My Interview on Climate with Esquire Middle East
I received an email-based interview request on climate a while back from Esquire Middle East. I have decided to include my whole response below. The questions they ask are nearly as informative as anything I say, as they betray that the editors of the publication have pretty much bought into not only global warming alarmism, but all the memes alarmists use to discredit skeptics. Its pretty clear all they know about the skeptic’s position is what they hear from alarmists about skeptics. Anyway, I responded to this from a hotel room in Kentucky and didn’t give it my best but I think it may be interesting to you. The questions are in bold, my answers in normal font.
Do you believe that global warming and climate change are a grave problem to the world at the moment ?
IF NO
What gives you reason to believe that global warming and climate change are not really happening?
I don’t deny they are happening, and neither do any other science-based skeptics. Alarmists like to tell the public that skeptics are taking these positions, in order to discredit them. The climate is always changing without any help from man — a good example is the drying up of North Africa over the last centuries. The period from 1600-1800 was among the coldest in the last 5000 years, so it is natural we would see warming in recovery from this.
Is there any scientific evidence to support that global warming and climate change is not really that harmful
I wrote a 90-minute presentation on this so it is hard to be brief. But here are a couple of thoughts1. I don’t deny greenhouse gas theory, that man’s CO2 can cause some incremental warming. The greenhouse gas theory has to be real, or the world would be much colder right now. No, what I deny is the catastrophe, that temperatures a hundred years hence will be five or ten degrees Celsius higher due to man’s co2
Interestingly, I think most everyone on the scientific end of the debate agrees that the direct warming from man’s Co2 acting alone will be relatively modest – on the order of a degree Celsius by the year 2100 according to the IPCC. Yeah, I know this seems oddly low — you never hear of global warming numbers as low as 1 degree — but it is actually a second theory, independent of greenhouse gas theory, that drives most of the warming. This second theory is that the climate is dominated by strong positive feedbacks that multiply the warming from CO2 many fold, and increase a modest 1 degree C of warming from man’s CO2 to catastrophic levels of 5 or even 10 degrees.
The example I use is to think of climate as a car. Co2 from man provides only a nudge to the car. The catastrophe comes from a second theory that the car (representing the climate) is perched precariously on the top of a hill with its brakes off, and a nudge from CO2 will start it rolling downhill until it crashes at the bottom.
When people say the science is settled, they generally mean greenhouse gas theory. But that means only the nudge is settled. What is far from settled is the second theory of strong net positive feedback in the climate, ie the theory the climate is perched on top of a hill. It is unusual for long-term stable but chaotic systems to be dominated by such strong positive feedbacks. In fact, only the most severe contortions allow scientists to claim their high-sensitivity models of catastrophic warming are consistent with the relatively modest warming of the past century.
2. The amount of unusual climate change we are seeing is GROSSLY exaggerated. We seem to be suffering under a massive case of observer bias in assessing any current effects of climate change. Extreme events, which have always existed, are used by both sides of the debate as supposed proof of long term global trends. But there is little useful we can learn about trends at the tails of the distribution, and it turns out that the means of key weather events in the US, from droughts to wet weather to tornadoes to hurricanes, show no meaningful trends.
We have this incredible hubris that by watching a chaotic system for about 20 years, we fully understand it. But climate has 30-year cycles, 200 year cycles, 1000-year cycles, etc. We don’t even know what is normal, so how can we say we are seeing things that are abnormal. We have seen a lot of melting sea ice in the Arctic, but we think we may have seen as much in the 1930′s, but we didn’t have satellites to watch the ice. And Antarctic Sea ice has been higher than normal while Arctic has been below normal.
Hurricanes are another great example. Al Gore swore that Hurricane Katrina was man-made, but it turns out there is actually a declining worldwide trend in hurricane and cyclone activity and energy, so much so that we hit the lowest level in 2009 since we started measuring by satellite 30 years ago.
Or take sea level rise. Sea levels are rising today and glaciers are shrinking. Sea levels are rising because they were rising in 1950 and in 1920 and in 1880 and in 1850. Sea levels have been steadily rising 1-3mm a year since about 1820 and the end of the little ice age. Ditto glacier retreat, which began around 1800 and has continued steadily to today, though the pace of retreat has slowed of late.
Imagine we wanted to look at customer visitation at a local restaurant that just closed after 60 years in business. If we watched for only a few hours, we might miss the huge variability of the crowds from early morning through each mealtime rush. Watch only for a day, and we might miss the seasonal variation, as vacationers pack the restaurant in March. Watch for just a year, and we might have missed the long, slow decline in visitation that eventually led to the restaurant closing. In climate, we are trying to decide if there is a long term decline at the restaurant after watching for the equivalent of only a few hours.
The reporting on whether manmade climate change is already happening is just awful. We see something happen that we can’t remember happening in the last 20 years and declare it to be “abnormal” and therefore “manmade.” Its absurd, and amazing to me that we skeptics are called anti-scientific when the science being practiced is so awful. The problem is that for academics, who are always scrambling for funds, climate change has become the best source of money. So you can’t just say you are studying acne, you have to say you are studying the effect of manmade climate change on acne. Essentially, we have told the academic world that they can get much more money for their work if they claim to see climate change. So is it any surprise they find it under every rock?
Are most scientists wrong?
I find judging science by counting scientists to be unproductive, so I have no idea. I will say that a lot of folks who sign petitions in support of the alarmist position have not really looked carefully at the science, they are merely showing support because they have been told skeptics are a bunch of religious fundamentalist anti-science types, so they want to express their support for science. It is ironic, as we found in the Climategate emails, that in fact they are supporting bad science, a small core group of scientists who have resisted normal scientific process of sharing data and replication
For some reason, we love to scare ourselves. Or, more likely, many people, particularly younger folks, like to feel that there is some way they can save the world, to deal with their own feelings of insignificance. And one can’t save the world unless it is in crisis. Every generation has these crises, and they are almost always overblown. Look at Paul Ehrlich — he has been wrong about 20 times. He said a billion people would die of starvation by 1980. He is just about never right, but people still lap up every thing he says. Because folks like him give people a sense of mission. And when you demonstrate to them that there is no crisis, they are not relieved (as one would expect someone to be when they find a crisis does not exist) — they are angry that you took their mission away from them.
What do you think is causing temperature changes on a scale never seen before?
