if you forsee me causing a problem in my dissent, please--change my mind.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #50 2022

peterklein at 07:12 AM on 16 December, 2022

I mostly became mostly aware of the climate and global warming issue about the time that Al Gore began beating the drum (even while he continued to fly globally in his private jet). Since then, I've read about climate change and climate modeling from many sources, including ones taking the position that ‘it is not a question if it is a big-time issue, but what to do about it now, ASAP?’.

In the past few weeks, it appeared to me there has been a of articles, issued reports, and federal government activity, including recently approved legislation, related to this topic. While it obviously has been one of the major global topics for the past 3+ decades, the amount of public domain ‘heightened activity’ seems (to me) to come in waves every 4-6 months. That said, I decided to write on the topic based on what I learned and observed over time from articles, research reports, and TV/newspaper interviews.

There clearly are folks, associations, formal and informal groups, and even governments on both sides of the topic (issue). I also have seen over the decades how the need for and the flow of money sometimes (many times?) taints the results of what appear to be ‘expert-driven and expert-executed’ quantitative research. For example, in medical research some of the top 5% of researchers have been found altering their data and conclusions because of the source of their research funding, peer ‘industry’ pressure and/or pressure from senior academic administrators.

Many climate and weather-related articles state that 95+% of researchers agree on major climate changes; however (at least to me) many appear to disagree on the short-medium-longer term implications and timeframes.

What I conclude (as of now)
1. This as a very complex subject about which few experts have been correct.
2. We are learning more and more every day about this subject, and most of what we learn suggests that what we thought we knew isn't really correct or at least as perfectly accurate as many believe.
3. The U.S. alone cannot solve whatever problem exists. If we want to do something constructive, build lots of nuclear power plants ASAP (more on that to follow)!
4. Any rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels will devastate many economies, especially those like China, India, Africa and most of Asia. Interestingly, the U.S. can probably survive a 3 or 4% reduction in carbon footprint annually over the next 15 years better than almost any country in the world, but this requires the aforementioned construction of multiple nuclear electrical generating facilities. In the rest of the world, especially the developing world, their economies will crash, and famine would ensue; not a pretty picture.
5. I am NOT a reflexive “climate denier” but rather a real-time skeptic that humans will be rendered into bacon crisps sometime in the next 50, 100 or 500+ years!
6. One reason I'm not nearly as concerned as others is my belief in the concept of ‘progress’. Look at what we accomplished as a society over the last century, over the last 50, 10, 5 and 3 years (e.g., Moore’s Law is the observation that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles about every two years!). It is easy to conclude that we will develop better storage batteries and better, more efficient electrical grids that will reduce our carbon footprint. I'm not so sure about China, India and the developing world!
7. So, don't put me down as a climate denier even though I do not believe that the climate is rapidly deteriorating or will rapidly deteriorate as a result of CO2 upload. Part of my calm on this subject is because I have read a lot about the ‘coefficient of correlation of CO2 and global warming, and I really don't think it's that high. I won't be around to know if I was right in being relaxed on this subject, but then I have more important things to worry about (including whether the NY Yankees can beat Houston in the ACLS playoffs, assuming they meet!).

My Net/Net (As of Now!)
I am not a researcher or a scientist, and I recognize I know far less than all there is to know on this very complex topic, and I am not a ‘climate change denier’… but, after
also reading a lot of material over the years from ‘the other side’ on this topic, I conclude it is monumentally blown out of proportion relative to those claiming: ‘the sky is falling and fast’!
• Read or skim the book by Steven Koonin: Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters /April 27, 2021; https://www.amazon.com/Unsettled-Climate-Science-Doesnt-Matters/dp/1950665798
• Google ‘satellite measures of temperature’; also, very revealing… see one attachment as an example.
• Look at what is happening in the Netherlands and Sri Lanka! Adherence to UN and ESG mandates are starving countries; and it appears Canada is about to go over the edge!
• None of the climate models are accurate for a whole range of reasons; the most accurate oddly enough is the Russian model but that one is even wrong by orders of magnitude!
• My absolute favorite fact is that based on data from our own governmental observation satellites: the oceans have been rising over the last 15 years at the astonishing rate of 1/8th of an inch annually; and my elementary mathematics suggests that if this rate continues, the sea will rise by an inch sometime around 2030 and by a foot in the year 2118… so, no need to buy a lifeboat if you live in Miami, Manhattan, Boston, Los Angeles, or San Francisco!
• Attached is a recent article and a Research Report summary.
 Probably the most damning is the Research Report comparison of the climate model predictions from 2000, pointing to 2020 versus the actual increase in temperature that has taken place in that timeframe (Pages 9-13). It's tough going and I suggest you just read the yellow areas on Page 9 (the Abstract and Introduction, very short) and the 2 Conclusions on Page 12. But the point is someone is going to the trouble to actually analyze this data on global warming coefficients!
My Observations and Thinking
In the 1970s Time Magazine ran a cover story about our entering a new Ice Age. Sometime in the early 1990s, I recall a climate scientist sounding the first warning about global warming and the potentially disastrous consequences. He specifically predicted high temperatures and massive floods in the early 2000’s. Of course, that did not occur; however, others picked up on his concern and began to drive it forward, with Al Gore being one of the primary voices of climate concern. He often cited the work in the 1990’s of a climate scientist at Penn State University who predicted a rapid increase in temperature, supposedly occurring in 2010 and, of course, this also did not occur.

Nonetheless many scientists from various disciplines also began to warn about global warming starting in the early 2000’s. It was this growing body of ‘scientific’ concern that stimulated Al Gore's concern and his subsequent movie. It would be useful for you to go back to that and review the apocalyptic pronouncements from that time; most of which predicted dire consequences, high temperatures, massive flooding, etc. which were to occur in 10 or 12 years, certainly by 2020. None of this even closely occurred to the extent they predicted.

That said, I was still generally aware of the calamities predicted by a large and diverse body of global researchers and scientists, even though their specific predictions did not take place in the time frame or to the extent that they predicted. As a result, I become a ‘very casual student’ of climate modeling.

Over the past 15 years climate modeling has become a popular practice in universities, think-tanks and governmental organizations around the globe. Similar to medical and other research (e.g., think-tanks, etc.) I recognized that some of the work may have been driven by folks looking for grants and money to keep them and their staff busy.

A climate model is basically a multi-variate model in which the dependent variable is global temperature. All of these models try to identify the independent variables which drive change in global temperature. These independent variables range from parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to sunspot activity, the distance of the earth from the sun, ocean temperatures, cloud cover, etc. The challenge of a multi-variant model is first to identify all of the various independent variables affecting the climate and then to estimate the percent contribution to global warming made by a change in any of these independent variables. For example, what would be the coefficient of correlation for an increase in carbon dioxide parts per million to global warming?

You might find that an interesting cocktail party question to ask your friends “what is the coefficient of correlation between the increase in carbon dioxide parts per million and the effect on global warming?” I would be shocked if any of them even understood what you were saying and flabbergasted if they could give you an intelligent answer! There are dozens of these climate models. You might be surprised that none of them has been particularly accurate if we go back 12 years to 2010, for example, and look at the prediction that the models made for global warming in ten years, by 2020, and how accurate any given model would be.
An enterprising scientist did go back and collected the predictions from a score of climate models and found that a model by scientists from Moscow University was actually closer to being accurate than any of the other models. But the point is none were accurate! They all were wrong on the high side, dramatically over predicting the actual temperature in 2020. Part of the problem was that in several of those years, there was no increase in the global temperature at all. This caused great consternation among global warming believers and the scientific community!

A particularly interesting metric relates to the rise in the level of the ocean. Several different departments in the U.S. government actually measures this important number. You might be surprised to know, as stated earlier, that over the past 15 or so years the oceans have risen at the dramatic rate of 1/8th of an inch annually. This means that if the oceans continued to rise at that level, we would see a rise of an inch in about 8 years, sometime around 2030, and a rise of a foot sometime around the year 2118. I suspect Barack Obama had seen this data and that's why he was comfortable in buying an oceanfront estate on Martha's Vineyard when his presidency ended!

The ‘Milankovitch Theory’ (a Serbian astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch, after whom the Milankovitch Climate Theory is named, proposed about how the seasonal and latitudinal variations of solar radiation that hit the earth in different and at different times have the greatest impact on earth's changing climate patterns) states that as the earth proceeds on its orbit, and as the axis shifts, the earth warms and cools depending on where it is relative to the sun over a 100,000-year, and 40,000-year cycle. Milankovitch cycles are involved in long-term changes to Earth's climate as the cycles operate over timescales of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.

So, consider this: we did not suddenly get a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere this year than we had in 2019 (or other years!), but maybe the planet has shifted slightly as the Milankovitch Theory states, and is now a little closer to the sun, which is why we have the massive drought. Nothing man has done would suddenly make the drought so severe, but a shift in the axis or orbit bringing the planet a bit closer to the sun would. It just seems logical to me. NASA publicly says that the theory is accurate, so it seems that is the real cause; but the press and politicians will claim it is all man caused! You can shut down all oil production and junk all the vehicles, and it will not matter per the Theory! Before the mid-1800’s there were no factories or cars, but the earth cooled and warmed, glaciers formed and melted, and droughts and massive floods happened. The public is up against the education industrial complex of immense corruption!

In the various and universally wrong ‘climate models’, one of the ‘independent’ variables is similar to the Milankovitch Theory. Unfortunately, it is not to the advantage of the climate cabal to admit this or more importantly give it the importance it probably deserves.

People who are concerned about the climate often cite an ‘increase in forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, etc. as proof of global warming’. And many climate deniers point out that most forest fires are proven to be caused by careless humans tossing cigarettes into a pile of leaves or leaving their campfire unattended, and that there has been a dramatic decrease globally on deaths caused by various climate factors. I often read from climate alarmists (journalists, politicians, friends, etc.), what I believe are ‘knee-jerk’ responses since they are not supported by meaningful and relevant data/facts, see typical comments below:
• “The skeptical climate change deniers remind me of the doctors hired by the tobacco industry to refute the charges by the lung cancer physicians that tobacco smoke causes lung cancer. The planet is experiencing unprecedented extreme climate events: droughts, fires, floods etc. and the once in 500-year catastrophic climate event seems to be happening every other year. Slow motion disasters are very difficult to deal with politically. When a 200-mph hurricane hits the east coast and causes a trillion dollars in losses then will deal with it and then climate deniers will throw in the towel!”

These above comments may be right, but to date the forecasts on timing implications across all the models are wrong! It just ‘may be’ in 3, 10 or 50 years… or in 500-5000+ before the ‘sky is falling’ devastating events directly linked to climate occur. If some of the forecasts, models were even close to accuracy to date I would feel differently.

I do not deny there are climate related changes I just don’t see any evidence their impact is anywhere near the professional researchers’ forecasts/models on their impact as well as being ‘off the charts’ different than has happened in the past 100-1000+ years.

But a larger question is “suppose various anthropogenetic actions (e.g., chiefly environmental pollution and pollutants originating in human activity like anthropogenic emissions of sulfur dioxide) are causing global warming?”. What are they, who is doing it, and what do we do about it? The first thing one must do is recognize that this is a global problem and that therefore the actions of any one country has an effect on the overall climate depending upon its population and actions. Many in the United States focus intensely upon reducing carbon emissions in the U.S. when of course the U.S. is only 5% of the world population. We are however responsible for a disproportionate part of the global carbon footprint; we contribute about 12%. The good news is that the U.S. has dramatically reduced its share of the global carbon footprint over the past 20 years and doing so while dramatically increasing our GDP (up until the 1st Half of 2022).

Many factors have contributed to the relative reduction of the U.S. carbon footprint. Chief among these are much more efficient automobiles and the switch from coal-driven electric generation plants to those driven by natural gas, a much cleaner fossil fuel.

While the U.S. is reducing its carbon footprint more than any other country in the world, China has dramatically increased its carbon footprint and now contributes about 30% of the carbon expelled into the atmosphere. China is also building 100 coal-fired plants!

Additional facts, verified by multiple sources including SNOPES, the U.,S. government, engineering firms, etc.:
• No big signatories to the Paris Accord are now complying; the U.S. is out-performing all of them.
• EU is building 28 new coal plants; Germany gets 40% of its power from 84 coal plants; Turkey is building 93 new coal plants, India 446, South Korea 26, Japan 45, China has 2363 coal plants and is building 1174 new ones; the U.S. has 15 and is building no new ones and will close about 15 coal plants.
• Real cost example: Windmills need power plants run on gas for backup; building one windmill needs 1100 tons of concrete & rebar, 370 tons of steel, 1000 lbs of mined minerals (e.g., rare earths, iron and copper) + very long transmission lines (lots of copper & rubber covering for those) + many transmission towers… rare earths come from the Uighur areas of China (who use slave labor), cobalt comes from places using child labor and use lots of oil to run required rock crushers... all to build one windmill! One windmill also has a back-up, inefficient, partially running, gas-powered generating plant to keep the grid functioning! To make enough power to really matter, we need millions of acres of land & water, filled with windmills which consume habitats & generate light distortions and some noise, which can create health issues for humans and animals living near a windmill (this leaves out thousands of dead eagles and other birds).

• So, if we want to decrease the carbon footprint on the assumption that this is what is driving the rise in the sea levels (see POV that sea levels are not rising at: www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRChoNTg) and any increase in global temperature, we need to figure out how to convince China, India and the rest of the world from fouling the air with fossil fuels. In fact, if the U.S. wanted to dramatically reduce its own carbon footprint, we would immediately begin building 30 new nuclear electrical generating plants around the country! France produces about 85% of its electrical power from its nuclear-driven generators. Separately, but related, do your own homework on fossil fuels (e.g., oil) versus electric; especially on the big-time move to electric and hybrid vehicles. Engineering analyses show you need to drive an electric car about 22 years (a hybrid car about 15-18 years) to breakeven on the savings versus the cost involved in using fossil fuels needed to manufacture, distribute and maintain an electric car! Also, see page 14 on the availability inside the U.S. of oil to offset what the U.S. purchases from the middle east and elsewhere, without building the Keystone pipeline from Canada.

Two 4-5-minute videos* on the climate change/C02/new green deal issue, in my opinion, should be required viewing in every high school and college; minimally because it provides perspective and data on the ‘other’ side of the issue while the public gets bombarded almost daily by the ‘sky is falling now or soon’ side on climate change!

* https://www.prageru.com/video/is-there-really-a-climate-emergency and
https://www.prageru.com/video/climate-change-whats-so-alarming

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

Santalives at 18:49 PM on 27 February, 2022

Baerbelw @ 27. Thanks for that response as you confirmed my hypothesis that rather there be any attempt at serious rebuttal @19 comments will be to trash the authors, the publication or dismiss it on the grounds its settled science

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

Santalives at 08:53 AM on 27 February, 2022

@electic. 18. I don't have a handle over ar wuwt. This is the only CC site I have ever signed up too. I was hoping it would provide a robust discussion of CC especially around the more controversial issues. I have read nearly everyone of the Climate Myth and many of the comments. They are less than convincing, not sure if it's the age of articles or the comments you read which start 15 years ago. ( useful feature would be able to sort comments by date).

For an article in point www.ijaos.org/article/298/10.11648.j.ijaos.20210502.12. Which is discussed on today's wuwt, this is the sort I thing I thought sks would provide the alternative view on. But I suspect the comments will be to trash the authors, the publication or dismiss it on the grounds its settled science. It's the latter is probably the most frustrating. I watched the Rogan interviews with Nonien and the Dressler. Worth a watch and will let you decide who is more credible.

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

BaerbelW at 16:22 PM on 21 February, 2022

@Santalives #80

"I have always thought rather than just endless debates 2 steps removed on these websites, why not a TV show where the best climate scientist debate against best deniers on these topics."

This would be a fake debate because both "sides" are not equal when there is a scientific consensus on a topic. It just paints a very wrong and misleading picture for people watching such a fake debate on what is basically settled science. This is explained in The Consensus Handbook on pages 8 and 9 and in this sketch from John Oliver's Last Week Tonight show which is as true today as when it came out in 2014!

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

Santalives at 14:06 PM on 21 February, 2022

Nigelj @79, what would you say is the central argument that sites like wuwt believe? I have spent a bit time reading and a lot of the people on there are clearly not dummies but they simply don't accept the settled science.

On prof Koutsoyiannis, to say his assumptions are nonsensical and dismiss the paper out of hand, certainly does nothing for someone like me trying to learn something and I think plays into the hand of deniers who say the other side won't debate. Evan response was an explanation of the consensus not a rebuttal.

As Evan paper is about what we do and how do we convince people to do it. I have always thought rather than just endless debates 2 steps removed on these websites, why not a TV show where the best climate scientist debate against best deniers on these topics. Especially on the settled science. It would be certainly a lot more interesting the current BBC climate programme that seems to have run out content.

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

Santalives at 12:33 PM on 21 February, 2022

@nijelj 69. It is obvious that that the temp has increased, that the sea level rises is ongoing and has been for thousands of years. don't know anybody who does not accept that. Except over at Elecroverse who are pushing move to somehwhere warm and learn how to grow vegetables. God help us if they are right. My skeptism is we seem to have put all our chips down on betting on c02 that produced by man is the source of our problem. Whilst I support the study of that,but we should be constantly asking what if we are wrong? As Eclectic wrote @16 I live in hope that someday, some year, WUWT will uncover some killer evidence that the mainstream climate scientists are wrong. I would have thought that would be hope of this site.

Anyway I seem to getting accused of trolling etc. But I was really hoping to see some proper rebuttal for instance the paper by Prof. Demetris Koutsoyiannis Rethinking Climate, Climate Change, and Their Relationship with Water. There has been no rebuttal of his paper other than no this is settled science. His paper is quite specific in its claims and evidence which clearly goes against the settled science. It's a question of if he is wrong where is his paper wrong.

On the Y2K analogy, I never said it was a scam. The Y2K bug was real and we still have come across it from time to time since. My analogy was trying to express the idea how singly focused we all became on something that was a theoretical problem. This focus was initiated by governments but driven by endless money. Even when we found that it was not of concern for some system at all, companies just pushed on spending money to rip out old systems for new technologies under the excuse of Y2K. We dismantled and tested everything from ATM machines to, microwave trammitters. Dragged out 80 year Cobol programmers (for a 6 figure sum for a few months work),Decommissioned more mainframes than I can remember all to prevent a perceived catastrophe.