Wow, you really are brainwashed. You have an assumption that we are seeing temperature changes on a scale never seen before, and so skeptics must start from this. But in fact the runup in temperatures from 1978-1998 that is the main “proof” of global warming is similar in scale and slope and duration to at least two other temperature increases between 1850 and 1950 which most definitely were not of anthropogenic origins. See here: http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/03/oh-maybe-ocean-occilations-are-important.html. There are many issues with which reasonable people can disagree, but your contention about temperature increases being unprecedented is simply wrong and accepted as wrong by about everyone.
What did you think to the results of Copenhagen?
*shrug* Copenhagen had little to do with climate and was much about lesser developed nations trying to extract money from wealthier nations. Climate was just a pretext — do you really think Robert Mugabe or Hugo Chavez care about climate change?
Why do governments seem so concerned with the issue?
The fear of man-made catastrophic climate change gives government officials their best leverage since the repudiation of communism to substantially increase the power of themselves and their government.
If fossil fuels will run out anyway, surely we should move to find alternatives. Why not now?
You are welcome to. Entrepreneurs around the world have been trying to do so for decades. Wealth beyond measure is there for the person or company who is able to do it. What are you going to do to speed it up if such a huge incentive already exists? The government sometimes feels like it can just have its way and wish things into being. It never works.If the technology is not ready, no amount of government prodding or mandating will make it ready. All we will get is more wasted spending and more dead-end technology investments and more public funds poured into the hands of the politically connected. Why hurry if we are not ready? There are still fossil fuels for decades. Why increase the costs to every consumer to hurry this transition to no purpose?
There are perhaps a billion people in the world, particularly in Asia, on the verge of emerging from poverty. They are only able to do so by burning every fossil fuel they can get their hands on. The alternatives that exist today are rich people’s toys, expensive sources of power that we can afford because they ease our guilt somehow. The poor don’t have this luxury.
Even if it is not guaranteed that manmade emissions are to blame, wouldn’t it be wise to act anyway? It’s a hell of a gamble to our children’s future.
Should we spend a trillion dollars on space lasers in case of an alien invasion of Earth? Why not, its a hell of a gamble to our children’s future. We can’t go pre-emptively fix every low-probability problem just because someone claims it might be a catastrophe. Why fix a hypothetical environmental problem when there are 10 other real ones impacting people today that we are ignoring.
The statement you are making only makes sense if the transition if free or low cost. But substantially eliminating fossil fuel use is tremendously expensive. In fact, it is more expensive at this point with current technology than anything the world has ever done. Folks who claim the costs are low are either ignorant or lying. Every major economy will see trillions of dollars of lost output. But forget the rich nations. Remember the billion people emerging from poverty. Strong world action will essentially consign these people to stay in poverty. Do you want your kids 1 degree cooler at the cost of putting a billion people into poverty? It is not the simple question you make it out to be.
Don’t we have a duty to protect or planet for future generations?(i.e. save it from deforestation, pollution etc)
Sure, but as I stated above, we have all kinds of duties to future generations, and not all of them have to do with the environment. But I would argue that the current obsession with small changes to trace levels of CO2 in the atmosphere has in fact gutted the environmental movement. Nothing else is getting done. Take deforestation. My personal interest is in protecting wilderness, and my charity of choice is land trusts that preserve the Amazon. But do you know the #1 cause of deforestation in the Amazon over the last decade? It was the Brazilian ethanol program, which is supposed to be fighting CO2, but now has been shown to do little or nothing for CO2 and it is incentivizing farmers to clear the Amazon to plant more switchgrass and other ethanol crops. Ditto in the US, where ethanol programs are raising food prices and adding to deforestationI would argue that CO2 is not even in the top 10 worst environmental problems in the world. Take clean water in Africa, which I do consider a top 10 problem. The only way Africans are going to get clean water is from using cheap energy to pump and treat water, cheap energy whose only really realistic source is from fossil fuels.
My prediction– 10-20 years from now, environmentalists are going to look back on the current global warming hysteria as the worst thing ever to happened to the environmental movement.
Further comments
Again, this is very off the cuff. I really delve into the science here: http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/01/catastrophe-denied-the-science-of-the-skeptics-position.html
SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
OK, so every one of these questions are probing – they are hitting at perceived weaknesses in the skeptic’s position. Fine, it is good when the media is critical. But compare the questions above to the total softballs lobbed at alarmists.
IF YES
How bad is climate change at the moment?
What did you think to the results of Copenhagen?
Is it increasing at an uncontrollable rate? Or is there still a chance to reduce climate change and alter its predicted course of events?
Do you have any comments on the recent e-mail leak scandal that was publicized?
What do you think about the rising levels of climate change skepticism?
How could and/or will climate change or similarly global warming affect the Middle East region in particular the Arabian peninsula?
What about other vulnerable countries?
What can the average citizen do more or less to help reduce climate change and its impact?
What do you predict will happen to major cities in the world if the problem of global warming is not addressed immediately?
How will an increase in global warming change the earth’s natural weather activities i.e. how will people and animals be affected, ecosystems, the weather….
How can we move forward on this issue?
Are you confident we can find a solution?
What are the chances of a new technology saving us? (for example, carbon capture)
Is carbon trading effectively passing the buck? Does it actually help
Only one is arguably critical — the one about the CRU emails — and look at the softball way in which it is asked. The journalists here make no secret of which side they are one.
kuhnkat:
AGW is dead.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Greenhouse_Effect_on_the_Moon.pdf
May 25, 2010, 9:20 pmWaldkat:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the deniosphere is getting a taste of its own medicine and it’s a bitter pill to swallow. Just ask Mr. Meyer.
May 25, 2010, 11:08 pmBargHumer:
A very good response indeed, and with the right attitude. Whilst the questions are clearly from inside an alarmist paradigm, their willingness to ask questions which potentially could challenge their paradigm should be commended. It is clear that many people are now questioning AGW as never before.
I have recently been asking people I meet, mainly engineers and business people, what is their opinion of AGW. I ask them before saying anything about my views. I am surprised to find that I have come across only two answers, “not sure” and “complete c*** “. Of those who were not sure, they were clearly doubting the AGW view but didn’t want to say so becasue they didn’t know what I would think about it, and I suppose, were unable or didn’t want to defend any position that they were leaning towards. At the same time, much of this skepticism was not based on anything particularly scientific. I would guess that there is something of boredom in this, a kind of irritation with the constant banging on the drum about CO2 and AGW without anything substantial to support it. The distrust of leaders, especially to do with politics and money, has added to the disinformation about polar bears, and warmer winters.
As a statistical sample it is clearly meaningless, but as a ‘finger in the air’, it is quite encouraging. So far, I have not come across even one person who believes the AGW scenario eventhough most were concerned about the environment.
May 26, 2010, 1:07 amhunter:
“The period from 1600-1800 was among the coldest in the last 5000 years, so it is natural we would see warming in recovery from this.”
This statement, which you bleat frequently, shows that you have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of how the climate works. Not even the vaguest idea. You are utterly clueless.
It is “not natural that we would see warming”. There is no such thing as “recovery” in a climate system.
You show no sign of ever reading comments on your website, let alone understanding them. You simply repeat the same mistaken ideas, again and again and again. Such behaviour is far beyond stupidity. It’s mentally deficient.
May 26, 2010, 6:23 amnetdr:
The two main flaws in the alarmist position are:
1) That the run-up in temperatures since 1978 to 1998 is somehow unprecedented.
2) Positive overall feedback. [Without which there is almost no warming..]
The thermometer was invented at the end of the little ice age and it has warmed slightly since then. Well DUH!
Rapid warming was observed 3 times since then and 2 of these times CO2 could not have been the cause. [1860-1880 , 1910-40 and 1975-1998] The warming rates and duration are similar in all three. What is special about the third ? Nothing !
This is the bedrock of the alarmist position and it is sand.
Positive overall feedback.
I say overall feedback because ice albedo feedbacks are real and positive but trivial. [2 % of the surface of the earth at a very shallow angle for a couple of months a year] If cloud rain feedbacks are negative they are thousands of times stronger.
Studies have been done which compare earth’s temperature response to a black body’s and the radiation output was greater than the black body case. This indicates a negative overall feedback. The study was in a peer reviewed journal and was replicated by 2 other teams of scientists
So the two main premises of the climate alarmists are hopelessly flawed. Yet the true believers continue to believe.
May 26, 2010, 6:23 amArn Riewe:
“Do you believe that global warming and climate change are a grave problem to the world at the moment ?
IF NO
What gives you reason to believe that global warming and climate change are not really happening? ”
You have to just love the juxtaposition if these two questions. If you don’t believe it’s a “grave” problem, you are instantly a “denier”. But what else would you expect from the media?
May 26, 2010, 6:29 amnetdr:
hunter:
“The period from 1600-1800 was among the coldest in the last 5000 years, so it is natural we would see warming in recovery from this.”
This statement, which you bleat frequently, shows that you have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of how the climate works. Not even the vaguest idea. You are utterly clueless.
****************
Actually it is you that is clueless.
Here is the sunspot count since 1700, notice the increase since the end of the LIA.
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfaml.html
The earth is a huge heat sink and I wouldn’t expect temperatures to instantly change in response to increased solar radiation but instead it would be a long term integration.
Alarmists also believe in positive feedback so this warming effect must be amplified by a factor of 6 or more. There is no possible way positive feedback could be selective and only amplify CO2 warming.
There are peer reviewed papers which show that the earth’s temperature since 1860 or so can be approximated by a straight line [because of increased solar activity and a 60 year sinusoid because of ocean cycles.]
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf
May 26, 2010, 6:36 amhunter:
netdr, you’re as mentally deficient as ‘climate-skeptic.
“The thermometer was invented at the end of the little ice age and it has warmed slightly since then. Well DUH!”
Does it automatically get warmer, just because it’s cold? How did the climate system know it was cold?
“Rapid warming was observed 3 times since then and 2 of these times CO2 could not have been the cause. [1860-1880 , 1910-40 and 1975-1998]”
CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere began to rise in the mid-1700s. Why do you think CO2 turned into a greenhouse gas at some time between 1940 and 1975?
“The earth is a huge heat sink and I wouldn’t expect temperatures to instantly change in response to increased solar radiation but instead it would be a long term integration.”
This meaningless statement only confirms that you have no idea at all about how climate systems work.
May 26, 2010, 8:15 amJack:
Why would anyone want to respond to the clueless hunter? It’s clear he is clueless. There’s no point in trying to comprehend what he had to say.
May 26, 2010, 10:13 amnetdr:
Hunter
You seem to have problems with the simplest concepts. I’ll see if I can explain some basic thermodynamics to you.
netdr, you’re as mentally deficient as ‘climate-skeptic. [Simple name calling - NetDr]
“The thermometer was invented at the end of the little ice age and it has warmed slightly since then. Well DUH!”
Does it automatically get warmer, just because it’s cold? How did the climate system know it was cold?
[***** Response: It does get warmer when the sun's radiation increases which the sunspots indicated it did. I provided a link which you probably didn't follow. --- NETDR}
“Rapid warming was observed 3 times since then and 2 of these times CO2 could not have been the cause. [1860-1880 , 1910-40 and 1975-1998]”
CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere began to rise in the mid-1700s. Why do you think CO2 turned into a greenhouse gas at some time between 1940 and 1975?
[********* It is widely accepted that mankind's emissions of CO2 didn't build up enough to be a possible cause of warming until after 1940. Perhaps you know better? Besides it was COOLING in 1940 to 1950 so you shoot yourself in the foot with that line of reasoning.----- NetDr]
“The earth is a huge heat sink and I wouldn’t expect temperatures to instantly change in response to increased solar radiation but instead it would be a long term integration.”
This meaningless statement only confirms that you have no idea at all about how climate systems work.
[Actually the statement has great meaning but you fail to comprehend it. I don’t know how to put it in simpler terms but I’ll try. If you were a fellow engineer you would have understood it the first time. Thermodynamics 101 would help you.
A heat sink is an engineering term for the way a mass absorbs heat.
The greater the thermal mass {heat sink} the longer it takes to absorb a given amount of heat.
The temperature of the earth would not shoot up in a year or two but as the sunspots got higher and higher aftter the end of the Maunder minimum the earth would have gradually warmed. It is like pushing a swing harder and again harder until the swing “builds up”!
I won’t even try to explain integration to you. Just use the word “sum”!— NetDr
May 26, 2010, 11:17 amhunter (the real one):
That the two main catastrophic AGW promoters at this site cannot even post under a consistent name, or must resort to name stealing, and simply hope to bluster and lie their way to winning, sort of puts their non-credibility and lack of substance into clear perspective: An empty argument inflated with their childish and empty rhetoric.
May 26, 2010, 11:24 amhunter:
By the way, the answers given by our host are reasonable, thoughtful and point out some of the fallacies true believers have to assume to sustain catastrophic AGW as a significant issue.
May 26, 2010, 11:28 amDoug:
Excellent responce. Well measured, honest and factual.
And the troll alarmist knee jerk responce?