How serious was the Y2K bug, I would say close to zero, why because this was western government obsession, many counties simply didn't have the money or expertise to do any Y2K remeadation but they did ask the rich countries to pay for it however. Nothing happened, no power grid failures, no planes crashed, banks didnt collaspe anywhere in the world. I know plenty of coders who still think we were saving the world but for me if I am upfront we all went along for the ride because it was easy to scare the people, the politicians, the CEOs to make a lot of money. Seems to be a lot of similarity to AGW.

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

MA Rodger at 23:44 PM on 18 February, 2022

This is a run through the input of commenter Santalives (a curious name to chose as Santa is known to be buried in Bari, Italy) down this comment-thread. It may be useful given the mercurial argumentation being presented.

@2 we are told that there are "articles (especially the peer reviewed) that are shredding climate science" although quite where these were was not made plain.
@11 we are told it is "sites like wuwt" which "publish peer reviewed climate science and debate it" and an exemplar of this literature is given - Koutsoyiannis (2021) 'Rethinking Climate, Climate Change, and Their Relationship with Water'. This paper sets out a denialist thesis and isn't worth the paper it would be written on if you bought a paper version of it.
@14 it was explained that this exemplar paper was "picked at random" but there are "literally hundreds of peer reviewed papers like this that make it very clear the science is not settled." Yet they go undebated at SkS.
@25 it is argued that branding Koutsoyiannis (2021) as nonsense is not good enough and it deserves to be properly rebutted because "science is never settled" and can be overturned by new research with the Einstein quote that "a single experiment can prove me wrong". And dozens of papers showing new research which is perhaps doing that 'overturning' is featured at NoTrickZone rather than WUWT. NTZ actually has a second half to this list here.
@28 another exemplar paper is presented Seim & Olsen (2020) 'The Influence of IR Absorption and Backscatter Radiation from CO2 on Air Temperature during Heating in a Simulated Earth/Atmosphere Experiment' (a paper that describes an experiment meant to measure the GH-effect of CO2 but shows a complete misunderstanding of how the GH-effect works. This is not a controversial rebuttal. At WUWT, a review said the paper is "not saying much about the Greenhouse effect" although a NoTricksZone review was accepting of the paper's worthless findings).
@32 it is admitted that there is no "knock out" paper (which the Einstein quote @25 requires) but that "there is an awful lot that shows we are not in a climate crises" in some crazy non-scientific collective manner.
@33 the true task of SkS is described. "If this site was really about skeptical science it would have every climate science paper."

The commenter Santalives hasn't taken me up on my offer @18 of a full rebuttal of Koutsoyiannis (2021). Seim & Olsen (2020) is very obviously nonsense. As for the dozens of papers in the 2021 NoTricksZone listing, I would suggest it is from start to finish either papers that are clearly denialist nonsense or, more likely, selective quotes that misrepressent the quoted papers. The list begins with 70-odd papers purportedly demonstrating "A Warmer Past: Non-Hockey Stick Reconstructions" They will demonstrate no such thing. If any of them had established some evidence to overturn the accepted global temperature record based on proxy data, I'm sure we would soon have heard about it. I say 'from start to finish'. The first paper in this list is concerned with the SST seasonality in the South China Sea and establishing proxy methods. There is no Hockey Stick busting to be seen. And the final paper in the big long list shock-horror demonstrates "Abrupt, Degrees-Per-Decade Natural Global Warming" which is a well-known phenomenon but only found in the depths of an Ice Age. So I would suggest this NoTricksZone listing is yet more denialist nonsense.

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

Santalives at 15:17 PM on 18 February, 2022

Hi Evan, interesting analogy the ball. Knowing the ball will fall does not mean you know why? Do you subscribe to Newton or Einstein theory of gravity? It's an interesting off topic discussion as now Einstein's theory is being challenged. But back to climate science if someone does an experiment that shows c02 is not as powerful a GHG as currently assumed, how do you process that information,.. Re evaluate your theory or ignore it as your assumption is its settled science so we should not be studying it. Here is such an experiment. www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=99608. I am hoping we have some real insights to this, has anyone replicated it? Have the numbers been plugged into the climate models to, assess the Impacts. I am not niave and remember the cold fusion scam that sucked in the whole world at the time. But i have been disappointed that most of the responses, on this site seem to confirm the deniers claims that Climate change advocates won't debate, won't accept new data and attack the messenger rather then message.

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 can we slow down?

Evan at 12:02 PM on 18 February, 2022

Santalives@25

Yes, some science is settled. When Apple decides how to make the iPhone14, I don't think they will entertain debates about the science of how semiconductors works. Your iPhone works because it is based on settled science. Maybe the iPhone 20 will be based on some new methods, but companies like Apple rely on using settled science to make neat gadgets.

Hold a ball in your hand. Open your hand. What will happen?

As you noted about Einstein, you cannot "prove" it will fall, but you know it will fall. Would you bet against the ball falling? Only if you're foolish. You can go into a lab day after day after day and show that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Day after day you get the same result. You can't "prove" that the next day CO2 will cause heating when illuminated by infrared radiation, but after the millionth experiment you declare this settled science.

So this is my last comment to you, because you are being led astray by slick-sounding arguments. There is settled science. It is contained in reference books that engineers use to design all the things that make our society run. Yes, there are advancements. Yes, sometimes the reference books contain errors. But by in large a scientist is one who develops new science. Engineers are the ones who apply settled science to make things.

If you believe that no science is ever settled, does that mean you will spend time reading papers that say the Earth is flat and that the Sun orbits the Earth? What self-respecting astronomy journal would publish an article questioning whether we really know if the Earth orbits the sun and if it's spherical?

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

Santalives at 11:20 AM on 18 February, 2022

Thanks for the responses but I am little dismayed by the coments that it's all junk science, the science is settled, author is a denier. Science is never settled, yes they still debate the theory of Relatively. What I find most interesting is however the attacks on the Man, Iooked up his cv its quite impressive. But to dismiss his paper out of hand as we don't like the topicj, the journal or its peer review is elitism. As Einstein said
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

Eclectic @16' look at. wuwt occasionally but it's a bit like a tabloid newspaper most days. Sometimes there are great articles with good debates but mostly it's a echo chamber, but I think this site might be much the same. In terms of reading I am making my way through the 2021 papers list from the Notrickszone website notrickszone.com/skeptic-papers-2021-1/

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

MA Rodger at 21:40 PM on 17 February, 2022

Santalives @11,
The exemplar you provide (Koutsoyiannis [2021] 'Rethinking Climate, Climate Change, and Their Relationship with Water') of "publish peer reviewed climate science" which you claim are 'debated' on "sites like WUWT" presents utter nonsense. It is likely a very good exemplar for the utter nonsense served up by denialist sites like WUWT, served up with the aim of diminishing the science, the science which conclusively shows that AGW is a big big problem and needs sorting ASAP and actually should have been sorted many years ago.

You will note that Koutsoyiannis [2021] is now a year old and was published in a journal entitled 'Water' alongside 136 other articles in Vol 13, Issue 6 of that journal and one of just 3 so far published on a Special Issue "Climate, Water, and Soil" web page. The journal 'Water' is one of 386 titles published by MDPI (including a journal entitled 'Climate' which for some reason Koutsoyiannis did not publish in). MDPI is a controversial publisher who charge the author a significant sum for publication (for Koutsoyiannis [2021] the publishing fee was 2,200 CHf) and don't do a thorough job of peer-review. The reviews of this paper are accessed here. It is a pale imitation of serious scientific publishing.

(Perhaps I should add here that passing peer-review does not mean the thesis presented has to be correct. Profoundly flawed work that presents an interesting new analysis can still be passed for publication.)

The true test of a work like Koutsoyiannis [2021] is whether it makes any headway within the science. And the answer to that is, despite its strong conclusions, after a year it has sunk into total obscurity. And within the week it would have been replaced by some other controversial AGW-denying theory at WUWT which will likely be entirely incompatable with the arguments set out by Koutsoyiannis [2021]. And so it goes on.

You are entirely correct when you write @14 "there are literally hundreds of peer reviewed papers like this" but you are entirely wrong when you assert that such a volume of work "make it very clear the science is not settled." All those papers do not unsettle the settled science.

Are you truly interested to learn why Koutsoyiannis [2021] is a pack of nonsense?

If you are, I will give it a proper read. But that it attempts to overturn the entirety of climate science without due indication of that being its aim/conclusion is enough for me to dismiss it out of hand. Such works of obcession are too numerous. Life is too short.

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

Santalives at 13:57 PM on 17 February, 2022

I picked a random example of a paper that questions the climate change narrative. But my point is there are literally hundreds of peer reviewed papers like this that make it very clear the science is not settled. If it was settled then these papers would not be getting written or published. My point is the article above is jumping to conclusions about climate change if they are set in stone and there is only one course of action. Where this paper shows the static view of climate only being being controlled by C02 is putting the Cart before the Horse. Obviously this paper is all about we are studying the wrong thing and ignoring the real climate driver H20, not surprisingly for a Hydrologist. But my bigger point is why isn't papers like this and all the others not up on this website, being debated? As he said in the conclusion, ......

Plato and Aristotle clarified the meaning and the ethical value of science as the pursuit of the truth; pursuit that is not driven by political and economic interests.

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

nigelj at 10:58 AM on 17 February, 2022

Santilves. So I was basically right. It would seem reasonable to review the occasional more sensible paper that challenges some aspect of the consensus. However imho this website should not waste time on reviewing endless junk science papers and give them publicity. I cant see much point in endlessly debating settled aspects of climate science. Should we also have never ending debates on Newtons Laws of motion and the theory of relativity?

The study you quote seems a good example of junk science. Anyone with half a brain can see no period of time has had a totally and completely unchanging climate and that the term climate change refers to big obvious changes that interest us particularly, and the paper you quote is just pedantry. The paper you cite also attempts to argue climate change is caused by water. I stopped reading at that point. Dozens of studies have claimed this sort of thing, and have been shown to be junk science. Why would any sane person read yet another?

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

Eclectic at 15:28 PM on 16 February, 2022

Santalives @2 , you seem in an argumentive mood, yet you have (so far) failed to provide any substance to your comments. Perhaps you could be kind enough to give some of the "not based on science" examples you were maybe thinking of?

# Please note this website favors specific reasoned posts, each placed in the most suited individual thread already existing. Not a general rant or Gish Gallop of umpteen points. I would suggest you make one, maybe two separate posts . . . and then proceed to play your remaining 50 cards or so, one at a time, once your first cards have been well discussed.

AFAICT, this SkS website is an excellently efficient source of scientific information (and many links) for those who wish to educate themselves rapidly about climate science. Many of the "Climate Myths" articles [see top left of page] are a decade old, yet still highly relevant and providing useful links as well as more recent discussion in the attached comments columns. Remember, much of the climate science has been "settled" for a long time ~ and you won't need much updating to get to "today".

This SkS website is not about politics of the partisan type. Solutions & education are sometimes discussed (as in the above article), but mostly SkS is simply about the science of climate. For myself, I have visited dozens of "climate" websites over the years . . . and find SkS gives the broadest coverage of the science spectrum. If you have found a better one, please inform me !

Santalives, if you want to argue "the politics", then you might like to head over to WattsUpWithThat blogsite. You won't find much genuine science there - but you will find plenty of angry arguing, mixed in with shoddy or deluded junk science . . . plus a lot of conspiracy theories . . . plus many Flat-Earth-style greenhouse deniers. You will find it interesting in a psychiatric way, but you will likely find it disappointing if you are hoping for actual political effectiveness.

# Santalives , it would also be good if you could supply (and discuss) some of the "alternative research" you mentioned. For many years I have been looking for genuine research which challenges/overthows the mainstream climate science . . . but nothing genuine found ! Yes, lots of half-baked ideas and (baseless) speculative hypotheses . . . but in the end, they all fail. Sadly, the mainstream science has not been successfully challenged.

Why people believe misinformation and resist correction

Eclectic at 23:57 PM on 30 January, 2022

David-acct @11 :-

Once again, I must respectfully beg to disagree ~ for I think you are being too idealistic, and you are basing your ideas on the older & simpler world of the pre-internet. It is good-hearted of you, but you are not being sufficiently cynical about human nature.

The last 20 years of "internet" have revealed the result of this novel & unplanned experiment in social interactions. And the resulting data are very ugly ~ and so it is time for you to revise your opinions and modify your ideals pragmatically.

The case of Philippe Chantreau & the CDC advice is very much a special case: a case of a short-term situation, where imperfect decisions (imperfect in hindsight) are taken in the heat of battle.

In the long-term . . . for example climate science . . . there is time for the science to become more "settled". And we have the benefit of decades of hindsight & progress of knowledge. The science-deniers & conspiracy-theorists have had a grand "field day" for the whole two years of the pandemic, and they have done immense harm in the short run. And they are still continuing to do great harm to future generations, by opposing action against AGW.

David, I gather you find any type of restriction to be somewhat distasteful. That's understandable, to a degree. But now it has become necessary to actively choose the lesser of two evils. I am sure you know the old saying :- "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Here endeth the lecture for the first month. And best wishes for the rest of 2022, David.

There is no consensus

star-affinity at 00:48 AM on 16 January, 2022

What do you think of the article critizising the 97% number here?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2016/12/14/fact-checking-the-97-consensus-on-anthropogenic-climate-change/

It's claiming the consensus number is closer to 80% – at least in the study being referred to from 2013 by Dennis Bray & Hans von Storch, (linked to below).

While 80% is still a strong consensus I must agree with the Forbes article author (Earl J. Ritchie) that:

"It’s not as easy to discount dissenters if the number is 10 or 15 percent."

The reason for me asking this is that I'm discussing with a friend whether there's still a debate going on if the climate change is of "natural" origin or if human activity is contributing. I'm arguing that the science is basically settled, but he seems to think it's not since not all climate scientists agree. He was the one giving me that article questioning the 97% claim. Now, I of course think the researchers behind the 97% number presented here on the Sceptical Science site has been thorough and honest, but if there are serveys such as the one below pointing more to 80% agreement I'm wondering how we can be sure the consensus number is around 97%?

"A survey of the perceptions of climate scientists 2013":

http://www.hvonstorch.de/klima/pdf/CliSci2013.pdf

A comment on the above study from the Forbes article by Earl J. Ritchie:

"A value of 1 indicates not convinced and a value of 7 is very much convinced. The top three values add to 81%, roughly in the range of several other surveys."

How weather forecasts can spark a new kind of extreme-event attribution

Eclectic at 22:59 PM on 15 January, 2022

Wilddouglascounty , your analogy with steroids is a good one. (Though technically an athlete can achieve "steroid performance" via scientific strength-training ~ it just takes a little longer and requires more willpower.) And apart from Thatcher, our politicians tend to lead from behind . . . excepting for just their rhetoric, as shown in international conferences!

Bob Loblaw points out that the terms CC (Climate Change) and GW (Global Warming) have both been in use for many decades. CC from the 1950's and GW from the 1980's at least.

Always it comes back to what the public - the voters - perceive. They seem moderately happy to use the terms CC and GW in their thinking about the anthropogenic CO2 problem. I would worry that your proposal for using a third term might well be counter-productive, with some portion of the population being irritated by a sense of "constant revolution" in climate terminology.

Using a broad-brush classification, people can be divided into 4 categories :-

A/ the cognoscenti/activists, who see the AGW problem for what it is ~ regardless of terminologies used.

B/ the general public, who are moderately aware of the AGW issue, and who don't really care whether it's called CC or GW.

C/ those who, while not actively hostile to broad socioeconomic changes required in solving the AGW problem ~ are nevertheless a bit reluctant to suffer mild inconvenience, or who feel unease about prospective changes. And they also don't care whether it is called CC or GW.

D/ the Denialists, who oppose anything and everything AGW-related. They do definitely care about the terminology used ~ and they tend to froth at the mouth at any flip-flop in terms used, and they create strawman arguments regarding "the science obviously not being settled". (Among other things.)

For my sins, I often look through the articles and comments at the WattsUpWithThat blogsite. (It doesn't take long to skim through the day's effusions, provided that you only pause to read comments - and immediate replies to - the handful of commenters who are scientifically well-informed and intellectually sane.)

Sadly, the great generality of WUWT commenters are like a group of tetchy backyard dogs. They launch into prolonged barking at even the slightest disturbance ~ at someone's door closing; at a pedestrian walking by; at a bird chirping in a tree; at a vehicle going past. Perhaps they like barking, or they are hungry, or their emotional needs are not being met.

Antarctica is gaining ice

Jim Hunt at 17:23 PM on 13 June, 2021

Hello again WEP,

That is certainly the case for the Arctic. Here are some brief instructions on how to answer that sort of question for yourself:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/steve-koonins-unsettled-arctic-science/#WRIT

Here's just one example, which hopefully answers your question?

I leave producing the Antarctic version as an exercise for the interested reader.

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

Nick Palmer at 02:48 AM on 13 June, 2021

I realise I've got an uphill struggle with you lot because you are unlikely to have heard anyone arguing this position before - most seem to have been happy to accept Greenpeace et al's interpretation of events as gospel without deconstructing it enough. When one has been deconstructing the deceit, delusion and/or dumbness from the various denialist factions for decades, as I have, one can't help it if one sometimes notices the very same methods being used by our 'side'. I personally think that demonising Big Oil's past activities and misrepresenting them as if they were real denialism is very counter-productive. Apart from anything else, one of the most powerful arguments I use against tricksy denialist rhetoric is that these days even Big Fossil Fuel fully accepts mainstream climate science and they acknowledge that something serious needs to be done to avoid the very unacceptable risks. I point that if there was a trace of reality in the arguments that have sucked them in, Big Oil's scientists would have noticed and their corporate execs would have then beaten a wide path to the doors of the sceptic/contrarian/denialists with wheelbarrows full of cash to learn about their magic get-out-of-jail-free cards. When I challenge denialists to explain, if they are so sure of their beliefs, why this is not happening, and never did happen, they either shut up or go off into the lala land of conspiracies I list later on. In either case, the wider audience sees they have nothing real...