Usual name calling and repetition of the silly term “denialist” (how can we sceptics be denialists of climate change when one point we make as often as possible is that climate has always changed?
On reflection I think I am wrong in the second sentence above,
I think “jerk” is a all that is needed to describe the trolls that have to resort to name calling.
May 26, 2010, 11:32 amGeoff:
It pleases me when alarmists resort to name-calling tactics. It makes the choice for those who haven’t decided much easier. At the end of the day, it matters little who is “wrong” or “right.” Mankind has always been fairly successful in adapting to a changing climate. We will continue to do so. As to making the climate “static,” which seems to be the goal of alarmists … good luck with that! Excuse me, I see a thunderstorm coming … time to adapt.
May 26, 2010, 2:27 pmRick Bradford:
*Yet the true believers continue to believe.*
Yes, because of the ‘perfect storm’ — AGW is a perfect alignment of interests between power-hungry narcissistic politicians, anti-capitalist environmentalists, rent-seeking scientists and scare-chasing journalists. No conspiracy required.
May 26, 2010, 5:21 pmJER0ME:
#
Arn Riewe:
“Do you believe that global warming and climate change are a grave problem to the world at the moment ?
IF NO
What gives you reason to believe that global warming and climate change are not really happening? ”
You have to just love the juxtaposition if these two questions. If you don’t believe it’s a “grave” problem, you are instantly a “denier”. But what else would you expect from the media?
May 26, 2010, 6:29 am
===================================
And more so, the Bait: “Do you think it is a grave problem?” and the Switch: “If ‘No’, why do you not think is happening?”, not “Why is it not a grave problem?”
Truly biased, but that is obvious.
May 26, 2010, 5:21 pmnetdr:
Hunter
I must have been assuming you had a background in science that you don’t have.
That big round shiny thing in the sky is called the “sun”.
When it gets dark places on it we call them “sunspots”
The more sunspots there are the more radiation the sun emits and the warmer the earth gets.
The little ice age was caused by the big round thing going dormant and having no spots for many years.
[Not much scientific debate about this and CO2 couldn’t have been the cause]
When the spots began coming back it got warmer. Well DUH!
I will skip the part about thermal mass because it is “meaningless “ to you !
The two last cycles of the 20 the century were a grand maximum. Thinking that they might have a connection with the warming which stopped around then is logical.
http://sidc.oma.be/html/wolfaml.html
At least part of the warming seen since the invention of the thermometer in the depths of the little Ice Age is not caused by CO2 since it [CO2] didn’t build up until mid 20 th century.
I know that thinking the big shiny thing has some effect on earth’s temperature is eco-treason, and believing that positive feedback [ if it occurs] would apply to any source of warming not just CO2 warming is heresy !
May 26, 2010, 7:06 pmFrankS:
Must be a pretty good interview, this article has made it onto todays Campaign against Climate Change skeptic email alerts where they encourage you to “politely explain in the comments section why global warming is actually happening and why it’s not a big conspiracy”
If you want to receive their alerts as well and politely explain in the comments section why global warming is NOT actually happening select the Get involved link at http://www.campaigncc.org
Keep up the good work.
May 27, 2010, 4:59 amhunter:
netdr,
May 27, 2010, 5:13 amI would point out that the ‘hunter’ you are trying to communicate with is the fraud/troll who, like Waldo, not only understands nothing, but is too lazy and unoriginal to make and stick to one name.
Sort of like the way true believers have to morph between ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ to ‘climate crisis’ to keep the sheep and trolls in line.
netdr:
Sorry.
You seem to be the victim of identity theft.
May 27, 2010, 5:55 amhunter:
netdr,
May 27, 2010, 8:05 amThe alarmists have stolen an entire science. The theft of my handle is just a tiny irritant when compared to the damage the alarmists have inflicted.
Justa Joe:
“CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere began to rise in the mid-1700s.” – Hunter (not original)
Hunter (not original), Surely you’re not trying to suggest that anthropogenic CO2 was effecting the climate in the mid 1700′s? If your’re stating that natural CO2 concentrations began to rise at that time please explain where the increased CO2 emenated from?
Even today the CO2 content of the atmosphere is miniscule (4/100ths of 1%), and the “human contribution” to that content is miniscule (claimed 7% of the increase in CO2, which means by absolute volume a very small percentage). This is one of the things that cracks me up about the warmists. They want to take mankind’s miniscule CO2 output, take draconian and economy killingly expensive measures to cut that small output by some insignificant percentage, and have us pay them for saving the planet.
May 27, 2010, 9:39 amADiff:
I would argue it’s not so much “[t]he alarmists have stolen an entire science” as “the alarmists have fabricated an entire ‘science’”.
Studies related to warming and climate variation are quite distinct from the Alarmist movement, which appears largely, and perhaps entirely, based on no science at all (except, perhaps, political ‘science’).
Human contributions to atmospheric CO2 were minuscule in the 18th Century, and didn’t become really significant until after the World Wars.
Even in spite of the logarithmic aspect of CO2 influence on warming, it’s difficult to credit anthropomorphic contributions with any significant impact prior to WWII, and basically impossible to do such at any point prior to the end of the second World War.
May 27, 2010, 10:07 amADiff:
Correction of typographical error in prior post:
The final sentence should read
Even in spite of the logarithmic aspect of CO2 influence on warming, it’s difficult to credit anthropomorphic contributions with any significant impact prior to WWII, and basically impossible to do such at any point prior to the end of the first World War.
May 27, 2010, 12:38 pmhunter:
“The theft of my handle…”
What pathetic melodramatic whinging. You think you’re the only person in the world called Hunter?
“It is widely accepted that mankind’s emissions of CO2 didn’t build up enough to be a possible cause of warming until after 1940. Perhaps you know better? Besides it was COOLING in 1940 to 1950 so you shoot yourself in the foot with that line of reasoning.”
Yet another fuckwit seems to get some kind of kick out of displaying their appalling ignorance to the world. There’s so much wrong in just this one paragraph that it’s even more depressing than most of the shit-dribbling that goes on here.
No, it is not “widely accepted” that 1940 had any relevance at all. CO2 concentrations started rising in the mid-1700s. CO2 did not suddenly become a greenhouse gas in 1940. Any increase in CO2 means less outgoing IR radiation. Anyone who doesn’t know this has no right to hold an opinion about global warming.
OMG it was COOLING! from 1940-1950. You shout in capitals so clearly you think this means something terribly important. Do you think the climate can only be controlled by one factor at a time?
As for your inane comment about heat sinks, you clearly have not got the remotest understanding of the response times of the various parts of the climate system. Perhaps you can explain in your own framework of understanding why it gets colder at night, and why midsummer’s day is never the hottest time of the year.
May 27, 2010, 12:43 pmnetdr:
Hunter [the phony one]
No, it is not “widely accepted” that 1940 had any relevance at all. CO2 concentrations started rising in the mid-1700s. [Cite your source. NetDr]CO2 did not suddenly become a greenhouse gas in 1940. [Who said it did ?-- NetDr]
Any increase in CO2 means less outgoing IR radiation. [prove the CO2 increased if you can and what caused it. You are the only one claiming it around 1700.-- NetDr] Anyone who doesn’t know this has no right to hold an opinion about global warming. [And you do ? Surely you jest. You make up facts to suit yourself. -- NetDr]
**********
You are simply wrong about that supposed fact.
Cite your source.
You have a right to your own opinion you do not have a right to your own facts.
You made that supposed “fact” up. It fools no one.
Climate alarmists do seem to think that the climate is only affected by CO2, are you somehow different ?
Tenths of a degree for a planet wide “AVERAGE” do not occur overnight it takes years of steadily increasing pushes like the example of the swing to get real warming.
When the climate alarmists are quizzed about the lack of feedback they say the feedbacks take hundreds of years but somehow feedback to the sun’s warming should happen overnight. That is about as logical as climate alarmism is about everything else.
There is no logical reason why CO2′s puny warming should be multiplied by 6 or more but the sun’s mighty warming should not, or that one should take place overnight and the other one take hundred’s of years. [ But logic isn't the strong suit of climate alarmists.]
May 27, 2010, 5:59 pmEric Anderson:
One other interesting difference between the “No” questions and the “Yes” questions:
Most of the “No” questions are focused on thoughts about the scientific evidence, while several of the “Yes” questions ask respondents for speculation about future catastrophe that await. This difference underscores the media interest in hearing about disaster scenarios, as well as the current lack of actual existing catastrophes to point to (thus the need to imagine future ones).
May 27, 2010, 11:00 pmhunter:
Wow. You really didn’t know that CO2 started rising in the mid 1700s? That really is some appalling ignorance.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.smooth75.gif
“There is no logical reason why CO2’s puny warming should be multiplied by 6 or more but the sun’s mighty warming should not”
Indeed. Only the mentally incapable think that there would be. Why do you even think you can begin to understand this stuff? You’re simply not intelligent enough to make any headway with it.
May 28, 2010, 12:05 amnetdr:
Hunter [the phony one]
Here is a reconstruction of the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
http://www.who.int/globalchange/environment/en/fig2.2.new.gif
Even your own graph shows no appreciable increase until 1900. Even then it is so small it would have almost zero effect !
[I measure 5 % of a doubling which your own guru Dr Hansen says would cause 5/100 degree warming which he claims will be multiplied by 6 after 100 years or so, the immediate effect would be unmeasurable.]
So we see a flea on the back of an elephant and say the flea is the reason the elephant has put on weight.
Twisting logic to make CAGW work is for scientist in the pay of the climate industry.
You aren’t very good at it.
Since you admit that solar warming would be multiplied by 6 or more and that the effects would take 100 years or more the warming is probably just solar warming and feedback and CO2 did very little.
May 28, 2010, 6:14 amJusta Joe:
Hunter, I’m not sure if you noticed it, but your own chart shows that CO2 in the 1700′s was near a relative minimum for previous millenium. Even when CO2 begins to increase in the latter the 1700′s it only gets back to about the average for the previous millenium.
Also due to the way your chart is scaled the entire “massive increase” in CO2 concentration from 1700 – 1799 appears to be around 5 parts per million or less. The measurement tolerance is probably greater than 5 PPM.
May 28, 2010, 8:14 amBrian H:
One quibble with the author and netdr; sunspots are cool areas. They affect the Earth indirectly, by pushing increased solar wind which protects the planet from cosmic ray seeding of excessively cooling low cloud. The energy fluctuations are minute, not significant.
_____
The Earth is in a CO2 famine, and, were it only possible, we should drive the level back up to the long-term average of 1-2,000 ppm to aid plant growth. Not that it would have any influence on temperatures, unfortunately; the maximum “saturated” effect of CO2 “signature” absorption and re-emission was achieved long ago, at under 100 ppm. Too bad. Warm periods have always been boom times for humanity and Life On Earth.
As for clean alternatives, the ones endorsed by the Warmists and ecofreaks are so un-economic that they would cause a huge global depression, and starve hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest to death. Much of that has already occurred with the biofuel-food-price spike.
Here’s a good modelling of the cost-benefit balances for a 100-year span, ASSUMING AGW is valid: nybooks.com/articles/21494 . Gore’s and Stern’s draconian carbon controls come out the worst, by far.
May 28, 2010, 10:14 amDave Stephens:
Hunter (the warmist). Dude. You’re hilarious. “Started rising in the 1700′s…” LOL
Look up the words ‘negligible,’ ‘miniscule,’ and ‘infinitesimal.’ Go ahead. We’ll wait here…
May 28, 2010, 11:42 amADiff:
In addition to negligible, miniscule and infinitesimal add “disingenuous” to the list.
May 28, 2010, 11:56 amhunter:
“Even your own graph shows no appreciable increase until 1900″
You’re so fucking stupid you can’t even see what’s on the graph. Amazing. You’re too stupid even to understand how stupid you are.
“Even then it is so small it would have almost zero effect !”
Wrong. Look up MODTRAN. Use it to calculate the effect of a 5% increase in CO2 concentrations.
Dave Stephens – your pointless remarks provided a new apogee of pathetic mental inadequacy for this thread.
May 28, 2010, 1:54 pmbarry woods:
please keep stating:
No one is sceptical about climae change (the planet does naturally)
most scientists would accept, man made climate change- due to co2, greenhouse gas, if CO2 doubled, of about0.5-1.0C
Sceptics, are merely sceptical, about catastrophic, alarmist man made climate chnange, assuming Feedbacks that are not there, with computer models (many different ones) with a range of +2 to +12C between them
against all observational data.
May 28, 2010, 2:02 pmnetdr:
Hunter [the phony one]
“Even your own graph shows no appreciable increase until 1900″
You’re so fucking stupid you can’t even see what’s on the graph. Amazing. You’re too stupid even to understand how stupid you are. [Name calling indicates low intelligence. Those with even lower intelligence throw in swearing. Anyone can do it. --- NetDr]
“Even then it is so small it would have almost zero effect !”