Bob Loblaw@25 wrote:

"Give me a break. I was studying climatology for 10 years before Hansen's speech, and a dozen years before the 1990 IPCC report"

I refer you again (3rd time) to my quote of Carbonbrief's article and the words of top climate scientist Andrew Dessler of Texas A&M Uni.

C.B.: "In 1979, the Charney Report from the US National Academy of Sciences suggested that ECS was likely somewhere between 1.5C and 4.5C per doubling of CO2. Nearly 40 years later, the best estimate of sensitivity is largely the same.
However, Prof Andrew Dessler at Texas A&M University pushes back on this suggestion. He tells Carbon Brief:

I think that the idea that ‘uncertainty has remained the same since the late 1970s’ is wrong. If you look at the Charney report, it’s clear that there were a lot of things they didn’t know about the climate. So their estimate of uncertainty was, in my opinion, way, way too small"

"Back in 1979, climate science was much less well understood than today. There were far fewer lines of evidence to use in assessing climate sensitivity. The Charney report range was based on physical intuition and results from only two early climate models.

In contrast, modern sensitivity estimates are based on evidence from many different sources, including models, observations and palaeoclimate estimates. As Dessler suggests, one of the main advances in understanding of climate sensitivity over the past few decades is scientists’ ability to more confidently rule out very high or very low climate sensitivities."

I'm not disputing that the basic science of radiative physics and the simple climate modelling of ECS of 'how many degrees per doubling' has been around a long time. As a matter of fact, as a science geek, I knew about some of the scientific views in my later teens (early 70s) - about the time I stopped buying aerosols (apart from WD40...) to protect the ozone layer. The uncertainty of outcome referred to by Dessler is to the 'known unknowns' and 'unknown unknowns' at the time and these were very significant. The (some of) CMIP6 model problems were mentioned just to show that even today some crucial feedback mechanisms affecting ECS are still being nailed down 40 years later.

It is the solidarity or otherwise of the climate sensitivity figures AT THE TIME of the memos and documents cherry picked in 'Exxon Knew' which is at the very nub of whether, as the populist environmentalist narrative goes, Exxon were evil or, as I am convinced, just cautious because the views of sensitivity at the time were just not solid enough to mandate massive corporation change without a lot more scientific work to more reliably figure out what ECS was (not to mention the Transient and Earth system sensitivities too). If Exxon's scientists told their bosses that, as Dessler wrote, Charney's figures were waay more uncertain than Charney thought they were, that is not evidence of psychopathic evil, it's just evidence of good scientists offering a very valid criticism of another scientist's work.

Sure, at the time, Exxon's own scientists acknowledged the basic 'settled' science but of course they would also acknowledge the great uncertainties which the 'anti's turned a blind eye to. There was nothing sinister about that and it is the attribution of malignant motives to Big Oil by Greenpeace et al that I have a serious issue with. There is so much deceit, deception, propaganda, selective and misleading information from all sides out there that I think our 'side' should clean up its act and disavow all that stuff and just stick to the best peer reviewed science, the best risk analysis and not indulge in dubiously demonising (probably) innocent'ish corporate behaviour that has been, in my view, massively misrepresented or rule out many solutions, as Mann has done, which have great potential thus making 'the answers' much harder to achieve.

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

Nick Palmer at 09:05 AM on 8 June, 2021

libertador @5

I'm not sure I have a political ideology any more. I've settled on a rag bag of right and left wing concepts ending up somewhere 'in the middle'. I think it's singleminded one-dimensional dogmatic political ideologies, and the activists that they spawn, which are now the major obstacle to humanity getting things moving. I've found that the proponents of all ideologies use misleading language and rhetoric etc to try to make the case that their way is 'the way' because, unfortunately, that is how politicians get elected and retain their support. Just you try getting elected by telling the people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - I did and all I can say is 'good luck with that'!

As I said, I've been active in engaging climate science denialism for over 30 years (and other forms of pseudoscience long before that). After a while, one gets to recognise when someone arguing a point is using certain rhetorical techniques to sway their audience to form certain conclusions. This applies whether whether the case they are arguing is true or fallacious and whether they are trying to deceive or genuinely believe what they are saying.

It would be less than objective to not notice when the proponents of the 'side' that one's heart favours use the very same methods to sway their audience as those who try to, consciously or unconsciously, mislead their audience. Integrity is not best served by demonising one's opponents for deception whilst giving those supporting whatever 'cause' floats your boat a free pass for using exactly the same methods - it's a bad strategy to believe that 'the ends justify the means' - apart from anything else, using misleading facts and statements, because one believes it justified if it sways sufficient numbers of the general public to vote your way, is counter-productive because the opposition immediately seize on and amplify any 'divine deception' one might have used to smear the whole scientific case by proxy as can clearly be seen in how the denialosphere reacts to the ever more soldifying scientific postion on climate change by endlessly recycling unwise statements and 'forecasts' from yesteryear of top scientists and activists.

A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’

Jim Hunt at 07:17 AM on 3 June, 2021

I'm sure that's the case Bob! Here's an advertisement for the most recent episode in my ongoing unsettling review of "Unsettled":

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/1399981361243561986

Note that in other news Ken Caldeira is running a poll on Twitter:

Is it OK to use the tactics of those undermining trust in climate science (ad hominem attack, saying money is the motivation, accusation of lying) to undermine those underminers, or should we hold ourselves to higher standards?

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

ubrew12 at 16:14 PM on 27 May, 2021

If you jump off a 10-story building, for 9 stories you can claim gravity is 'unsettled': where is the evidence for this invisible force? The problem, for climate science is it takes decades for the planet to respond to our climate forcer, during which the Koonin's can harvest their doubt. It may be useful to confront them with doubts of our own: what if they are wrong? An errant wind turbine can be disassembled, an errant excess of carbon dioxide... absent the much-hyped technologies of Science Fiction, something we could be paying for over many hundreds of years.

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Eclectic at 09:15 AM on 27 May, 2021

John Hartz @16 :

Thank you for the recommendation of the Mark Boslough article at Yale Climate Connections. It is a fairly short article, and well worth reading.

On the peripheral (and strawman) meme "The science is settled" ~ Boslough says the President Clinton quote was actually: "The science is clear and compelling: We humans are changing the global climate."

Also noteworthy is Boslough's final paragraph :-

'If a pilot isn't sure about having enough fuel to get you to your destination, if an astronomer isn't sure that an incoming asteroid will miss the Earth, if your doctor isn't sure if you have a terminal disease, if you are not sure you turned the stove off: In each of these cases, the uncertainty is unsettling. Why does Koonin think that unsettled questions in climate science are any kind of comfort when the consequences of doing nothing can be catastrophic? "Unsettled" should leave serious scientists feeling unsettled.'

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

John Hartz at 05:09 AM on 27 May, 2021

Also See:

A critical review of Steven Koonin’s ‘Unsettled’

‘Tilting at strawmen.’ Or ‘red flag.’ There are no finer shorthand descriptions of a controversial new book on climate science.

by Mark Boslough, Yale Cilimate Connections, May 25, 2021

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Jim Hunt at 00:39 AM on 27 May, 2021

Al @4 et al.

I am of course biased, but I like to think that Prof. Koonin "gets a bit of a kicking" here too:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/tag/steve-koonin/

Here's an extract from episode 6 of my ongoing review of "Unsettled":

Steven then rather ungraciously chose to ignore my follow up question:

"Regarding 'the topic somewhat distant from ordinary folks’ perception', that is largely my point. Is Arctic sea ice decline really any more distant to the average (wo)man in the street than sea level rise?"

Etc. etc. For 8 days and counting…

Since Steve is evidently unable and/or unwilling to respond to my enquiry perhaps somebody else might be willing to do so?

Meanwhile here’s news of a brand new paper documenting the evidently inexorable decline of the sea ice cover across the Arctic Ocean:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/month-in-review-arctic-science-edition/#Ricker

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

MA Rodger at 21:49 PM on 25 May, 2021

Eclectic @3,

The promotion of Koonin to premier-league climate-change dnier does give the opportunity to demolish another of these folk. He certainly gets a bit of a kicking here and here.

So what is his message?

This New York Post OP from Koonin appears to be saying that, while the science is sound, the problem is with the interpretation of the science. Yet while the exemplars he gives are probably flat wrong, they are not central to the AGW science so quite irrelevant in the full analysis. The only other thing he presents in this OP about his grand message is:-

"Humans exert a growing, but physically small, warming influence on the climate. The results from many different climate models disagree with, or even contradict, each other and many kinds of observations. In short, the science is insufficient to make useful predictions about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what effect our actions will have on it."

This he says he learned at the feet of Lindzen, Curry & Christie during the APS RedTeam-BkueTeam exercise Koonin chaired in 2013, an exercise that contains nothing of merit that I can see.

And as for climate models making useful predictions, they've done a pretty good job up to now.

So whay actually is Koonin bleeting about? Waht is his message? It would be good to see the actual message because so far all I hear is a blowhard!!

Dr. Ben Santer: Climate Denialism Has No Place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

nigelj at 17:56 PM on 25 May, 2021

Steven Koonin truth teller apparently. That had me in howls of laugher. From his wikipedia entry:

"Koonin's views on the status and conclusions of climate science have been authoritatively criticized. In an article in Slate, Raymond Pierrehumbert, the Halley Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, criticized Koonin's 2014 commentary in the Wall Street Journal, "Climate Science Is Not Settled,"[18] as "a litany of discredited arguments":

The nuggets of truth in Koonin’s essay are buried beneath a rubble of false or misleading claims from the standard climate skeptics’ canon. To pick a few examples:

He claims that the rate of sea level rise now is no greater than it was early in the 20th century, but this is a conclusion one could draw only through the most shameless cherry-picking...

He claims that the human imprint on climate is only "comparable" to natural variability, whereas multiple lines of research confirm that the climate signature of human-caused greenhouse gas increases has already risen well above the background noise level...

A large part of the natural greenhouse effect is due to substances (mainly water vapor, and consequent cloudiness) that are in the atmosphere only because carbon dioxide keeps the Earth warm enough to prevent them from condensing out...

He states that the effects of carbon dioxide will last "several centuries," whereas "several millennia" would be closer to the truth...

[He] doesn’t seem to appreciate that oceans cannot be a cause of long-term warming because almost all of the mass of the oceans is colder than the lower atmosphere.[19]"

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #19

Jim Hunt at 22:31 PM on 10 May, 2021

Nigel @8,

Whilst Steve's apparently undimmed "scepticism" may well have been firmly debunked in the past it seems that the task needs to be undertaken yet again.

The latest episode in the Wall Street Journal's "Unsettled Science" propaganda campaign includes a video interview with Prof. Koonin that includes references to those well known climate scientists Al Gore and Joe Biden, as well as the cover of his new book in the background:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/koonins-unsettled-science-the-movies/

So there you have it. Al Gore is a mere straw man, easily knocked down with a cherry pick without even bothering to mention any of the underlying science.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #19

Jim Hunt at 18:07 PM on 10 May, 2021

Al @6,

They don't brand Dr. Koonin "a nought but a vacuous blowhard", and it sounds as if they weren't sent a copy of his book for reveiw. However based on a review of the book in the Wall Street Journal the science content has been assessed as "very low" by Climate Feedback:

Scientists who reviewed the article found that it builds on a collection of misleading and false claims. For instance, Koonin states that “Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was eighty years ago”. Contrary to the claim, scientific studies using airborne and satellite altimetry observations show considerable thinning has occurred along the margin of the Greenland ice sheet since 2003. As explained below by Twila Moon, from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the Greenland ice sheet lost more mass during the 2003-2010 time period than during the entire time period from 1900 to 2003. Furthermore, this melting has generated a measurable sea level rise over the last 20 years.

Koonin also claims that “the rate of sea-level rise has not accelerated”. Contrary to the claim, scientific studies show that rates of global sea level rise have changed over time and accelerated, notably since the 1990s, primarily due to glacial ice melting and the expansion of seawater as it warms. As pointed out by Zeke Hausfather, Director of Climate and Energy at The Breakthrough Institute, sea levels are rising faster now than at any point since records began in the early 1900s

etc. etc.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #19

Bob Loblaw at 06:49 AM on 10 May, 2021

I have not read Koonin's book,. but I am aware of some that have. Seems to be the same old misinformation he usually peddles.

A recent post over at And Then There's Physics talks about it briefly with links to previous criticisms of his work.

https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2021/04/18/did-a-physicist-become-a-climate-truth-teller/

A couple of posts from an Arctic perspective:

https://greatwhitecon.info/2021/04/allegedly-unsettled-science-by-steven-koonin-et-al/

https://greatwhitecon.info/2021/05/steve-koonins-unsettled-arctic-science

...and general background on Steve Koonin

https://www.desmog.com/steve-koonin/

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #19

ubrew12 at 05:19 AM on 10 May, 2021

Tenth item from the top: "Dissecting ‘Unsettled,’ a Skeptical Physicist’s Book About Climate Science"

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

Jim Hunt at 02:11 AM on 8 May, 2021

Eclectic @28 - Having purchased my very own copy of Dr. Koonin's tome I have now personally, if rather hastily thus far, reviewed it:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/05/steve-koonins-unsettled-arctic-science/

We eagerly searched the virtual weighty tome for the term “Arctic sea ice”, and you may well be wondering what we discovered?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. ничего такого. Nic.

Evidently there are some areas of climate science that Dr. Koonin tells his eager readers nothing whatsoever about. It seems likely that he is also well aware that Arctic sea ice is the canary in the climate coal mine, which is why he has chosen to make no mention of it in his magnum opus.

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

Jim Hunt at 20:06 PM on 6 May, 2021

Thanks Bob and Eclectic!

Getting back towards the topic at hand, as far as I can tell the Guardian article is still the only one in the global MSM mentioning over 400 scientists that have moved out of "their lane" in order, one assumes, to raise awareness of what they refer to as "climate breakdown as an existential crisis for humanity".

Meanwhile WUWT is a mere sideshow to the main event. There are hundreds of articles in media outlets of all shapes and sizes favourably reviewing the latest magnum opus of one Steven E. Koonin, currently peddling his "Unsettled Science" snake oil to hordes of eager buyers.

Fortunately in all the circumstances the Great God Google seems to have noticed our antidote advertisement:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/04/allegedly-unsettled-science-by-steven-koonin-et-al/#May-06

Search results for Steven Koonin's "Unsettled Science" book

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

Jim Hunt at 19:58 PM on 1 May, 2021

Hi 1Planet,

See my recent announcement just above for some "Shock News!!".

I cannot help but agree with you that the "Propaganda Model of Communication" is going full steam ahead at the moment, in the run up to the G7 Summit and then COP 26 here in the once United Kingdom. By way of example please see:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2021/04/allegedly-unsettled-science-by-steven-koonin-et-al/

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

nigelj at 13:31 PM on 7 September, 2020

Gseattle @22, the link you post from principiascientific.com is part of a very politicised website. The link you post is also not convincing. Its full of basic misunderstandings so the maths ends up proving nothing.

I will try to explain this in my own words and keep it simplified. What actually happens is natural sources of CO2 largely exist in a balanced equilibrium with nature where emissions are absorbed by natural sinks, on decade to decade time framnes. For example the photosynthesis cycle. The paleo record shows all this, so its settled science. So CO2 stays largely constant in the atmosphere on decadal time scales.

Now sometimes things get out of balance if there is a sudden source of emissions and CO2 builds up in the atmosphere for example a truly huge volcanic eruption (these are uncommon) , or as part of the ice age cycle, so atmospheric CO2 increases on decades to centuries time scales. Again we know this from the paleo record. Eventually this reverses very long term as CO2 is absorbed by rock weathering processes, so you get balance again and no run away increase.

Over the last 100 years or so natural sources of CO2 have been in balanced equilibrium. There has been no build up in the atmosphere from natural sources. The build up in CO2 cannot be explained by natural causes. Volcanic and geothermal activity has been stable. The slowing AMOC is not causing the oceans to release CO2. We know this because the oceans are acidifying, so absorbing CO2 - the excess CO2 from burning fossil fuels being the obvious explanation. The reversal of the earths magnetic field started well before the 100 year increase in CO2 so cannot be responsible. There is no plausible causative mechanism anyway.

You dont even need any huge amount of science to figure these things out. Its just having a reasonable knowledge of the issues and some logical deduction. This is how I approach it.

The increase in CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 100 or so years is not from "natural causes". Multiple lines of evidenc point to all this. You have been given explanations by MAR and references to read on this websites myths column by eclectic, based on peer reviewed published reasearch, and you ignore these, and do not explain which elements you dispute, and instead post something by "eberry.com" which is not published research and author not identified. It suggests you just dont want to accept the possibility humans are causing the increase in CO2.

I think you need to ask yourself why you are doing all this. There is of course nothing wrong with healthy scepticism of scientific theories, but its silly to be sceptical when all the evidence points one way so convincingly, towards foosil fuels ebing the source of the CO2, and towards AGW, so the fact you continue to be sceptical suggests you either 1) simply do not understand or 2) are determined not to understand, perhaps being instead driven by some undeclared narrative whether political or conspiratorial or whatever.

Models are unreliable

Deplore_This at 01:25 AM on 4 July, 2020

@scaddenp

As I stated in my first post 1162 I am an anthropogenic climate change skeptic because I’ve read criticism of the validity of the climate temperature models referenced by the IPCC like those posted in 1193 and 1194. The corrupt media and the bureaucrats at the EPA say it’s settled science but I see no record of balanced climate research or any open debate. It appears that scientists who raise doubts of the validity are shunned and unfunded.

So my dilemma is how do I know what and who to believe. It is my nature not to blindly believe anything, especially what the government tells me. I thought a solution would be to take a university course in climate modelling so that I could hands on use and understand the development of GCMs and form my own opinion. If this was the 16th century and I’d probably get a telescope to test Galileo’s claim of heliocentrism. I am surprised to find that there aren’t such courses which leads to an even more startling revelation that the majority of the “97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming” have never been taught or used a GCM themselves and base their opinion on the opinion of others. To me that looks more like group think than science. And they call us climate skeptics “flat earthers”.

So my dilemma remains and I’m not sure what to do next. I may contact Penn State and see if course material is available from their last course on GCM. I’m not going down the paleological path because there are other issues there and because the IPCC’s opinion that is used for public policy is based on GCM predictions. I remain open to any suggestions. Thank you again for your help.