Wrong. Look up MODTRAN. Use it to calculate the effect of a 5% increase in CO2 concentrations.
***************
You are bluffing.
Name calling is easy and any fool can do it and most do.
1) Why should I believe MODTRAN ? Because it is a computer program ? I am not impressed. I can write one which predicts something else. Big deal ! The tendency of people to turn off their brain when confronted with a computer program is amazing.
The relationship between CO2 increase and temperature increase is logarithmic but a simple ratio is close enough to get a feel for the amount and you don’t need any untrusted model. You can name call all you want but the truth is that 5% of a doubling of CO2 will cause about .05 o C. We engineers call it a ” rule of thumb”!
If a doubling causes 1 degree of warming 5 % of a doubling causes about .05 o C. Quibble and name call all you like.
There is a measurable correspondence between the number of sunspots and the warmth of the earth. Despite the fact that the sunspot itself is cool it causes the earth to warm. The effect is measurable but not entirely understood.
Do you think the fact that it is a coincidence that when the maunder minimum came along and sunspots were very low for a long time the earth cooled substantially ?
Do you also think it is a coincidence that when the sunspots returned that the earth warmed ?
I know CO2 is the answer to everything? “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail”.
May 28, 2010, 7:41 pmBrian H:
netdr;
May 28, 2010, 8:24 pma wee trick for your subsequent posts: to show the degrees symbol, hold the ALT key and enter 0176 on the numeric keypad. Thus: °. For the cents symbol, ALT-155: ¢. One-half: ALT-171: ½. One-quarter: ALT-172: ¼. Lots of others, plus the usual ASCII symbols and letters. x}êôƒªÉ etc.
netdr:
Hunter [the phony one]
“The rough guide to Climate Change” by Henson says that solar output varies by .1 % over a sunspot cycle.
That means approximately 300 K Times 1/1000 or .3 ° C [K]. With feedbacks of 6 or more which apply to all warming not just CO2 warming that is 1.8 ° C. They take hundreds of years to build up, at least that is what the alarmists claim.
Let’s hear another rant it makes you sound so intelligent.
Brian — Thanks for the trick.
May 29, 2010, 5:54 amAlan McIntire:
netdr: That solar output would vary by 0.1% in WATTS, not temperature. At current values, earth’s temperature would increase ( or decrease) about 0.25 per watt, so the net fluctuation would be about 342*0.001 *1/4 = 0.085 C
May 29, 2010, 9:41 am.,085 C
netdr:
Alan
Why would the temperature rise not be proportional to the increase in solar input ?
Please cite a paper or some other place I can see the reasoning. You may be right but simply stating it is so doesn’t make it so.
Even using your figures for the sake of the discussion.
You omitted the 6 to 12 multiplication of positive feedback the climate alarmists love to use to boost the puny CO2 warming.
If you include it .08 x 6 = .48 C to .08 x 12 = .96 so the bulk of the .7 o C warming in the last 100 years is solar.
CO2 did very little or no warming.
Is there some reasoning which makes solar radiation not eligible for this amplification ? I have never seen adequate justification for this illogical reasoning. Once CO2 provides it’s warming the feedback is entirely caused by other factors.
May 29, 2010, 4:47 pmBrian H:
Actually, CO2 at atmospheric temps is irrelevant.
“Rather, the atmospheric greenhouse mechanism is a conjecture [= preliminary guess without evidence, which may lead to a hypothesis with pass-fail proposals, which may eventually qualify as a theory], which may be proved or disproved already [= previously] in concrete engineering thermodynamics [95{97]. Exactly this was done well many years ago by an expert in this field, namely Alfred Schack, who wrote a classical text-book on this subject [95]. [In] 1972 he showed that the radiative component of heat transfer of CO2, though relevant at the temperatures in combustion chambers, can be neglected at atmospheric temperatures. The influence of carbonic acid on the Earth’s climates is definitively unmeasurable [98].”
May 31, 2010, 8:04 am—
“Falsification of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame of Physics,” International Journal of Modern Physics B, v23, n03, January 6, 2009, pp. 275-364. Free download at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf.
hunter:
The pathetic thing is how scientist/hunter/mindless drooler/loser troll has no ability to engage, no understanding of the issues, and no ability to communicate to the level of passing a touring test.
June 1, 2010, 7:54 amYet persists in posting.
The reality of the world not experiencing a climate catastrophe has driven him/her/it crazy. But it was apparently a short drive.
hunter:
netdr (the paedophile one)
“Why should I believe MODTRAN ? Because it is a computer program ?”
Do the radiative transfer calculations by hand if you like. You’ll get the same answer. Except you won’t, because you don’t actually understand what radiative transfer is, so obviously there’s no way you could calculate it. This, you see, is the problem – you’re completely ignorant.
“5% of a doubling of CO2 will cause about .05 o C”
Pulling figures out of your arse impresses no-one, except those who like to see shit. Radiative forcing due to a 5% increase = 5.35 * ln(1.05). Climate sensitivity is approximately 0.75 K/W/m2. Do the maths. Tell me the answer. I doubt you understand what I’ve just described but you may prove me wrong.
“Do you think the fact that it is a coincidence that when the maunder minimum came along and sunspots were very low for a long time the earth cooled substantially ? ”
Do you know about grammar?
hunter: oh! what devastating scientific arguments you put forth!
June 1, 2010, 3:54 pmhunter (the sane one):
@hunter (the psychopathetic one)
And your scientific arguments are
a) empty
b) wrong
c) psychotic, like the rest of your persona
d) all of the above
Most people will select d).
June 1, 2010, 8:07 pmnetdr:
Hunter [the phony one]
Pulling figures out of your arse impresses no-one, except those who like to see shit. Radiative forcing due to a 5% increase = 5.35 * ln(1.05). [is this in C?]
[You can pull them from yours though ? Interesting. Cite your reference [5.35 * .021 = .11 with 6 X positive feedback is .68 which is almost the entire warming of .7 C Who needs CO2 ?] — NetDr]
Climate sensitivity is approximately 0.75 K/W/m2. Do the maths. Tell me the answer. I doubt you understand what I’ve just described but you may prove me wrong.
[The argument among scientists about climate sensitivity rages on and you know the answer ? Please tell the scientists because that is one of the most important unknowns in all of science. -- Netdr
“Do you think the fact that it is a coincidence that when the maunder minimum came along and sunspots were very low for a long time the earth cooled substantially ? ”
Do you know about grammar?
[Great answer, my English was a little sloppy so what? When do you give a rebuttal with meaning ? I am an engineer not an English major.-- NetDr]
*******************************
In short your answer consists of lots of calculations pulled out of your *** and a comment that mine are wrong.
Greenpeace could be the source of your calculations. The IPCC loves to cite them or un-named hikers as a reference.
Then you cite the IPCC and suddenly the hiker is a world class expert.
I will never understand why CO2 warming is routinely multiplied by 6 to 12 depending upon how much panic is desired, but solar warming never is. Since CO2 is not involved in the feedback mechanism why do climate alarmists fail to multiply other sources of warming by 6 or more ? Because it spoils their arguments.
You have failed to address this point. Is it because you have no rebuttal ?
June 2, 2010, 6:45 amhunter:
netdr (the brain-damaged one)
You don’t know what radiative forcing is. It is expressed in W/m², not in °C.
You don’t know what logarithms are. ln means natural logarithm, not logarithm in base 10.
You don’t know even what the equations I quoted are used for – as I predicted.
You pull figures out of your arse because you have not the slightest idea what they mean. You are certainly not an engineer. Engineers generally know about basic maths like logarithms. You’re a retard. Were you born that way or have you received a brain injury? You are probably incapable of forgetting your bizarre notion about multiplying anything by “6 to 12″, now that it’s found its way into your tiny mind, but you should try, because the notion has no basis at all in reality.
Your English was not just “a little sloppy”. Your question did not make any sense at all. To take part in scientific discourse, you first need to be able to write in English. And then you need to have the ability to think scientifically. You fail on both counts. You seem to think that by randomly throwing around numbers and dribbling, you’re proving something. You are, but it’s not even remotely what you hope it is.
In case anyone less lobotomised is interested, the radiative forcing due to a 5 % increase in CO2 concentrations can be calculated approximately as 5.35*ln(1.05). The relevant equation is from Myhre et al, 1998, GRL, 25, 2715, and is very simple to understand and very commonly used. 5.35*ln(1.05) is 0.26W/m². Climate sensitivity, according to many independent lines of evidence, is around 0.75K/W/m². Thus, a 5% increase in CO2 should cause a temperature rise, in the end, of around 0.2°C, all else being equal.
June 2, 2010, 2:31 pmDoc_Navy:
Hunter (The troll)
You know, I’ve sat and read your entire exchange, and the thing that strikes me is you simulaneously manage to engage in vulgar (and useless) ad Hominem while actually expressing **ZERO** (cap use for emphasis) useful information. You don’t even defend your talking points very well. Interestingly you have called others stupid, ignorant, etc… then have contradicted yourself on simple matters. Example:
“CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere began to rise in the mid-1700s. Why do you think CO2 turned into a greenhouse gas at some time between 1940 and 1975?”-Hunter, May 26, 2010, 8:15 am
“No, it is not “widely accepted” that 1940 had any relevance at all. CO2 concentrations started rising in the mid-1700s. CO2 did not suddenly become a greenhouse gas in 1940.”- Hunter, May 27, 2010, 12:43 pm
So, which is it? CO2 “turned” into a greenhouse gas between 1940-1975 or not?
Also, speaking of “staggering ignorance”… Global climate has historically run in CYCLES of various types, lengths and causes; ask any paleoclimatologist (including Gavin Schmidt, or Michael Mann) Apparently you need to look up what a cycle is. If there is a warming *cycle* then neccessarily there is a cooling portion of that cycle. The cooling portion of a climate cycle that included the LIA ended roughly around 1800, give or take a few years. Now, what happens at the end of a cycle swing? Obviously, it goes back the other direction. Therefor, calling the warming that occurred NATURALLY after the LIA a “recovery” is just fine.
Why “recovery”? Because warm is better than cold for 99.9% of all life on this planet. This is an undisputed FACT. (that warm is better than cold, not the 99.9% as I don’t really know the exact percentage, but if you feel the need to argue the point please point to a significant organisim that thrives in cold better. I’m sure there are some out there, but the vast majority of life on Earth would seem to prove different) Warm = good = life. A person “recovers” from a heart attack. recover = good.
See the connection? Did I break it down barney style enough for you? Warm = good, recover = good. Get it?
Meh, I’ve already lost my taste for conversing with you. I’ll just end this here. Other than to say that it is folks like you that continue to drive more and more people to the skeptical side of this issue. You really need to learn to communicate better, and with more respect.
Doc
June 3, 2010, 9:30 amhunter:
Doc_Navy (the fuckwit)
You seem to be a bit illiterate. If I ask “Why do you think [something]?”, then that means I want to know why you think that thing, not that I think it. Don’t accuse me of contradicting myself when you’re just too stupid to understand simple English.
Are volcanoes cyclic? Are long term solar changes cyclic? Is atmospheric composition cyclic? You seem utterly oblivious to the fact that the climate has no equilibrium state, and climate variables do not oscillate about a central value. They never have, and they never will do. Anyone who talks about “recovery” in the context of climate does not have a clue what they are talking about. It would be just as stupid to describe the little ice age as a recovery from the mediaeval warm period.
“warm is better than cold for 99.9% of all life on this planet. This is an undisputed FACT”
Obviously, you don’t know what evolution is or how it works. Natural selection doesn’t select for conditions that have never existed. Why don’t polar bears live at the equator? This is primary school stuff, but your pathetic intellect still isn’t up to it. Anyone who writes something as banal as “warm = good” is a simple-minded tosser.
More respect? Like your very respectful greeting, I suppose? Stupid fucking cunt.
June 3, 2010, 12:58 pmBargHumer:
@Doc_Navy
In fairness to the somewhat offensive Hunter (The Troll), he didn’t contradict himself. His english may be limited, and his science too, (not to mention his manners) but his “Why do you think …” was not a statement,it was a question addressed to netdr, as though that is what netdr thought. If you read Hunter (The Troll) again, you will see the same form of expression often used. The sentence can be read both ways, but the context shows that he didn’t himself think “CO2 turned into a greenhouse gas at some time between 1940 and 1975″.
Aside from the climate debate, the dynamics of blogs like this are quite interesting. The frustration, intollerance, arrogance and total exasperation are all there.