YouTube's Climate Denial Problem

sauerj at 12:24 PM on 5 April, 2020

dudo39 @4:
Much of the science (on water vapor net warming contribution & cloud cooling/warming net contribution) has been long largely hammered out and is settled science (in fact, everything about AGW is pretty much fully settle science). In order to get an inside track on the depth of the science, I would suggest you contact someone at NASA (you could "like" their FB page NASA Climte Change, and start to inquire with them on how to seek extremely indepth help on this or any climate subject).

I have seen posts on the NASA Climate Change FB page where NASA moderators provide posts that often contains massive lists of links to scores of reports. And, they seem to be able to do this on about any climate topic and at a drop of the hat. So, if you can garner someone's attention there, they should be able to supply you with tons of reports to more than satisfy your quest to know the truth on any part of climate science.

For starters, I'm sure you've already thoroughly read the SkS Intermediate article on water vapor (HERE). If not, then please read it carefully (it isn't too long) b/c it pretty much touches upon the points / questions that you have. Next, you could go to the much longer CSSR2017 report. It touches on water vapor and cloud influence quite a bit thru-out that long report (note that high clouds cause warming, and low clouds cause cooling ... not all clouds cause cooling).

Again, there will be realms of other science and reports on the subject of water vapor (and its net warming and positive feedback effect), and on clouds (and its net effect). Again, the above two articles are helpful, but best of all if somehow you could sit down with or talk to a scientist for just a few mins (or via email), then I am sure that they will quickly answer all of your questions. I would think someone at NASA might help, or else a good climate scientist or grad student at any university might be happy to help, especially if you had all of your questions lined up and sent to them in advance. They want the public to really understand the science, so any decent scientist should be more than happy to help you.

Hopefully, some of the more science repot savvy follks who read this blog will also help supply you here with even more reports to satisfy you on this water vapor subject. Maybe that person would also be kind enough to answer any other questions you have on a separate emails or two (as other questions of yours might get off topic).

Bottom-line: The totality of AGW science is extremely well settled at this date (in every which way). All you need to do is ask the right person, and you will get more stuff to read than you will ever have time to read to answer your questions in every possible way. It's all out there, it's just a matter, for the general public, to find a good source for getting help on getting answers explained answers both very well and very quickly. This SkS blog site is good, but there are also many, many others (such as NASA people). Just keep looking, the answers are all out there.

A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial

Daniel Bailey at 00:11 AM on 3 April, 2020

"I like to watch a lot of debates on both sides and it is complicated"

Actually, it's not very complicated at all. The scientific debate-train left the station, decades ago.

In the discussions around global warming and its anthropogenic causation, there are those who focus on the science using the scientific method and logic, seeking reproducible evidence that best explains what we can empirically measure.

Then there is everyone in the extreme minority, those who ignore the above in favor of slander, innuendo, unsupported assertion and character assassination in favor of promulgating false equivalence to support the ephemeral facade of "debate" and "sides".

But it is not about the science, the bulk of the science was settled, decades ago. Deniers posing as skeptics set up a charade tableau of false equivalence to poison the well of public acceptance of that science.

A parsimonious harping at the font of stolen, out-of-context and context-less emails proven not germane to the science is continuing on in the prosecution of the agenda of denial.

Truth, science and reputable journalism all sacrificed to the unholy alter of false equivalence under the guise of promulgating a fallacious "debate".

There is no debate. All that remains is the informed and the uninformed.

How deniers maintain the consensus gap

MA Rodger at 21:16 PM on 21 February, 2020

There is the argument that science doesn't have anything to do with 'consensus'. In one respect, this is surely correct.

A denialist version of this comes from Michael Crichton who was described by Joe Romm as "the world’s most famous global warming denier." Crichton's defines 'consensus science' in a broad denialist polemic of 2003 'Aliens Cause Global Warming ':-

"I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had."
...
"If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period."

Crichton goes on to set out how in science "the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of." So he is not denying the existence of 'consensus science'. Rather, he is actually saying is that 'consensus science' is synonimous with science being wrong, badly wrong, and this is because 'consensus science' is used to stiffle unwanted argument that turns out to be the 'correct' science. By implication Crichton is saying of AGW that it is also badly wrong and the scientific community is trying to stiffle the 'correct' science. (Note, the word 'legitimate' is probably better than 'correct' but Crichton doesn't make that point.)

To a certain level, Crichton was correct. The scientific community is trying to stiffle unwanted argument by invoking 'consensus science'.

Myself, I prefer the version of 'consensus science' defined by the idea that 'consensus' is reached when the 'science' stops. So the question becomes "Is there any actual science being carried out by the myrad of numpties who deny AGW?" We can ask "That 3% who are outside the AGW consensus: what 'science' are they actually doing?"
The argument set out by Crichton gave examples of 'consensus science' being wielded as a way of ignoring specific theories which proved to be correct - puerperal fever, pellagra, continental drift. "The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on." So, if AGW is another example of dreadful 'consensus science' as Crichton evidently implies, where are the specific theories wielded by AGW that we are ignoring? Where is this 'legitimate' science that prevents the existence of an AGW 'consensus'. I would be happy to consider the merit fo such work. And so would many others. But I don't see any specific theories wielded by the numpties who deny AGW! Their 'legitimate' science simply doesn't exist!!

And by my definition, until the numpties set out a specific theory, until there is 'legitimate' science which we can debate, we are left with nothing but AGW 'consensus'. And a climate emergency.

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Eclectic at 12:55 PM on 15 January, 2020

Doug_C @17 , the comment by TomJanson (as he rightly points out) was not simply referring to an isolated "bad year" of Australian wildfires in the end-1974 summer. There were many & extensive fires in other years of the 20th Century ~ yet they don't support the denialist case he is desperate to make.

But hilariously, TomJanson seems to have failed to take a careful look at a map of Australia. Perhaps he is too busy himself "fighting fires" on multiple SkS threads at once? ;-)

TomJanson @ 16 /18 , you seem to be basing your opinion on just reading a few headines (WUWT? Murdoch Press with its "183 arsonists" and suchlike flagrant disinformation?)

Yes, the state of NSW is one of the "eastern states" of Australia, and the 1974 summer wildfires did include a section of the well-settled Hunter Valley near the coast. But there were vast areas burnt to the west in NSW ~ which is typical inland terrain, being grasslands / arid lands / unpopulated regions (the "Outback").

The frequency of burning of large areas of "Outback" . . . provides an apples & oranges comparison with the currently famous fires in the populous south-east of Australia. And provides a "statistical camouflage" for desperadoes like Dr Spencer, who really don't wish to properly examine the issues. His is a fine exampe of Motivated Reasoning . . . as is all climate-science denialism.

And I did not say "these fires are completely different". But they are different enough, for it to be wise to learn a lesson from them. For irregular/"noisy" events like major wildfires (in Australia), we have to look at exacerbating factors & underlying causations (of which there are many).

Over the long term, one prominent new factor is Global Warming.

How much can we blame AGW for the extent & ferocity of the fires? At an educated guess, perhaps one-third of it can be blamed on climate change.

# The point is, with the ongoing warming over the next 30 years , it could well be that the AGW factor will grow to become two-thirds contributor to the extent & ferocity of wildfires in the "settled south-east of Australia". (Other regions of the world will have their own problems.)

But the modern wildfires of 2019 are becoming a wake-up call to the local population (and a warning to the rest of the world) . . . and as a consequence to that, the science-denialists are very desperate to propagandize against the obvious AGW connection.

The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

BillyJoe at 10:01 AM on 25 December, 2019

blub:

"The models are not robust at all between about 2000-2015"

Didn't you mean 1998-2012? In any case, you are cherry-picking. Why did you not comment on the entire record? Is it because the entire record shows that the models are indeed robust. At the very least, because of natural cycles, you have to look at a minimum 30 year intervals in order to see the signal from the noise. By picking 1998-2012, you are looking at the noise, not the signal, which is obvious if you look at the entire record.

"but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus"

No, there is no evidence for any recalibration at all between 1998 and 2012. If you disagree please show your evidence and your references.

"This is far from settled science"

When we say "settled science" we don't mean every detail is settled, only that certain details are settled. And "settled" means that "the vast majority of climate scientists agree that an assessemnt of all the evidence leads to this conclusion". As examples: CO2 is increasing, global tempertures are increasing, anthropogenic sources are almost entirely responsible for the increase in CO2, adverse overall climate consequences are already happening and will get worse especially if we go above 1.5 degrees C. This is all "settled science".

"only a handful of "real" climatologists..even understand climate modeling correctly".

There are not just a "handful" of "real" climatologists who understand climate modeling correctly, and those who do agree that the models are robust. As in every field there are contrarians, and those with fringe on climate science who disagree.

The rest of your comment consists, likewise, of cherry-picked links. This is not how science is done. All the papers and all the evidence must be taken into account. This is what the IPCC does and you should avail yourself of the conclusions contained in their reports or distilled by reputable science communicators.

The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

nigelj at 06:00 AM on 25 December, 2019

blub @1

"The models are not robust at all between about 2000-2015, but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus during this time. This is far from settled science, but only a handful of "real" climatologists not self proclaimed climate scientists even understand climate modeling correctly."

Adding a few things. Climate models can never be 100% robust over short time frames of about 15 years, because these timeframes are modulated by ocean variability, and this does not follow a completely regular cycle. For blubs information, you cant ever accurately predict something that is partly random. Climate models are intended to model long terms trends of 30 years and more, and do this well. Scientists are aware of natural variability and the very first IPCC reports stated there would be flat periods within a longer term warming trend. The slowdown after 1998 was such a flat period.

Blub claims models have been recalibrated, but provides no evidence of this.

Blubs claims about a handful of so called real climate scientists are totally unsubstantiated arm waving.

Regarding the rest of his screed on natural variability. Cherrypicking a couple of scientific papers does not demonstrate anything. Nothing is provided to show there has been wide acceptance of these specific papers, and they do not falsify any of the models.

Models do reproduce ocean cycles, although not perfectly. However models have proven to have good accuracy at predicting multiple trends including temperatures here and here. Clearly although ocean cycles are not perfectly understood, their affects are overwhelmed by CO2.

The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial

blub at 18:09 PM on 24 December, 2019

"All these arguments are false and there is a clear consensus among scientists about the causes of climate change. The climate models that predict global temperature rises have remained very similar over the last 30 years despite the huge increase in complexity, showing it is a robust outcome of the science."

The models are not robust at all between about 2000-2015, but have been recalibrated because of the heating hiatus during this time. This is far from settled science, but only a handful of "real" climatologists not self proclaimed climate scientists even understand climate modeling correctly.

The fast majority of scientists and I would assume public knows that is warming and CO2 has some influence, but it’s the warming cause is not understood entirely and therefore model predictions may be erroneous.
The following links took me 30min of researching:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00704-018-2387-7
Quantifying the importance of interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal climate natural variabilities in the modulation of global warming rates.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-019-04955-2?shared-article-renderer#ref-CR12

Author: Essentially, this work emphasizes the vital role of natural variability in changing the local linear trends which represent the warming rates of corresponding periods. Our results imply that to rightly attribute the climate change and accurately forecast future climate, more attention should be paid to various quasi-periodic natural variabilities, particularly ones at interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal scales. Of upmost importance, the key points to improve the simulation and prediction skills of climate models lie in correctly distinguishing the true anthropogenic warming from natural variability and accurately simulating the phase, period and amplitude of important natural variability, in which the phase is particularly important. Unfortunately, even the state-of-the-art CMIP5 models still confuse the natural climate variability and the anthropogenic warming trend and show low skills for natural variability simulations, which is the primary cause that they fail to simulate the recent global warming hiatus (Wei and Qiao 2017).

Models are not missing something or are they?:
Evidence that global evapotranspiration makes a substantial contribution to the global atmospheric temperature slowdown
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00704-018-2387-7

A greening world enhances the surface-air temperature difference
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969718350733?via%3Dihub

CO2 was higher in the past

nyood at 05:33 AM on 2 November, 2019

According to this recent study we have a way more accurate view on this issue now:

Schwark2019

In the Hirnation Event Summary:

"Massive perturbations of the atmospheric and hydrosphericcarbon cycle occurred with CO2concentration varying between 8-16 x PAL and near PAL over short periods of time." PAL means Present Atmospheric Level.

This is quite remarkable, it tells us that a glaciation is capable to absorb even CO2 ammounts of 6000ppm. It does not matter how high CO2 Levels are, a glaciation will happen when the following event occurs:

Sufficent Landmasses within the Polar Circles (LPC).

Going through all time periods, we can show how decisive landmasses at the polar circles are. Note that the polar circles represent a very narrow area at the north and south borders on these pictures. Greenland todayis a good example as it forms the only northern ice shield, mainly being within the arctic circle, while edging Canada and Russia are not inland iced.

Cambrian warm period, Landmasses in the Polar Circles (LPC): 0%-10%

Cambrian

Ordovician hirnantion glacial event antarctic LPC 100%:

HirnantionEvent

Silurian cold LPC antarctica 90%:

Silur

Devonian warming LPC 10% - 40% :

Devon

Carboniferus glaciation, Continents drop back to the south pole antarctic LPC: 90%-100%

Karbon

Permian Cold with late permian transition towards mesozoic Pangea arctic LPC 80% - 100%:

Perm

Triassic warming, antarctic PLC 10%-20%, arctic PLC 70% to 90%. only Southern PLC decisive? Arctic inland ice forming reversed with the jurassic? Triassic north pole contradicton.

Trias

Jurassic, Landmasses moved away from the arctic cycle. arctic LPC 10%-20%. antarctic LPC 5%-10%.

Jura

Cretateous, sea level rise noticeable, deglaciation at its maximum, transition to upcoming glacial period, Antarctica moving south. Antarctic LPC 80%-100%:

Kreide

Today, Cenozoic glacial period Antarctica resting at the pole once again. Greenland LPC 10% -20%, Antarctica 90%-100% LPC.

With an Ockham attempt i want to make 3 main arguments on why CO2 is not needed and not likely to play any thermal role at all:

1.Faint Sun Paradox,Snowball Earth and the Hot House Equilibrium.

The faint sun paradox is not a paradox. It is another evidence of how strong the terrestial force Ice Albedo is and therefore again the continental distribution.

Even with a 25% lesser sun, Oceans occur,hence the term "paradox".While precambrian snowball effects due to a supercontinent at the south pole, demonstrate the lesser sun effect.

The so called paradox underlines the trumendos forcings of Albedo and it describes the fundamental drive towards a hot house equilibrium whenever the poles are uncovered by land.

This Basic heating Trend that is strong enough to even compensate the faint sun paradox puts CO2 further away from having any thermal influence. This basic heat trend is documented by all the terminations of glacial epoches and even more so in the precambrian, with a barrier where no more heating seems possible.

So we keep in mind that we have a Glacial period during the ordovician to the early silurian, with Co2 levels around up to 6000ppm.

2. Carboniferous CO2 Levels

The carboniferous marks the point where the flora takes an increased influence on CO2 levels.

T°Co2overview

The late devonian till the middle carboniferus show how CO2 is absorbed while temperatur takes ~90 mio years to "follow".The reason temperature goes down is as usual, the continental drift towards the south pole.

What we eventualy see is a double decline in CO2.

The jurassic-cretaceous meeting of CO2 and temperature speaks for itself.

3. Today,GISS and an estimated CO2 sensitivity of 1,5°C

The uncertenty itself on the CO2 sensitivity after 30 years of research tells us per se that the science is not settled. IPCC on a global warming of <ahref=https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-1/>1,5°C

"Past emissions alone are unlikely to raise global-mean temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (medium confidence)"

"1.5°C emission pathways are defined as those that, given current knowledge of the climate response, provide a one- in-two to two-in-three chance of warming either remaining below 1.5°C

or returning to 1.5°C by around 2100 following an overshoot."

GISS actualy does show us a trend towards 1°-1,5°C ~2100 a.d. It is the natural interglacial trend. There is no evidence that our warming period is unique in its rate of warming compared to past medieval epoches

or to the past 11 Interglacials in our ice cores

The lowest model called the "russian model"

What is with Planck and Bolltzmann? my guess is Lüdeckepage19
and others are right, the saturation is already reached at PAL with 1°C

Since the Ordovian showed how much CO2 can be absorb in the oceans, acifidication of the ocean due to human emissions might be the bigger threat. Even though most of the CO2 was embeded in limestone, hence the CO2 "starvation".

Climate's changed before

TVC15 at 12:56 PM on 28 October, 2019

Here's some more climate change denier blather I came across today.

When you are using a complicated explanation to detail why something is happening, or is believed to be happening, you have almost certainly overlooked a much simpler reason for it.

In the case of CO2, we already know from the fossil record that levels have been much higher in the past and also lower.

During periods of low atmospheric CO2 levels, surface temperatures have been significantly higher.

Likewise, during periods of very high CO2, temperatures were cooler than we are experiencing today.

In fact, the only consistent relationship between CO2 and surface temperature seems to be the slight increase that follows a warming period as the oceans release stored CO2.

So, when doubling the atmospheric CO2 level results in a claimed surface temperature change that is essentially imperceptible to the senses, the question becomes, how do we know the temperature has actually increased.

Assuming an increase in surface temperature can be verified (good luck with that), the next question is, is it really caused by elevated CO2 levels and to what degree?

What other factors are in play and, most importantly, what other factors cannot be measured and their influence accounted for?

On the issue of cloud cover, NASA essentially punts.

They admit that past cloud cover was never measured in any meaningful way and that measuring cloud cover, even with the technology available today, is more or less a scientific fool's errant.

Of course, the problem is that we can't account for the effect of CO2 unless we also account for the effect of cloud cover, then and now.

I could go into refrigerants in the stratosphere, the albedo effect, rain and humidity and other factors that are clearly ignored by the settled science crowd, but why bother.

CAGW is a religion dressed up as a pseudo science trying to pass itself off as legitimate science.

The reason questions that ought to be asked are not asked is because we would have to admit that the data is insufficient, unavailable and probably unknowable.

There are so much illogical claims here I don't know where to start!

Climate's changed before

TVC15 at 08:37 AM on 26 September, 2019

Thank you both so very much!

I shared the information that you both offered and a snarky denier came back as spouted off this at me.

Nothing is unprecedented. Try science.The science is settled:

Palaeo data suggest that Greenland must have been largely ice free during Marine Isotope Stage 11 (MIS-11). The globally averaged MIS-11 sea level is estimated to have reached between 6–13 m above that of today.

[emphasis mine]

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms16008

“Even though the warm Eemian period was a period when the oceans were four to eight meters higher than today, the ice sheet in northwest Greenland was only a few hundred meters lower than the current level, which indicates that the contribution from the Greenland ice sheet was less than half the total sea-level rise during that period,” says Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, and leader of the NEEM-project.

[emphasis mine]

https://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/news/n...e-of-the-past/

The sea levels are going to rise and you can't stop it, so stop pretending you can.

What the heck can I make of this denier's snarky reponse?

The consensus on consensus messaging

nigelj at 17:40 PM on 7 August, 2019

The fact that research shows that communicating consensus studies to the public has a positive effect should come as no surprise. Just look at the deniers tactics, and they have years of experience delaying action on tobacco etc, so they know what works without needing research on the matter:

"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming with the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate, and defer to scientists and other experts in the field.” (Frank Luntz)

watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/cascading-doubt-shaping-the-publics-perception-of-science/

Climate's changed before

Daniel Bailey at 09:15 AM on 31 July, 2019

"Thank you, scaddenp, Daniel Bailey and MA Rodger!"

For my small contributions, you are most welcome.

"i have looked at a lot of evidence from both sides of the argument"

If only there were actual sides. Because that would imply that both "sides" were roughly equal.

Then there is everyone in the extremely small but vocal minority, those who ignore the above in favor of slander, innuendo, unsupported assertion and character assassination in favor of promulgating false equivalence to support the ephemeral facade of "debate" and "sides".

A parsimonious harping at the font of stolen, out-of-context and context-less emails proven not germane to the science is continuing on in the prosecution of the agenda of denial.

Truth, science and reputable journalism all sacrificed to the unholy alter of false equivalence under the guise of promulgating a fallacious "debate".

There is no debate. All that remains is the informed and the uninformed.

Those professing the false equivalence of "both sides" are the journalist in this story.

Moral, dear readers: Don't be that journalist.

The discussion surrounding the science of climate change and its human-causation are a Möbius strip comprised of 170 years of evidence from hundreds of thousands of scientists from virtually every country on the planet. Meaning that from an evidence perspective, only one side exists, because only one side uses evidence.

Even the petroleum extraction companies researched the subject themselves and affirm the unassailable facts, physics and evidence of AGW.

Per the oil companies, which admitted it in court, under oath:

"The issue is not over science. All parties agree that fossil fuels have led to global warming and ocean rise and will continue to do so, and that eventually the navigable waters of the United States will intrude upon Oakland and San Francisco. "

The People of the State of California vs BP PLC et al (page 6, line 6).

Climate's changed before

TVC15 at 09:12 AM on 30 July, 2019

Thank you, scaddenp, Daniel Bailey and MA Rodger!

I'm with scaddeep's statement: "If someone isnt prepared to let data inform their opinion, then it isnt worth arguing".

I realize how utterly useless my efforts are in trying to help the "deniers" understand the science that supports human caused climate change.

I have learned so much from you all when I post the denier claims. I thoroughly appreciate the responses as you provide me with insights that I would not have been able to discover myself.

However I've grown tired of dealing with the deniers. If they can't understand what they are seeing all over the globe right now as I type this there is no amount of science that will open up their minds.

Here is just another sample of the type of denier minds out there.

i have looked at a lot of evidence from both sides of the argument, and i dont need someone to tell me what my conclusions should be. and there is PLENTY of geological evidence that this round of warming is nothing more than a natural event, one that had been going on for the last 2 million years, ever since the north and south american continents collided. 100,000 years ago the arctic was ice free. and as has been noted many times by many people in many ways, here are a few truths you need to take into account;

1: we are out of the last period of glaciation by only 15,000 years roughly
2: the AGW crowd is complaining about an increase of 1 degree C over 150 years, but there is geological evidence that 15,000 years ago the temperature went up by something more like 10-15 degrees C in TEN years.(i didnt know there are that many SUVs back then, who knew?)
3: we are still ten degrees COOLER than at this same time during the last intergalciation period, and the one before that, and the one before that for the last 2 million years. and its funny how the AGW crowd FAILS to take into account previous interglaciation periods, and what was NATURAL warming.

and if you think that i am just being crazy, then why is the IPCC scientists solution always more regulations and more taxes and redistributing the wealth of the developed nations to those nations that are still developing? and why is it that all the so called climate change protocols penalize the developed nations, mostly western europe and the US, and ignore the rest of the world? why is china given a pass, along with india? two of the highest CO2 emitters in the world?

if the AGW message was more consistent, and required ALL countries to stick to the climate change protocols, then perhaps their message might be more acceptable, and more people might actually listen to them.
in the end these protocols are nothing more than a way for the UN to control the worlds population, and to work to usher in one world government with the UN running things, and no national sovereignty of any kind.

now you claim i am a science denier, but that isnt the truth here. i suppose you also consider the science settled, and that is NEVER the case. the science is NEVER settled, except in the case of the closed minded, non scientific lemmings.

I see no point in spinning my wheels on a mind such this.

Planetary health and '12 years' to act

Daniel Bailey at 02:55 AM on 24 June, 2019

"ice core samples from Greenland show that over the last 10,000 years, the earth has been on average 3 degrees celcius warmer than today"

Global temperature reconstructions show this to be untrue.

Last 20,000 years

"how can anyone conclude this current round of warming is entirely manmade?"

Because actual scientists, using the well-understood physics of our world, have established that it is only when the anthropogenic forcing is included that the observed warming can be explained.

Natural vs Anthropogenic Climate Forcings, per the NCA4, Volume 2:

Forcings, NCA4

Fun Factoid: Changes in the sun's output falling on the Earth are about 0.05 Watts/meter squared.

By comparison, human activities warm the Earth by about 2.83 Watts/meter squared (AR5, WG1, Chapter 8, section 8.3.2, p. 676).

What this means is that the warming driven by the GHGs coming from the human burning of fossil fuels since 1750 is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval.

Radiative forcing 1750-2011

"What also troubles me is the fact that the Medieval Warm Period was written out of the history books by the IPCC hockey stick graph. As well the impact of the 500 year period of cooling known as the Little Ice Age"

Another meme. Here's the "Hockey Stick For The Most Recent 1,700 Years", from the Trump Administration in 2017:

Last 1,700 years

"the Earth was a lot warmer when the Vikings settled Greenland and Iceland"

Alreay refuted, but here's global temperatures with the period of the Viking occupation of Greenland highlighted:

Viking temps

And here's the temperatures from the GISP2 core from Greenland, with the instrumental temperature measurements taken from that same location added in for context:

Greenland last 10,000 years to 2017

"the Earth was a few degrees warmer during the Medieval Warm Period than it is today, then the polar ice cap was smaller and thinner than even now"

Your temperature claims were already refuted, but we have observational data to 1850 and proxy data going back millennia documenting Arctic sea ice extent changes over time.

For example, here's the last 1,500 years, from NOAA's Arctic Report card 2017:

Last 1,500 years in the Arctic

You'll need to raise your game to compete in this venue. In this venue, the onus is on YOU to be able to support your claims (each claim) with source citations, preferably to credible sources. Further, many of your claims are already refuted on separate posts here (thousands exist, use the Search function to find the most appropriate post to make your claims and to stake your reputation on).

I'm sure that the moderation staff would prefer to not intervene here, but I'm equally sure that they will if you continue to post what is essentially a Gish Gallop of memes refuted many times before (PRATT).

Read the Comments Policy and construct your comments to comply with it and my advice to you and all will be fine.

CO2 lags temperature

scaddenp at 07:41 AM on 17 May, 2019

A quick look at the paleoclimate archives shows CO2 data for GRIP and GISP2 though the records are nowhere near as long as those in Antarctica. I am not really sure that I understand the question about the end of the ice-age. The Milankovich forcings that control the broad timing ice ages are not synchronous between hemisphere. Furthermore the events mentioned are regional discursions thought to be driven by combinations of icesheet melting dynamics and oceanic processes. The processes are local not global. That said, the causes of D-O and Heinrich events is not settled science.

There is no consensus

Eclectic at 12:33 PM on 4 May, 2019

Philippe Chantreau is quite correct that the question of the Consensus has become trivial and largely irrelevant. The science (of AGW) is settled enough for practical purposes [the practical purposes being the political policies for dealing with the climate situation]. And the "numerical consensus" is well over 99% and climbing ever closer to 100%.

Nevertheless, this thread here stays open for those who wish to split hairs about what are nowadays irrelevant trivialities. ;-)

Pl , you are correct in stating that AGW is "a thing" in the sense of a reality. But the "A Thing" phrase is so widely applied to all sorts of abstract concepts & ephemeral fashions, that it becomes quite ambiguous and unhelpful in our discussion here.

The surveys assessing the state of the (climate) science show that the (scientific) consensus, as measured by the published scientific papers in recent years, is in effect 100%. Over the years, there's been a tiny (and reducing) number of "contrarian" papers ~ and these papers have been mutually contradictory in their expressed concepts, and have utterly failed to present any valid evidence to support themselves.

In the far looser terminology of the Consensus in the form of an opinion poll of scientists . . . surely the only worthwhile poll can be made of scientists who are well-informed on climate science and who have definite expertise in this field.

Even rather old studies [such as the Cook 2013 study] show that the greater the climate expertise of the scientists, the closer to 100% is their "consensus of opinion".

And surely the whole concept of numerical consensus loses any useful meaning if the assessments include more and more of the ill-informed and the deliberately ignorant. Surely there can be no real value in a consensus that includes the opinions of blowpipe-toting hunters in the upper Orinoco River or iPhone-toting hipsters in the upper Missouri River.

Pl , the "non-binary" question you mention, is one that has been much discussed in years past. This, and your "original points", are all examples of imprecision of expression; and I must yet again beg you to clarify what you are driving at.

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

MA Rodger at 20:25 PM on 24 January, 2019

bArt @334,

While I agree with the comments @335&336, I would say that the meaning of much of what you write is not at all clear. So let me present what I interpret you as saying along with my own understanding of its context.

You accept the world is warming and are open to "new findings and information" (4), but this is an exceedingly low base from which to establish the reality of AGW.

You don't give a hoot about humanity (1) or other biological life (3) as long as you are not too hot and have oxygen to breath. Interestingly Arrhenius thought that a little more heat would be good for the world, he living in Sweden which is a tad cold come the winter. There was even discussion of setting fire to coal mines so AGW could be created without having to mine the stuff before you burn it. If Arrhenius had lived in the tropics (as do 40% of humanity) or a less Euro-centric world, he would surely have thought differently.

Your need for volcanoes (3) remains a mystery.

The failure of science to nail down ECS more exactly cannot really be seen as a reason to ignore the serious nature of AGW. Identifying the upper limits of ECS is always going to be difficult as a high ECS is only different from a medium ECS after 100 years or so. The work of folk trying their hardest to demonstrate tiny values for ECS (or TCR) and thus to diminish AGW, such work doesn't really hold water outside the narrow constructs they set it out within. So yes, in a narrow sense "the science is actually not yet settled" but the bit of science you rest your faith in (2) is narrower than narrow and those wholly engaged in that sliver of science are simply refusing to leave the last-chance-saloon at closing time.

The relevance of your final sentence in (2) is not evident.

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

bArt at 13:16 PM on 24 January, 2019

The reason I choose to remain an AGW skeptic at this time is because a series of unscientific but still logical and true facts bring me there by deduction (which is all that readings and models happen to do also).

1. Some warming is preferable to some cooling (humans are warm blooded and do not do well without insulation against the cold (0 deg.C). When I physically begin to feel uncomfortable from the relentless heat, I may then prefer a cooling trend.

2. Positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation can cancel one another out and complicate matters. The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research and therefore the science is actually not yet settled. Both oceans and atmosphere are fluid, dynamic and vast and average measurements can only indicate trends.

3. As long as terrestrial and deep ocean volcanoes exist, and as long as I do not have difficulty breathing (O2 supply) then I am not going to worry about how much "heat" biological life (see above) contributes to global warming.

4. I remain open to new findings and information and accept that a GW trend is currently occurring.

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #2

Oriondestiny at 12:15 PM on 14 January, 2019

Occaisional hurricanes along the gulf coast and up the easter US seaboard is a normal event that has alway been happening. That is just proof the climate has not changed or not enough to change this fact.

Also nice picture of "steam" rising into the air above a power plant.

As for my neck of the woods, it is still the same old spring, summer, fall and winter with the same unpredictable weather as always. Tornados, flooded rivers, 14 inch snow storms is nothing new and has neither gotten worse nor better. Just in the last 6 years, I've seen warm, cold and average winters. Nothing has changed out of any norm.

I'm not saying earths average temperature does not waiver up and down over the millenia because it does. As for causation, the 'real' science is not settled.

Of all the years I've been reading this 'stuff', I've yet to see any solid proof of CO2 or man causing any of the very, very small amounts of warming or cooling.

I hate to burst your bubble but CO2 is not a heat trapping gas. If you put CO2 in between your house window panes unlike argon or krypon gas, your heating bills will go up because it is a worse insulator than regular air. They use CO2 as refrigeratns because its properties to quickly obsorb and release heat unlike reguar air.

Although the mass of CO2 is greater than O2, the small rising amount is negligible. 4 molecules per 10,000 is too small to have any affect.

The problem for me isn't I can't see the graph date showing some small recent rise. It is the causation of the rise that I am skepical with. There is no proof. Climate scientists are no different than religous people who come at you with the predetermined idea that god exists and everything they do and say are predicated to the existance of their god.

Climate scientists have done the same. They come at me with this predicated idea that man and CO2 is the cause and foundation of their argument but with no proof. They throw graphs in my face without evidence of causation. If 97 of 100 people say god exists does not make said god real. It is the same with climate change. 97 of 100 scientist say CO2 and man is causing the earths temperature to rise does not make said accusations true. Consensus is not proof nor is it scientific. It is scientific in the way that it is easier for men to believe in what cannot be seen than what is in front of their faces every time they walk outside and see that nothing has changed.

I'm not sorry for being what you call a skeptic.

Sea level is not rising

bArt at 18:14 PM on 12 January, 2019

Hi,

Having grown up metres from a beach in the South Island of New Zealand, I would like to offer my observations, thoughts and a question. I personally have not observed any sea-level rises over 50 years (I'm a 63 year old) and have this link to an article on New Zealand's most read news website who btw recently published their policy that the science around climate change is "settled". <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/109478710/media-council-finds-no-grounds-to-proceed-for-climate-change-complaint">News website to publish only climate change friendly opinions and not skeptical viewpoints</a>

Below is a link to an article on where New Zealand's coastline is rising or falling.

<a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/86784810/where-nz-rises-and-falls--and-how-it-complicates-the-rise-of-sea-levels"> Is it the land that rises and falls, not the sea?</a>

I find it difficult to imagine that any amount of erosion is causing a displacement effect mainly because the sea covers four fifths of the earths surface and the deepest point in the ocean is 10.9 kilometers while the highesthe point Mount Everest, is 8.9 km high.

I would like to be convinced that sea levels are indeed rising (as I have been convinced about increasing levels of residual CO2, explained clearly elsewhere on this site). Is anyone willing to try? Thank-you.

CO2 effect is saturated

LTO at 15:47 PM on 11 January, 2019

Thanks all. Continues to be really informative, and I think I now have a good handle on the different possible ways in which increasing co2 could increase troposphere temperatures. What isn't so clear is how significant those effects are at marginal increases from 400 ppmv, but to br honest I could probsbly spend the next 6 months studying the topic in detail and not be that much more certain given the myriad complexities.

MA: The Zhong and Haigh paper is really interesting, but I'm not quote following figures 5a and b, top row, which seem to show minimal change in radiative flux (when averaged across the spectrum) even up to 32x co2. I'm not convinced they have taken into account all those phenomena when working out thr logarithmic relationship - they say

"our calculations assume no change in the surface or atmosphere, do not consider the climate response to the RF, or any issues related to climate sensitivity"

But perhaps there's something intrinsic to the models that goes without saying. My point was more that it be *more* of a factor going forward, as the proportion of time when thr altitude of emission is in a scenario where increasing altitude does not mean decreasing temperatures is presumably increasing with increasing co2.

Given the point has been made to me repeatedly that the science is apparently so settled no one's even really looking at it anymore, i thought it might be useful to go back and look at past predictions to see how they measure up against present day. This might not be the right page to discuss such matters, but I came across this analysis of a Hansen 1988 paper, in which apparently actual temperatures are matching up in line with his 'zero co2 increase after 2000' scenario https://realclimatescience.com/2019/01/temperatures-following-hansens-zero-emissions-scenario/ Thoughts?

We're heading into cooling

Tom_S at 06:00 AM on 6 January, 2019

I'm new to this site. After a quick read I have two initial observations:

(a) Evidentally only Climate Scientists are "real" scientists so input from other closely related fields of science e.g. meteorology, astronomy etc. can cheerfully be discounted or ignored

(b) I see several exhorations such as "Then prove it: do the analysis, write it up, publish it." but have to ask - since the Science is Settled, why bother?

Tom S.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #44

JayCharles at 13:13 PM on 8 November, 2018

Well, Well! It seems that the SkS "myth" titled Temp record is unreliable is really not a myth at all according to the third paragraph which states:

In the scientific realm, the new findings help resolve long-running doubts about the rate of the warming of the oceans before 2007, when reliable measurements from devices called “Argo floats” were put to use worldwide. Before that, differing types of temperature records — and an overall lack of them — contributed to murkiness about how quickly the oceans were heating up.

So despite the fact since the 1980s, the AGW community has preached the importance of heeding the "experts" with their "overwhelming evidence" and 97% consensus about human-caused global warming, reliable temperature measurements did not exist before the year 2007. This is by their own statements and not those of the contrarions. Therefore, the science concerning climate change is not settled and it would be grossly unethical to impose more taxes and regulations on the citizens of any nation under the pretense of saving the planet from AGW. This is especially true considering the fact that despite all of this global warming, people in the northeastern and midwestern US have seen record low temperatures for the past three or four winters. They simply cannot afford another tax on top of their already high heating bills.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #29

scaddenp at 08:28 AM on 26 July, 2018

Not a high profile science bod, but I will attempt.

1/ Caution is required. Climate change obviously make heatwaves hotter, but proximal cause of actual heatwave is in the behaviour of jet streams. There is evidence to link climate change to this (see here and here) but it would be a brave person to call this settled science. Trying to explain how the media behaves though it well outside the scope of this site.

2/ Hmm. I dont see any evidence for this. Peak temperature is usually 3pm and a quick perusal of UK weather data doesnt suggest any obvious change in that. Do you have an analysis to back this up?

3/ Seems unlikely to me. The 2016 requests in Germany for stockpiling (not just food and water) were issued by CD during spate of attacks. Guessing reasons for government behaviour can be as difficult as for media. Not an area where any physical science has much to contribute.

The latest weak attacks on EVs and solar panels

michael sweet at 08:54 AM on 6 June, 2018

Nigelj,

In fact the materials needed for a renewable energy world have been assessed. Jacobson et al 2011 discusses this topic.

Jacobson found that all materials needed exist in sufficient quantity except for the rare earth metals needed for the magnets in wind turbines. Since that time the builders of wind turbines have changed their designs to use less rare earth metals so that is no longer an issue. I have not seen a peer reviewed challenge to Jacobson's conclusion since then. In my experience this issue is no longer discussed so I presume that the matter is considered settled. Occasionally you see someone claim that materials are limited in a public discussion like Schellenburger's essay which is not peer reviewed. That just shows that they are not informed on the facts.

As I said, I have never seen a response to Abbotts clain that materials are severely limited for nuclear energy. Since his claim has not been challenged I presume it is correct. In any case, many more rare elements are used in a nuclear plant than in renewable installations.

The bottom line for me is that nuclear is not economic.

I am getting old and ever since I was a child nuclear engineers have promised that cheap, safe power was just around the corner. I no longer believe their claims. The reactors at Fukushima were placed in areas where a prudent engineer would have known that they were unsafe because of tsunamis.

On climate change, zero-sum thinking doesn't work

nigelj at 10:02 AM on 6 April, 2018

Dan_the_Engineering_Man @15

"Secondly, there are maybe trace elements of CO2 in higher elevations, but not enough to support Photosynthesis"

No, concentrations of CO2 are high even at altitudes of many kilometres in research here, here, and here. This has been measured many times using various instruments, and is settled science.

Trees don't grow above the tree line because of low tempertures, levels of moisture and shading effects here.

Eclectic, ha ha message received and understood.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #12

Siva at 23:20 PM on 26 March, 2018

Why does this article sound like it is screaming with adjective?

mans sounds very insecure. Any article that speaks about carbon capture and carbon reduction should always mention “net” gain or loss in co2 or ghg for that process. All AGW articles are repeating the same in every article, repeating same adjective. So why not repeat same solutions and effects?

Why AGW articles does not talk about “cost”? Like cost capture and store carbon. Who is going to bear the cost of developing such techs and runnning such facilities? The commmon people? Ok now I understand why the adjectives and the scare and daRe. The word “denier” should not be used and should be banned. AGW is an opinion and not a fact. You can call it “expert opinion” but scientists are not god (well for that matter I am athiest) same applies to doctors , we have seen written offs by doctors living. Science is not absolute and not settled. Science is growing and challenging assumptions every day.

When einstein started to think about gravity did he say “newton settled this issue? It is just like belief in god.

Whenever i read articles like above it only rreminds me of the telemarketing ads “act now...call us in the next 10 minutes and you will get two..,”

people should realize that between the scientists and the people there are two more layers, they are the funders and the media, both have vested interest in what the scientist says And will exaggerate or change it. Media’s only interest is in selling itself through sensationalism. Funders wants material for policy making and public support.

Why AGW does not talk about the jobs of so many illiterate or undereducated people in the world? why AGW does not talk about ware management (I mean every article)

suspicions are only growing day by day. The more you call them “deniers” the more you will be suspected of moral crucifixtion , word play, “term shifters”, dishonest people.

hope you are not going drown today.

Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist

Atc at 09:59 AM on 15 March, 2018

Magellan @90 and Tom Curtis

We often see scientists from non-climate fields who believe they have sufficient expertise to understand climate science despite having done minimal research on the subject; William Happer, Fritz Vahrenholt, and Bob Carter, for example.

What bothered me the most isn’t that they are from other fields or did minimal research; that could be a plus for having a different perspective. What bothered me the most is that nobody actually doing the research was able to convince nobel laureates on this topic of global warming. These guys are not idiots. It seems that with some good convincing presentations you should be able to get them all to fall in line. If you are not able to explain or convince another scientist and a Nobel laureate, it raises very very serious concerns that climate scientists don’t really have any substantive evidence. Why would any trained scientist remain unconvinced if you present him with the data and a good argument?

For instance, if he questions how you can even get an average temperature, the correct response should be. Here is how the scientists did it. Here are the considerations. How we took the averages. Here are the questions and discussions. Here are the criticisms of this method. Here is what we finally settled on. This is the correlation and this is the causation. Remember he is a physicist. He is used to just doing an experiment to verify his theories. Climate scientists don’t have that luxury. They have to use some other method. They are in the same league as Darwin. And you know how evolution debate went. Almost parallel climate science. A consensus of Darwinian evolution. Finally giving way to accepting a minority view. My own understanding of evolution is now. Yes. There is evolution (not the current definition, undefined for me). No. It is not Darwinian. It is not random. Likewise, a concensus of catastrophic man-made global warming. Giving way to a minority view. My own understanding of global warming is: Yes. There is global warming (as partially due to natural variabilit). No. It is not catastrophic. It is only partially man-made. Probably not significant. Pollution is probably more of a pressing problem.

I am not a scientist. I have come to my own conclusions by watching the various discussions on the internet. My belief is that from a starting point of zero knowledge on any scientific topic and using the scientific method you should be able to get to the truth logically. I also believe that if a scientist is unable to convince me logically by means of the scientific method, I remain unconvinced. No need of any consensus.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #5

One Planet Only Forever at 03:55 AM on 9 February, 2018

nigelj@20,

I would caution against dismissing Unite the Right as 'outer fringe'.

The greedy deniers of climate science, the ones trying to get away with maximizing their personal benefit from the burning of fossil fuels, are almost certain to be major players in the promotion and funding of Unite the Right movements.

Those greedy people (deniers of climate science and fighters for freedom from restrictions on their ability to behave understandably unacceptably in their pursuit of personally Winning More) can be seen to be uniting with other people who also have Private Interests that are contrary to changes that would advance humanity to a sustainable better future for everyone (like the fundamentalist tribal religious people claiming to be Christian, Muslim, Hindi, or Jewish as they fight to harm 'All Others' in defence of 'Their US', or the more extreme tibalists who try to claim the right to make their nation a nation controlled by 'males of their skin colour' for the benefit of people of 'their skin colour').

In Canada, that collective of United people claiming to be Right recently won the national leadership for a decade by getting the legal right to call their party Conservative. And they did massive damage to Canada's actions to reduce GHG production, because their funding came largely from the exporters of fossil fuel). Until they won that Naming right, they were indeed a national minority interest. However, even without that name they had the ability to drum up anger that motivated their kind of people to vote.

In Alberta, the United Right has just been formed and will likely win the next Provincial Election, calling themselves the United Conservative Party (being the only Party with the term Conservative in their name is a key). And their main platform points are eliminating the carbon tax that has been implemented in Alberta, along with secretive or carefully phrased indications that they are the party that religious fundamentalists should vote for (they fight against changes that would make LBGTQ people a more accepted and protected part of society - but are careful because they know some Conservative thinking people support LBGTQ changes and they want as many of those votes as possible - getting people angry about GHG restrictions can be interfered with if the pursuits of votes for people who dislike the idea of LBGTQ acceptance become too apparent. Like Trump claiming to be the least racist person on the planet, the United Conservative Party claims to like Gay people while its policy actions contradict that claim).

Even when they are a less significant aspect of a society, Unite the Right can be seen to be a major cause of damage to attempts to advance humanity to a better future. A Unite the Right type of groups produced the narrow 'Brexit Win'. And they are the group in the USA that produced President Trump and all the actions to undo the Good GHG actions that had developed in the USA, including a having a President that claims the science is far from settled and therefore should not be acted upon to the detriment of clearly incorrectly over-developed perceptions of prosperity and opportunity. And their 'Tea Party', particularly the 'House Freedom Caucus' part of it, are small but very influential parts of the USA government that vote united against the other Conservatives to get the other Conservatives to shift their actions towards the Unite the Right desires if they want to get a passing vote on any actions (significant power even when Obama was the President).

So, Beware the ones claiming to be 'Uniting the Right'. They are not to be dismissed as a marginally popular 'fringe'. They can and do Win to the detriment of the future of humanity.

It really upsets me to hear people claim that leadership like the current leadership of the USA will not cause 'that much harm'. The starting point of such a statement is the admitted understanding that the leadership is harmful. That should be the end of any attempt to 'excuse it or accept it because it Won', not be the basis for claiming the future of humanity just has to put up with it.

The attitude that 'the future of humanity is not a concern or that harm to the future generations can justified because of benefits obtained by portions of a current generation' is the problem that needs to be corrected. The future generations have no legal power, no vote, no marketing ability. Hind-sight clearly shows how damaging the current developed socio-economic systems are.

Fore-sight, the consideration of what the hind-sight in the future will be, needs to become the rule and the measure of acceptability of the actions of all of the Winners/Leaders (Engineering or application of science is designing with that type of fore-sight in mind). The attitudes and actions of Winners Leaders regarding climate science can be a major part of evaluating the acceptability of Winners/Leaders.

For the past several decades there has been no good reason for any of the wealthiest or most powerful to 'misunderstand the significance and robustness of climate science' (ever since the 1987 UN Report "Our Common Future" made it clear that being able to get away with being dismissive of the future generations was a major problem to be corrected).

Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise

Eclectic at 08:02 AM on 7 January, 2018

TLander @43 , on the other thread [Climate Myth Number 68 , in the comments section, Page 2 , Comment #80 ], I have given two strong reasons why your thinking is wrong.

Various other reasons exist as well — but (to misquote Einstein) : Two would be enough.

If by some strange means you have gained the belief that the recent large rise in atmospheric CO2 is not responsible for planetary warming & the consequential fast rising volume of the sea — then the honor of making Comment #81 awaits you on that other thread ["Is the science settled" Myth No. 68 ]. There you can provide whatever disputation you are capable of — for clearly in your own mind, the science is not settled and the scientists are all wrong.

Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise

TLander at 00:46 AM on 7 January, 2018

Subsidence and Coastal Erosion are not historically constant where a large percentage of the worlds population is located. I agree that a majority of the coasts aren't developed, but the issue is where we are developed. Do we care about coasts where people don't live? The coasts where people don't exist will be fine, because no one lives there and it will just be the norms that have been going on forever. I don't see your argument. I will agree that in the coastal regions where humans haven't developed that there is more or less a historical constant of subsidence and coastal erosion, but from my understanding the issue with sea level rise is that the coastal cities(where people live) will be inundated and destroyed from massive storms/encroaching waters costing money and human life. In these areas, coastal erosion and subsidence are a huge deal and need to be completely accounted for. Yes, the sea level will rise all around the world. Most of the coast will be effected, but it will only matter in terms of human life and cost in the areas where people live.

All of the icecaps could melt and sea level could rise to its max, but it we would still have issues with coastal erosion and subsidence where people are concentrated.

You can even factor in storm surges/flooding destruction being more prevalent due to the destruction of beach dunes and by damming rivers upstream, which is the source of sediment that creates protective barriers on the coasts to fend off storm surges. These protective barriers are destroyed in areas where human development is high.

I read "Climate Myth Number 68 : Is The Science Settled," and is it supposed to validate anything? Am I supposed to learn something from it? I agree that humans are increasing the CO2 in the atmostphere. I agree with it 100%. I don't agree with it being the cause of droughts, wildfires, "extreme weather", or even hugely responsible for sea level rise.

Past 150,000 Years of Sea Level History Suggests High Rates of Future Sea Level Rise

Eclectic at 15:30 PM on 6 January, 2018

TLander @42 . . . your post seems to have been "snipped" for wandering too far off topic.

But I should point out that your "third factor" — namely coastal erosion — can well be described as an historical constant , rather than a large new threat to coast dwellers. Likewise with tsunamis, and coastal subsidence/uplift.

The man-caused local coastal erosion [that you mention] is a very tiny portion of the total world coastline.

Of your (unfounded) proposal that CO2/greenhouse-gasses are highly unlikely to be the cause of Global Warming (or Climate Change, or whatever word-label you care to use for the underlying reality) . . . well, you evidently have not thought the matter through — so I shall reply to you on a more appropriate thread.

[ I haven't yet decided which would be the most appropriate thread — there are several eligible threads, and at this stage I am leaning towards using "Climate Myth Number 68 : Is The Science Settled" ]

Fake news is a threat to humanity, but scientists may have a solution

Gail at 00:19 AM on 1 January, 2018

Eclectic @ 32
Skepticism about climate science isn't over the basic notion of AGW, which is widely accepted; sooner or later there must surely be a problem, yes. It's about whether the science truly is settled as regards How Much Warming How Soon - ie the claimed high certainty of an imminent catastrophe (CAGW). And also more general skepticism over objectivity.

Fake news is a threat to humanity, but scientists may have a solution

Zippi62 at 14:33 PM on 30 December, 2017

" ... The Fox Newsification of America ... "?

" ... 71% of Alabama Republicans believed the allegations were false ... "?

Does the writer (Dana) really know 450,000 republicans (650,000 voted for Roy Moore), who knew the allegations were false? C'mon! That's based upon a poll of a few thousand people.

Climate science doesn't base their findings on Michael Mann's "Hockey Stick Graph". Do they? His graph surely made it into the UN IPCC's Policymaking recommendations even though it wasn't "consensus" science information.

Are we talking political science or climate science?

I like the idea of a RED TEAM/BLUE TEAM forum. It surely wasn't the choice of James Hansen, Al Gore, or Michael Mann over the past 30 years. The science was "settled" to them.

I find this article to be based upon arrogant assumptions, just as is 'climate sensitivity to raised CO2 levels'. There is no consensus on the ideal CO2 level of our atmosphere.

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #49

One Planet Only Forever at 04:31 AM on 13 December, 2017

citizenschalleng@7,

'Critical Thinking Skills applied for, or guided by, Good Purpose/Public Interest' is what Skepticism should be.

And the critical aspect is the 'application for Good Purpose/Public Interest'.

A Red/Blue Team exercise regarding climate science could involve 'Critical Thinkers' on each side but would only be a Private Interest scam, an effort to promote unjust impressions. The science is substantially settled. The major points will not be changing as further effort increases awareness and improves understanding. What needs to be debated is how to achieve the undeniably required rapid termination of global burning of fossil fuels with Good objectives/Purpose in mind. And what a Good Objective/Purpose actually is does not require any debate (red/blue or any other 'debate'). The goals/changes required are already well established/presented in the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs identify the collection of goals required for humanity to have a lasting better future (all of them have to be achieved or there is no sustainable better future).

Of course, acceptance of the SDGs is challenged, even by 'critical thinkers' because the SDGs require significant changes to incorrect over-development by some sub-sets of humanity. Some development has undeniably occurred in the wrong direction. And that wrong direction development has produced misleading marketing efforts to maintain or expand the damaging inertia of false perceptions of prosperity and opportunity that many people are easily impressed into wanting to benefit from (regional or tribal popular or profitable Private Interests that are impediments to achieving the Public Interest).

Critical Thinkers with Good Objectives would try to increase the awareness and understanding regarding how damaging and unnecessary a climate science Red/Blue Team exercise is.

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49

nigelj at 06:55 AM on 10 December, 2017

Go you kids! I have total respect for what you are doing, and will watch with interest.

Lawyers can be intimidating, I have dealt with plenty of them. But a lot of it turns out to be hot air, empty rhetoric, and bluster, so dont let it intimidate you too much, and keep your discussion composed and civil, but forceful.

The main thing they will do is cast doubt on the science, and claim its not settled science and there's no consensus, so this is the main thing you have to counter. Point out that we have five independent studies showing 90 - 95% agreement between climate scientists that humans are warming the climate. Point out its climaate researchers views that count most, as they have the expertise. Point out polls like the Oregen partition are deeply flawed.

Above all do accept the fact a few climate scientists are dissenting voices, but that you do not require 100% agreement for settled science. There are always a few eccentric scientists with opposing views in any field of science, and there's still a flat earth society that is not entirely just for humour.

And point out that all natural climate trends should be causing a cooling effect rather than warming, and the fact that the denislist's haven't provided a competing, fully thought out alternative theory, that covers all issues and has won the respect of science academies and the IPCC and climate research community.

Kill it. Kill it with fire.

There once was a polar bear – science vs the blogosphere

Jeff H at 03:55 AM on 2 December, 2017

As lead author of the Bioscience paper I will make three responses to Matthew L’s erroneous posts. First, our paper is about scientific ethics, not about Susan Crockford, and we set out to prove that blogs which deny AGW largely ignore the primary scientific literature. We proved that here using PCA. Polar bears are used as biotic proxies for AGW by climate change deniers, hence why we focused on these iconic mammals. In truth, the empirical literature is filled with studies showing the harmful effects of warming on soil, aboveground terrestrial and aquatic communities. This wealth of data is ignored by denier blogs because it would be impossible for them to counter this veritable tsunami of data. Moreover, since blogs are operated usually by people lacking formal training in the relevant fields, a deliberate attempt is made to focus on only a tiny subset of areas or fields.

Second, Susan Crockford has only 17 papers in her career on the ISI Web of Science (none since 2014); her work has been cited less than 200 times and her h-factor is 7. Moreover, she has conducted no primary research on polar bear biology or ecology. On this basis I would question whether she is an ‘outstanding and eminent scientist in the field of Arctic fauna’. To argue that she knows more about the survival of Arctic fauna than anyone else is absurd. Three of my co-authors, Steven Amstrup, Ian Stirling and Eric Post, by contrast, have a combined total of over 500 publications, 15,000 citations and vastly more expertise on Arctic ecology than Crockford.

Third, there are not two sides in discussions about AGW. There is one side whose conclusions are supported by the vast majority of the empirical data and another side whose arguments are not. Of course there are uncertainties over future projections of AGW, and deniers exploit these as much as possible to sow doubt. But there are many certainties as well, and scientists need to do a better job getting these across to the general public. Oreskes and Conway named their book, ‘Merchants of Doubt’ for a reason. Deniers will never win scientific debates, but that is not their aim. Their aim is to convince the public that the science is not settled. In tis way nothing will be done to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

An Inconvenient Sequel – the science, history, and politics of climate change

Mal Adapted at 12:41 PM on 19 November, 2017

nigelj:

I have not seen the "Incovenient Truth" movie. From what you say it does politicise the issue, which is unfortunate. However the material on Gores personal background may have been inserted to add human interest aspect.

AGW is a political issue, whatever other kind of issue it is. Al Gore has mastered the basics of climate science well enough, but he's a politician first and foremost, from highly personal motives. Why else would he talk so much about AGW?

The peer community of climate science specialists has reached a lopsided consensus. IOW, the consensus case is settled science. The current POTUS, nevertheless, has publicly said AGW a hoax. You'd think he'd recognize that three may keep a secret if two are dead, yet he's accusing generations of climate scientists of enlisting, with mysterious though implausibly unified purpose, in a 200-year-long conspiracy to deceive the public. How polarizing is that (especially if you're a climate scientist)?

'Market oriented' economists agree that AGW is a drama of the commons, requiring collective intervention in the 'free' market to avert tragedy for ever more millions of people. That much is settled economics. Any collective decision will create relative winners and losers, but the sooner the US economy is decarbonized, the lower the net aggregate cost will be. Perhaps coincidentally, the people with the most to lose are fossil fuel billionaires. In the event, the offical position of the dominant US political party, whose leaders are apparently unclear on the whole 'commons' concept, is that decarbonizing our economy will cost too much. How politicizing is that?

A sufficient plurality of US voters must be assembled to enact something like Carbon Fee and Dividend with Border Adjustment Tax. Yet a regrettably large number of Americans reject responsibility for the marginal climate-change costs of their private comfort and convenience. They're happy to socialize as much of ther private costs as they can get away with. How politicized is that?

AGW has always been politicized. If it wasn't, the US economy would be well on its way to carbon-neutrality by now, 30 years after Jim Hansen's Congressional testimony, and Al Gore would be talking about something else.

Global climate impacts of a potential volcanic eruption of Mount Agung

nigelj at 12:07 PM on 11 October, 2017

Aleks

Regarding SO2.

Basically there are tables of the IR absorption coefficients of various greenhouse gases ranking them in strength easily googled. None of these tables even mention SO2 so it must be a very weak greenhouse gas. All google searches just say SO2 has no direct greenhouse gas effects. All three atom gases have some greenhouse properties but they do actually vary a lot.

As eclectic points out theres just not enough SO2 to be significant anyway. Its all academic.

Now regarding cooling aerosol effects SO2 converts to SO3 and thus to H2SO4 which has acid rain and cooling properties as below

www.ausetute.com.au/acidrain.html

Regarding the effects of a given specific quantity of CO2 on temperatures. Im not a climate scientist, just an interested observer, but I gather people like Arrhenius and later E O Hulbert and others calculated this working backwards from atmospheric concentrations and knowledge of the different IR coefficients of various gases and atmospheric temperatures, and that the results are very accurate something like 99%, and are accepted science. They have never been over turned in the science literature. Thats good enough for me.

Tests have been done on jars of CO2 in the laboratory under light etc and clearly demonstrated different concentrations of CO2 causing different temperatures. But Im not sure this would be as definitive as the above mentioned derivations by Hulbert etc because you cant duplicate the full complexity of the atmosphere of the planet in a jar.

Basically none of the climate sceptics like Spencer and Pielke etc dispute any of the findings on what a specific quantity of CO2 does. Its settled science. Only cranks go over all this. There is debate on feedbacks of course but even this area of knowledge is constantly improving.

Global climate impacts of a potential volcanic eruption of Mount Agung

nigelj at 11:10 AM on 9 October, 2017

aleks @14 and 18

"The greenhouse effect theory does not have math model to determine relation between amount of gas absorbing IR-radiattoin and temperature. "

I disagree. Im no expert on all this, but the effects of CO2 on temperature are very settled and quantified science. This is why I said read a textbook, because perhaps you have missed something. Alternatively read the original research paper by Arrhenius below which still stands as solid science today.

www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf

"Absorption of infrared radiation by the gas molecule changes the rotational and vibrational energy of the gas molecule, so the the molecule gains more potential energy. However, temperature is related to kinetic energy,"

This doesnt make sense to me as vibrational energy is kinetic energy, and the molecule emits photons that stike other molecules, so theres kinetic energy. However Im telling you Im not going to debate this and go down some crazy rabbit hole over it.

"SO2 absorbs IR-radiation in the region 3.5-19 micron.

I will accept this, but SO2 has a very weak greenhouse gas effect. This is why its not listed in the entry in wikipedia on greenhouses gases mentioned above. However SO2 can combine with water to form sulphuric acid which can have a strong cooling effect by reflecting solar energy - and this is what dominates.

Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes

Rbrooks502 at 21:36 PM on 24 September, 2017

Eclectic @39 As predicted above, out come the claws to dress any skeptic down in any way. Ahhhh the grandiose ideology of the academic. There are reasons why they should be taken with a bit of skepticism. Suggesting that I have this superiority complex with an inability to see my own noviceness on the subject has nothing to do with my last statements above. And I think you meant to say Encapsulated Phsychosis.

I dont need you to frame my thinking by your accusations and I could care less if you attempt to define what it is and where I stand. Try getting out of the bubble.

Regarding your last statement I quote "Read somewhat more deeply, and you will see that [proposed] Grand Solar Minimum would produce a transient global cooling effect in the region of 0.3 degreesC. In other words, quite trivial (and not cooler than today's hot climate, bearing in mind the ongoing global warming which is occurring currently & in the next few decades."

This 0.3 degree issue is that you speak of is no where in that article. But the article did predict with a 97 percent rating.

There seems to me that there are so many variables both positive and negative and so many unknowns like natural Methane release. volcanic eruptions above and below the surface, that I still hold that the science is far from completion. You might as well say that the science on dark matter is settled. It is not that what you are saying is falling on deaf ears either. I am trying to keep an open mind as much as possible but thus far it is quite difficult based on the reactions that I am getting. I admitted that I am no master of this, but I will argue that you cant produce anyone who has mastered this subject. If you have one, I will greatly appreciate the name and contact information.

I have said this 100 times and perhaps this is a good time to say it again. Social media like this string here are good for starting conversations but are terrible for true communications to take place. For that you need so many other factors involved. I personally think face to face and eye to be the very best.

I will part this tidbit. "If everyone is thinking the same way, then someone is not doing thier job" General George S. Patton.

Perhaps a little more openmindedness and little less of other things would be helpful for anyone casually looking this subject over.

The concept of forced taxation seems to have eluded you my friend. Since you require me to do more reading, i will offer to you to get more involved and read more yourself. Perhaps if you framed your thinking a little different you might spend more time doing some good ole fashion educating for the novice instead pf taking the dressing down tack that you are on. It doesnt help the cause at all. Everything you posted IMHO did nothing to move the conversation forward. IE more negatives than positives.

Regarding your "B)" comment. You couldnt possibly be more off base and the fact that you find it psychologically interesting, for me, is nothing more than a veiled assertion and an insight into your own phsychology. Yes, I noticed.

Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes

Rob Honeycutt at 08:15 AM on 24 September, 2017

Rbrooks502... First of all, my name is Rob, not Ron. Second, no. I am not a paid writer. After that, it's really hard to know where to begin.

I'll state that, thinking that I wouldn't have the ability to go into the devil's den in a similar way as Meyer's has come here... That would be incorrect. I've spend years wading into debates with climate skeptics. Anyone who knows me can attest to that.

Let's see if we can go through your list here...

1) I'm sorry but this is very close to word salad. I'm having a hard time making heads or tails of what you're trying to say.

2) Ditto on this one. I do not understand what you mean by "solidifying" in respect to weather or how this relates to anything discussed in my piece, or how this relates to anything relative to human nature.

3) I had to do a quick search on this page to see where the term "denier" is used. The first occurrance here is in your comment.

4) I agree (I think). That's why I've tried to keep my entire article based in the evidence presented in the body of scientific research.

5) All of Michael Mann's relevant data is available to the public. No FOIA req'd.

6) The NIPCC report comes from a very small group of scientists, most of whom have no specific expertise in climate science. They are funded by oil companies. Unlike the IPCC, the NIPCC goes through no formal review process. In short, it's a farcical report (and that's trying to put it kindly).

7) That's rather easy. Because if you lie as a scientific researcher you will get incorrect answers and your research will not stand the test of time. The scientific process works exactly the same with climate science as it does with any other science.

8) Meyers is not the only person talking about the costs. The entire world is discussing the costs AND the benefits relative to the costs of inaction.

9) Yes. I agree that you are able to understand, but for some reason it's quite clear that you are choosing not to. You are choosing to take a non-neutral position which is contrary to the position presented by the vast body of scientific evidence.

10) There are areas of settled science, and there are areas that are not settled. The elements that are not yet settled do not affect those that are.

RBrooks... Contrary to your claims of neutrality, it's clear that you are anything but. If you are, at this point in history, unconvinced by the science then it would be completely impossible for there to ever be enough evidence to convince you. That is not an opinion. It's just an observation.

As for the $83/person for climate science, that works out to about 23 cents a day. You likely spend many times that on coffee each day. Given that much of that cost is also related to weather predictions, I'd have to suggest, when the population of entire southern half of Florida can evacuate in a timely manner because of those weather predictions... That $83 more than pays for itself. It's a net return on the investment.

Given that there is almost certainly always going to be a sub-set of the human population who will never accept the science related to climate change, as a species we will have to continue to take action without your help. That's fine. A great deal is already being accomplished in reducing our carbon emissions. Other nations like China and India are also starting to take aggressive action to decarbonize.

Please don't take it personally, but I don't think we need you to agree with us in order to fix the problem.

Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes

Rbrooks502 at 03:57 AM on 24 September, 2017

I wonder if Ron Honeycutt is an IPCC supported columnist. IE paid to write. I am writing as a skeptic of all. I have found in my years that the more I think I know the less that I actually do know. By that criteria, I find myself researching more and more and would offer that others do the same. My experiences are in US History which requires a deep understanding of political and military history. In that arena I study Combat Veteran studies from the front line. I also have research in Psychology, Philosophy, Current events. I have an equisitive mind that dates back 50 years. I am published, and will be published again soon. But that all together by no means makes me a master of any of this, but it does make me informed or at least better than average. You may have to excuse my punctuation as I have professionals handle what I miss. From a scientific point of view i agree with Einstien and will let the others do all the math.

I come at this from the perspective of neutrality. I have read Warren Meyer's Forbes magazine articles and I have red Honeycutt's above. Coming to this from a neutral stance I would argue that what I am seeing is piling on of one columinst's points of views over another columnist's point of view. As such, one has to ask the question, who is selling what to whom. And all I am seeing is more of the same. Arguements that I am seeing here are in direct parrallel with the types of arguements that I see regularly on FaceBook, and with the same amount dressing down. Ibeit the verbage is of higher caliber, the reality is still the same. He said, she said, we have more evidence than you, you are wrong, I am right, etc.

Let me applaud Warren Meyers first and foremost for coming into the devils den and assert again his opinions based on his knowledge. That is a tough thing to do. I am sure that Ron Honeycutt would have similar difficulty for coming into a group that is heavily weighted against him. But here is the point. Sites like this will draw in people like me looking for answers and in the end result based on previous experiences and from what I have seen here, nothing is accomplished.

Reasons

1) 'Global Anything" should and must keep social sciences and logic in the equation at all times in order to cover the realities of the subject.

1a) The reason for that is because all science is built upon human experience so that at the forefront it must be accounted for. Because if there is no humans, there is no science. Honeycutt's article seems to purposely avoid this reality and as such gives only a partial explanation or 'tunnel vision' point of view at best.

2) Solidifying the science of weather is one thing, but offer solid conclusions on how best to address it. It must have in it a solid understanding of not only Human Nature, but human population growth, psychology, and social accepted norms and realities. Honeycutt's article does scant addressing of this hard reality.

3) Deniers, Luke Warmers, Climate Change Promoters, are all stereotypes and affords nothing much beyond Identity Politics/categorizing. While it seems scientific, in the world humans it is mostly just degrading. It also supports the logic that people in these subgroups are stuck in a bubble.

4) When someone like myself comes to see what he can discover for himself in order to form thier own opinions, they are not looking to categorized and could generally care less about opinions.

5) A failure on Honeycutt's article should include other findings that Meyer's speaks about in his Forbes articles. Issue like Mann and good ole Uncle Sam preventing data to be retrieved so that it could be researched and duplicated. Freedom of Information Acts have to be employed in order to even get to the data that is built into the IPCC findings. Why would a neutral party buy into Honeycutt's perspective if all he did was attack Meyers and never even bother to bring this up. I am just asking here. Science should never require a FOIA.

6) Meyer's in his articles speaks about the NIPCC. Honeycutt does not bother to even mention that either. Why as a neutral party doing research would one trust his finding while at the same time he leaves this inportant section of research completely out of the subject matter that was there in Meyers articles. Nor does he state anything regarding VP Gore's actions.

7) Climate Change/Global Warming/Weather is a 4 billion dollar taxpayer funded research paycheck annually. Why is it that no one here as ever spoke about the reality that their are people who would most definetly lie about thier findings in order to get a piece of that Pie?

8) New American said that the US government will spend 22.2 billion to fight Global Warming this year alone. I am sure that all the players in this equation is on the up and up. Dont you? Why is no one here other than Meyers speaking about this. Surely any basic understanding of human nature would support that thinking and yet, Science can not be concise with those types of motivators screwing up the works. Can it?

9) When a novice looks for data and wants to learn from the ones in the know they could fair better with out all the opinions and deal only in the facts. We are, contrary to popular belief, able to understand. That is why we come to sites like this.

10) The Science is not settled in my honest opinion because of out liers that are into it for the money, and when I see this level of attacks on one side or the other, the observer cant help but think that is far from being accepted science. That, IMHO, is where we are at, and where we will stay for years to come. If you cant convince people like myself. you have no chance of convincing enough. As it stand right now, the 22.2 billion and the 4 billion research causes every US citizen on the tab for about 83.00 dollars a person for this unconvincing science just this year alone. We are simple creatures designed to see patterns and the only exact fact that can be proven to me is Change. It is the only constant in the universe that I trust.

The Trump administration wants to bail out failed contrarian climate scientists

MA Rodger at 20:21 PM on 1 September, 2017

NorrisM @4,

Much of your blather here at SkS appears to run alongside your advocacy of a Red-Team/Blue-Team exercise with "someone like Steve Koonin ... as the chair of this red team blue team investigation I think ... a reasonably independent person at its head." I consider this Steve Koonin to be a wholly fake-scientist in that his pronouncements on AGW areunscientific nonsense. (Here I cite his 2014 WSJ article "Climate Science is Not Settled" which is nonsense-ridden from start to finish.) I note your continuing RTeam/BTeam advocacy seems hemetically wed to Koonin. Is this joker essential for your RT/BT advocacy? Or would the process still work with another candidate for the job? If so, who?

Study finds human influence in the Amazon's third 1-in-100 year drought since 2005

scaddenp at 07:50 AM on 4 August, 2017

Hmm. I would say the effect of global warming on ENSO is unsettled science, and while current reviews (eg Huang and Xie 2015) favour more frequent El Nino and more extremes of both, I dont see support for a permanent El NIno. Given modeller concerns about how well models produce ENSO behaviour, I wouldnt jump to conclusions yet.

Ivar Giaever - Nobel Winning Physicist and Climate Pseudoscientist

Daniel Bailey at 05:14 AM on 29 July, 2017

"Where is the Global warming?"

Right here:

Here's your warming

And Here:

Here's your warming

"It is natural for climate to change as it has for millions of years"

So many fallacies, so little time...

FYI, the Earth's climate only changes in response to warming or cooling forcings. No known natural forcing fits the fingerprints of observed warming except anthropogenic greenhouse gases.

And this gem:

"There is less than a 1-in-27 million chance that Earth's record hot streak is natural"

Lol. Let's see what else you got:

"The theory of global warming is completely debunked by this chart"

Nope. You smear the difference between a scientific hypothesis and a scientific theory.

Occasionally, scientific ideas (such as biological evolution) are written off with the putdown "it's just a theory." This slur is misleading and conflates two separate meanings of the word theory: in common usage, the word theory means just a hunch, but in science, a theory is a powerful explanation for a broad set of observations. To be accepted by the scientific community, a theory (in the scientific sense of the word) must be strongly supported by many different lines of evidence. So biological evolution is a theory (it is a well-supported, widely accepted, and powerful explanation for the diversity of life on Earth), but it is not "just" a theory.

Indeed:

Words with both technical and everyday meanings often cause confusion. Even scientists sometimes use the word theory when they really mean hypothesis or even just a hunch. Many technical fields have similar vocabulary problems — for example, both the terms work in physics and ego in psychology have specific meanings in their technical fields that differ from their common uses. However, context and a little background knowledge are usually sufficient to figure out which meaning is intended.

Below is a generalized sequence of steps taken to establish a scientific theory:

1. Choose and define the natural phenomenon that you want to figure out and explain.
2. Collect information (data) about this phenomena by going where the phenomena occur and making observations. Or, try to replicate this phenomena by means of a test (experiment) under controlled conditions (usually in a laboratory) that eliminates interference's from environmental conditions.
3. After collecting a lot of data, look for patterns in the data. Attempt to explain these patterns by making a provisional explanation, called a hypothesis.
4. Test the hypothesis by collecting more data to see if the hypothesis continues to show the assumed pattern. If the data does not support the hypothesis, it must be changed, or rejected in favor of a better one. In collecting data, one must NOT ignore data that contradicts the hypothesis in favor of only supportive data. (That is called "cherry-picking" and is commonly used by pseudo-scientists attempting to scam people unfamiliar with the scientific method. A good example of this fraud is shown by the so-called "creationists," who start out with a pre-conceived conclusion - a geologically young, 6,000 year old earth, and then cherry-pick only evidence that supports their views, while ignoring or rejecting overwhelming evidence of a much older earth.)
5. If a refined hypothesis survives all attacks on it and is the best existing explanation for a particular phenomenon, it is then elevated to the status of a theory.
6. A theory is subject to modification and even rejection if there is overwhelming evidence that disproves it and/or supports another, better theory. Therefore, a theory is not an eternal or perpetual truth.

For a good discussion of science terminology (especially for the "Evidence, not Proof" bit), see here.

FYI: Anthropogenic climate change (ACC)/anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is not a hypothesis. It is a robust theory, referred to as "settled fact" by scientists.

Per the National Academies of Science, science advisors to Congress and the Office of the Presidency since Lincoln, in their 2010 publication Advancing The Science Of Climate Change (p. 22):

"Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small.
Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts.
This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities."

And note that the above National Academies paper is available for free download after a free registration. No purchase necessary. And the quote is from page 22.

"Settled facts"... Just rollsssss off the tongue...

Back to you. Be warned, I'm just getting warmed up.

Surrendering to fear brought us climate change denial and President Trump

nigelj at 06:35 AM on 22 July, 2017

People are getting too defensive about the idea of consensus. It's accurate to say some scientific consensus positions have been wrong, or at least been partly wrong. The consensus positions on intake of saturated fats and salt have both been partly changed recently. I'm assuming everyone is aware of this, its been in the media enough.

The consensus position is of course extremely important and generally proves to be correct. It is a majority position. It reflects years of research and a slow testing of ideas before arriving at a settled view.

But it is also going to vary in veracity. Theories on saturated fats and salt were based on a limited number of studies, and pretty old research done when techniques had limitations. Climate science is based on a huge number of up to date studies, debated and examined ad nauseum. This gives me more confidence.

If politicians want to question climate science, and its fair that they do, they better be prepared to listen and think calmly and put ideology aside. They better be open minded about the answers, because the answers are not guesswork. One hopes they have enough brains to see that there are obvious holes in the usual denialist myths.

Its also about the degree of consensus. 90 - 97% is pretty high and is a global consensus, so deserves more respect than a few scientists in America going on about eugenics.

But the bottom line is this. When it comes to decision making by politicians, you either go with a consensus, or the claims of some fringe group or individual. We have had many such fringe alternative views which have proven to be nonsense, like homeopathy.

Climate denial is like The Matrix; more Republicans are choosing the red pill

nigelj at 07:24 AM on 20 July, 2017

The IPCC preocess is huge, and has already settled these questions. This weak, watered down red / blue version of the IPCC process makes no sense at all.

The absurd red blue team idea is a stacked panel out of proportion to the real weight of opinion. It's a last desperate attempt to find a contrived process that will maximise opportunity for mischief and missdirection.

The Republicans must be desperate to be prepeared to go to such extreme lengths to deny the science and reports on coal. The only reasonable conclusion is it's their is their politics, beliefs, and vested interests in business as usual.

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

Eclectic at 01:58 AM on 13 July, 2017

OPOF @64 , the red-team/blue-team approach to climate science may be the current "talking-piece-du-jour" for denialists & ultra-right-wing politicians. But I think they will meet you with hostility if you suggest a "rainbow" approach ;-)

Scaddenp @63 , the GOP politicians could go either way, about setting up (or not) a red-team/blue-team Investigation or Inquiry. Certainly they would like to set up a rigged inquiry : and certainly they know that a truly fair/impartial inquiry would inevitably show the denialists to be completely wrong.

Personally, I think the genuine climate scientists should reject any kind of inquiry (of the proposed type) and they should state assertively A/ that a "new" red-team/blue-team assessment would be a great waste of the taxpayers' money, and B/ that such assessments had already been done and are always being done continually every year by by large numbers of scientists as part of normal everyday science.

The anti-science politicians in power might well decide to try to carry out a red-team/blue-team "Inquiry", despite a high certainty of an adverse decision (adverse to them). Because they would gain in the short term (and if they can't rig a favorable result, then they will still gain by drawing out a fair Inquiry for many years. )

They can beat the genuine climate scientists over the head for not participating in the Inquiry — for the non-participation will look bad to the non-thinking public. And if participation does occur, then [the GOP politicians] will publicly use that participation as an admission by the scientists that the mainstream science is so uncertain & doubtful, as to be very much in need of a thorough inquiry.

The anti-science politicians would gain tactical advantage in forestalling journalists' questioning of (lack of) Climate Change policy and (lack of) action or leadership :-

— "The science is not settled, obviously."

— "We are actively looking into these questions."

— "It is premature for me to comment on that."

— "No, I can't comment, because the matter is [sub judice]."

— "As soon as the Inquiry is finished, we will study its report and decide on appropriate action."

In summary : it would be a very unskilled politician who couldn't arrange for the Inquiry to be stacked with so many submissions, as to take many years to complete. An excellent way to continue to stonewall, without being perceived as stonewalling!

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

Daniel Bailey at 20:43 PM on 10 July, 2017

"I think both sides of this debate"

A parsimonious harping at the font of stolen, out-of-context and context-less emails proven not germane to the science is continuing on in the prosecution of the agenda of denial.

Truth, science and reputable journalism all sacrificed to the unholy alter of false equivalence under the guise of promulgating a fallacious "debate".

There is no debate. All that remains is the informed and the uninformed.

Why the Republican Party's climate policy obstruction is indefensible

Tom Curtis at 14:49 PM on 10 July, 2017

NorrisM @43 states:

"Tom Curtis on a reply to my reference to Koonin, questioned Koonin's independence. At that time, I had no idea who Koonin was other than that he was a physicist who had been appointed by the APS to head the Climate Policy Panel."

The claim is incorrect. I have not specifically discussed Koonin in this thread, and certainly not in reply to NorrisM. My only specific reply to him in this thread prior to this one(@8) pointed out that a causal claim he made @6 was invalid. Granted that Eclectic applied some of my more general comments about motivated reasoning to Koonin @10, but even that does not call into question Koonin's independence.

Given, however, that NorrisM has explicitly raised the issue of Koonin, I note that mere credentials do not grant wisdom. There are even better qualified people than Koonin who fall into the climate "skeptic" camp, but the proportion of similarly qualified people who disagree with, or unconvinced of the hypothesis of AGW is very small relative to the proportion who accept the science. Nor are that small proportion able to give cogent reasons for their disagreement.

An example of this is Koonin's nonsense claim that "...human additions to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by the middle of the 21st century are expected to directly shift the atmosphere’s natural greenhouse effect by only 1% to 2%." Koonin defended this claim at Climate Etc, by comparing what he calls the greenhouse effect, ie, the downward IR flux at the surface of 342 W/m^2 to the 2.3 W/m^2 anthropogenic forcing since 1750 (both figures taken from IPCC AR5).

The immediate problems with this claim are that the greenhouse effect is the difference between the upwelling IR radiation at the surface and the IR radiation to space (ie, 159 W/m^2 based in the AR5 figures); and that that total includes not just the forcing but the feedback responses from water vapour and the IR effect of clouds. The proper comparison is therefore between either the forcing of 2.3 W/m^2 and the 40 W/m^2 of the Total Greenhouse Effect which is due to well mixed Green House Gases, or possibly between the forcing plus its equilibrium feedback response and the total greenhouse effect. The former gives a 5.8% change to date, while the later gives at least a 2.9% response (based on the water vapour and lapse rate feedbacks at least doubling the effect of the forced response).

In short, Koonin's article and his defence of it shows he lacks understanding of the physics of the greenhouse effect at a fundamental level. His article is comparable to somebody trying to explain what is wrong with specal relativity without understanding what is meant by a "reference frame". Given that he wrote and submitted his article after the APS symposium where he obtained the views of six climate scientists, that lack of understanding is very disturbing. (For more on the article, see here.)

No amount of qualifications can justify a scientist pontificating on a subject on which he makes such fundamental errors. Indeed, that he does so shows that despite his qualifications, he has researched the topic at an entirely superficial level; or taken his information almost entirely from anti-science sites (such as WUWT, where that faulty argument gets a regular replay).

New Video: John Cook and the 97 Percent

nigelj at 08:07 AM on 21 June, 2017

"There’s no such thing as settled science” and “science does not work by consensus”, are things we commonly hear from people who really should know better. "

I agree for all practical purposes many science theories are settled, like the earth orbiting the sun, and basic equations of gravity and the greenhouse effect. The sceptics take uncertainty in some areas of science, and try to falsely claim this means everything is uncertain. There do remain mysteries at the deepest levels of particle physics, but this doesn't obviate basic theories and laws and evidence of physics and chemistry etc, because the laws work in the real world, and you have observable cause and effect.

The climate sceptics claim theres no consensus, when there plainly is, proven by at least 5 polls and studies now, including the important Cook study. We have to use the evidence we have, and we have several consensus studies all pointing in the same direction, and all using different methods. This is a strong confluence of evidence, and we have no study showing anything significantly different, despite the fact nothing is stopping anyone trying to find a different result for over 20 years now.

Science does work by consensus. You have the majority of scientists agreeing that a theory has been sufficiently debated, and things point strongly in one direction. This is the only way we the public can have faith in a theory.

Of course nobody seriously claims a consensus is proof, and proof belongs only in mathematics, and self evidently a consensus could be ultimately proven wrong, but a consensus is based on the views of trained people, so is very significant. The duty is on people to find compelling evidence it is wrong. The climate sceptics have failed to provide a compelling critique or alternative theory for over 20 years, so its just not going to happen.

Governments often have to make policy choices based on new science, and they obviously look at majority scientific opinion, ie the consensus. There is no other sensible alternative. If governments choose to believe some eccentric, this would be irresponsible, and they would certainly need some utterly compelling reason, and they have singularly failed to provide one over climate science. Trump is a good example of somebody who has not come up with a remotely sensible reason to ignore the consensus, simply because there isn't one.

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

swampfoxh at 06:36 AM on 6 June, 2017

I think it can be said that Ginko trees have existed on planet earth for an incredibly long time, even making in through the Cretaceous Extinction, the Eocene Thermal Maximum, a few dozen ice ages, etc. Does this mean that Ginko genetics are pretty well adapted to the viccitudes of global climate? What does adapted really mean? Does it have anything to do with complementary-cooperative-competitive biodiversity? If an organism arose on the planet, absent interference by humans, would it be because it was adapted to the environment in which it found itself? If a GMO is not a "natural organism" does it still have a place in the environment ? Is a GMO an alien organism? Do we chance mixing alien organisms with the planet's biodiversity and hope for the best or are we playing with an unquenchable fire? It seems to me that the proofs of anthropogenic climate change are pretty well settled and the research on vaccines takes us pretty close to accepted proofs, but is the "science" about GMO's of the same caliber?

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

green tortoise at 16:56 PM on 3 June, 2017

Why the image about nuclear power? As far as I know, there is nothing anti-science in opposing nuclear power. Even Angela Merkel (herself a nuclear scientist) after Fukushima did a policy of nuclear phaseout.

As for GMOs, I know too little about them to have a settled opinion. The only thing I could say is that given the huge genetic diversity of genetical technologies, there may be some good (even excellent) GMO crops (like crops with vitamins and better nutritional values) but others that, like in every technology known to humankind, could go wrong. If there are some crops that produce toxins to kill parasites, could that not be that as bad as pesticides if mismanaged?

I will not lump together all those things. I would make the following classification:

outright denialism (like the so-called AGW "skeptics", creationists, flat-earthers, etc.)

Alarmists (like the ones that exaggerate side effects of vaccines, so scared about them that become blind to the much bigger threat of infectious diseases). GMO opposition, if not based on evidence, fits also here.

Of course there is a mixing of both groups, as both deny inconvenient facts, or invoke "conspiracy theories".

But as someone said before, one group deny a whole set of reality (climate change, evolution, age of the universe, etc.), the other exaggerate in a hyperbolic manner some possible problems in some specific areas (minimal side effects for vaccines, mismanegement of some GMOs, etc)

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

ginckgo at 13:58 PM on 1 June, 2017

Seems like we hit a raw nerve in including GMO opposition in this group. People seem to completely miss the point, and resort to motivated reasoning to insist 'skepticism' about GMOs is not the same. Well it is EXACTLY the same for several reasons nicely illustrated in the above comments:

#2 bjchip: "There are aspects to the GMO issue that aren't addressed by science. One is the matter of ownership and for whose benefit the technology is deployed."

this is not unique to GE crops; almost all seeds purchased by farmers are patented and licensed.

"Once deployed non-GMO is no longer a choice that is available to the consumer."

how?!? it's not like these plants will take over the world; agricultural varieties fare notoriously poorly without the extra care from farmers. They will not turn into weeds just because they have a few pest resistant genes inserted.

#3 JWRebel: “People have ample reason to doubt studies carried out or funded (no matter how remote the connection) by Monsanto or big Pharma, just as there is ample cause to doubt climate change impact studies by Exon or the IEA. . Climate change science is "open source": the model is sharing all available data and knowledge and peer review. The model pursued by bigPharma and Monsanto is proprietary and closed: Instead of sharing the available data and knowledge, their model is to guard their secrets and to exploit patents and knowledge as long as possible.”

wait, either we can see the studies published in order to doubt them, or they are closed and hidden and we don’t have anything to critique

“with respect to what is a healthy diet the science in not settled”

that is irrelevant, as the GE foods are not different to other varieties. Unless you believe inserting a single gene that codes for glyphosate tolerance somehow affects the whole genome?

“doubts about the wisdom of interference in very complex ecologies”

how can most GE crops interfere with ecology though, especially in ways that other varieties don’t? Golden Rice or drought resistant crops will not have any impact on environment.

“GMO crops reduce resiliency, increase the demand for pesticides and fertilizer, and impoverish the soil”

now you’re clutching at straws. Define this ‘resilience’, and of what? GE crops actually tend to reduce pesticide and fertilised use, and don’t have a more detrimental effect on soil than other crops.

#4 “people who oppose the unrestricted use of GMOs is wrong.”

GE crops are literally the most regulated food industry out there. If traditionally bred crops were subjected to this level of testing probably a good proportion wouldn’t make the cut.

“To claim that there are no papers showing deleterious health effects from eating GMOs is just a blatant lie”

every single one of those has turned out to be flawed at best, and literally fraudulent at worst

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

JWRebel at 03:54 AM on 1 June, 2017

The author is presenting a false equivalency. People have ample reason to doubt studies carried out or funded (no matter how remote the connection) by Monsanto or big Pharma, just as there is ample cause to doubt climate change impact studies by Exon or the IEA. Climate change science is "open source": the model is sharing all available data and knowledge and peer review. The model pursued by bigPharma and Monsanto is proprietary and closed: Instead of sharing the available data and knowledge, their model is to guard their secrets and to exploit patents and knowledge as long as possible. The temptation to insert false data/interpretation is much greater in view of the stakes. Knowledge here advances via proprietary investments, not through sharing.

Software, science, and universities show us that "open source" is the better model: Advances are quicker, quality is higher, and the benefits go to humanity, not just a few owners.

Certainly with respect to what is a healthy diet the science in not settled, and controversy and parochial proprietary industry interests prevail. There is more than enough reason to have doubts as to the quality of many studies, for instance, about the efficacy and long-term implications of using SSRI's (big Pharma) or statins or ritalin, or a host of other issues, medical and health related. Orthodoxies are still regularly being overturned.

Having doubts about GMO food is not science denial: One can readily acknowledge that GMO seeds produce crops, and that the crops are not toxic or possess commercial advantages, and still have doubts about the wisdom of interference in very complex ecologies. The science is far from complete. Climate change denialistas, on the other hand, literally doubt the physics of CO² and the temperature measurements.

There is every reason to think that GMO crops reduce resiliency, increase the demand for pesticides and fertilizer, and impoverish the soil. There are enough parties with expertise who argue that long-term sustainability implies moving away from industrial agriculture towards more ecologically balanced approaches.

Mankind has introduced hundreds of thousands of new compounds to the environment. Few of these have been given a clean bill of health, and even fewer have been studied exhaustively for long term impacts. Recent history is rife with stories about compounds which turned out to have negative effects that only came to light in often not very subtle ways after the public had been assured that all is well.

There is every reason to doubt our complete understanding of the interaction between certain compounds or food stuffs with human subects that each have their individual biome and flora and unique immune system. Of course, denying that starvation/malnutrition is related to the food stuffs ingested would be unreasonable.

March against madness - denial has pushed scientists out to the streets

nigelj at 06:41 AM on 27 April, 2017

Dcrickett @5, the bible shows how these denialist issues have a pretty long history! Although I'm an athiest, I can see sense in the verses you quote.

I don't think you will remove all doubters. I saw a book a couple of years ago disputing literally all the fundamentals of Einsteins theories of relativity. I would have thought that was settled science, and the writer was a degree qualified engineer. But you can convince most doubters.

I think you have a range of sceptical views: Some people are contrarians by nature in my experience, some have genuine doubts, perhaps some have vested interests or ideological axes to grind, which leads them to deny the science. There's a range of things.

Regardless of motivations, it appears most people are prepared to change their views on various issues, if you look at history of other controversies, although it can take some time. We will never get everyone to accept climate science, but I think you can get most people to. It just takes explaining the science issues, as websites like this do. You also have to deal with worries about costs of renewable energy etc.

To some extent it's like swing voters or moderates in politics. Those are the people we need to target over climate, the moderates, and they are largely convinced by rational argument, (slowly sometimes). There will be a small group that remain very stubborn, but my instincts tell me its a small group.

Pew Research has done polls showing about 70 - 80% of people already accept the science in many countries and want action. More in some countries. So quite good progress has already been made. We tend to hear about the doubters in America, who get a lot of publicity, and think this is overwhelming or typical globally, when it isn't.

Don't get me wrong, the doubters really annoy me, but I think it's easy to let them get us down too much.

And a strong consensus like this of 70 - 80% would often lead to action by politicians on many issues. Its often enough to trigger having a referendum etc, and would certainly be enough to pass a referendum.

But unfortunately politicians do not always do what the majority want, because of their personal views, or pressure from lobby groups and people who fund their election campaigns. We see this clearly in America when you look at poll numbers.

But the larger the public consensus accepting climate science, and wanting action, the harder it is likely to be for politicians to ignore, which is why websites like this are valuable.

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