June 3, 2010, 1:00 pmSundevil:
Hunter (the acerbic one) has to be a skeptic plant. No one could possibly expect anyone to successfully argue this way. I have no desire to pursue his/her/its logic or reasoning based on the overly contentious way the points are delivered. I choose to disagree just to piss it off. Again, who argues this way? 5th graders? Sociopaths? Mafioso? Whatever it is, I choose to save time by moving on to the next post. If on the other hand, it would deliver its points without the insults, people might learn something and possible change or modify their current position. Sadly, I don’t think this is its motivation. It just likes being the all knowing Intelligentsia brought here to belittle the plebes who dare disagree with what Almighty Science has dictated to be the never changing Truth. Because we all know that science is never wrong as has never had to change any of it positions over the past 500+ years. And young sciences such as Climate Science are even more accurate now, aren’t they?
June 3, 2010, 3:04 pmBargHumer:
I think Hunter (The Troll) is an AGW plant. Not designed to win any arguments, but to stop people wanting to engage. It is a way of diverting reasonable discussions which could lead to a better understanding of the skeptic position. It is a strategy that seems to work.
June 4, 2010, 6:19 amnetdr:
Hunter [the troll's] verbal abuse tactic is obvious.
He has no understanding of climate and seeks to close any discussion which he cannot win with abuse. Since he cannot make logical arguments and defend them he knows he will lose all arguments so he seeks to end the discussion with abuse.
Small gramatical errors become evidence of brain damage etc. He is really pathetic.
It works [to end the discussion] , but nothing worthwhile is learned.
June 4, 2010, 6:50 amWally:
I suggest everyone just ignore the ranting Hunter. I’ll engage in conversations with some that may use ad hominems or strawmen to attack the arguments of skeptics, even if they come off fairly disingenuous. Some of them are that way because they don’t really know what they are doing and why it is faulty. And some are even extremely stubborn in allowing some sort of logical discussion, but on occation something does get through even if they don’t agree and choose to ignore most of the argument (see Waldo). While others there is no hope, they are so wrapped around DAGW that logical conversation is impossible. Shills is this way, as is this Hunter. Shills’ only redeming quality is that he makes his personal attacks and displays ignorance in a slightly less flagrant manner. Actually, come to think of it, that’s a bad thing. At least Hunter is so obvious with them one doesn’t need to read beyond the first line to know he’s a complete hack.
June 4, 2010, 8:52 amnetdr:
Contrary to what Hunter [the troll] says the earth’s climate is a negative feedback system.
A true positive feedback system would run away since warming would cause more warming which would cause more warming etc. No climatologist seriously thinks that is the way the climate works.
The paradox is that without a true positive feedback system there is no amplification of CO2’s puny warming. [1 ° C pr doubling of CO2]. Without the phony amplification there is no crisis.
A negative feedback system is one in which a perturbation in one direction causes a reaction which causes the system to go in the other direction. The 1998 overshoot caused the 1999 and 2000 undershoot which were followed by another overshoot. Climatologists and anyone that knows anything about feedback knows this describes the earth’s climate system.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif
On short and long time cycles a negative feedback system rebounds from a perturbation by rebounding toward a “set point” so that when the Maunder Minimum was over and sunspot cycles returned the temperature rebounded toward the previous temperatures.
Negative feedback processes like clouds and water vapor and rain tend to amplify the negative feedback effects ! In this case they added extra warming. In other circumstances they could cause cooling.
To claim that any warming observed was due to CO2 is evidence of sloppy thinking.
I just wanted to post this so others might understand. Hunter’s rants won’t stop information exchange.
His motives are apparent to all of us.
June 4, 2010, 11:15 amAlan McIntire:
In repy to NETDR- completely ignoring all feedbacks, radiation doesn’t increase directly in proportion to temperature, it increases as the fourth power of temperature. If the sun’s output increased to 1.001 in watts, the earth’s temperature would increase roghly to 1.00025 in degrees Kelvin, neglecting any feedbacks.
You might find this of interest:
http://www.john-daly.com/miniwarm.htm
and this
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
June 4, 2010, 12:31 pmDoc_Navy:
Cont…
5. “you seem utterly oblivious to the fact that the climate has no equilibrium state, and climate variables do not oscillate about a central value.” HAHAHAHAHA! ok. If you only understood how this statement utterly annihilates your own CAGW postition, you’d douse yourself in gasoline and set yourself on fire out of sheer embarrassment for actually having made this statement. Unfortunately, you are apparantly too stupid to see the contradiction. Think about what you just said.. then go punch yourself in the testicles once you have figured it out.
6. “It would be just as stupid to describe the little ice age as a recovery from the mediaeval warm period.” This is about the only correct thing in your whole vulgar, ignorant rant. Except of course that life LIKES warm, and in terms of “optimal” living conditions warm is better, and since better = good and “recovery” implies moving from a worse condition to a better one.. “Recovery” = good.
7. “Obviously, you don’t know what evolution is or how it works.” Once again, get ready to punch yourself in the testicles, as apparently YOU don’t understand evolution. Polar bears don’t live on the equator because they are NORTH AMERICAN BROWN BEARS that *adapted* over a short period of time (ref: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100301141848.htm)
(ref: http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/science-technology/Polar-Bear-Fossil-Traces-Origin-to-Brown-Bears-86392697.html)
If someone were to transplant a polar bear to equatorial zones… they’d do just fine. You see, moron, it’s NOT *BECAUSE* of the cold that polar bears thrive, it’s DESPITE the cold. Time to go back to elementary school and learn the difference and relationships between Evolution, Adaptation, and Natural Selection.
SO, your attempt at arguing that Planetary life doesn’t prefer warm over cold… total FAIL.
You truly are and ignorant twit who just posts for the sake of spewing venom. What happened, were you not breast fed or something?
8. Respect. Sorry pal, you don’t get to try to point fingers at me because I called you a “troll”, as you so obviously are. YOU don’t make the rules. Check your very first post on this thread, then look at all the rest. *YOU* came here with disrespect, and you got it back in return. You don’t like being called a “troll”… STOP ACTING LIKE ONE!
Doc
June 4, 2010, 12:52 pmDoc_Navy:
Hunter (The troll),
Wow. Where to begin? I guess I’ll take it in the same order that you post:
1. Calling *me* illiterate because I have a hard time piecing together *YOUR* crappy middle school grammar, and lack of simple English skills is… well, ironic. (look that word up)
2. “Are Volcanoes Cyclic?” I’d ask what that has to do with the discussion, but I have a better answer: Speaking of Fuckwits … YES THEY ARE.
(ref: //volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/about/history/cycles.php)
(ref: http://www.physorg.com/news142778457.html)
(ref: jgs.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/128/4/311)
3. “Are long term solar changes cyclic?” Once again, speaking of illiterate fuckwits, YES, THEY ARE.
(ref: http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html)
(ref: http://www.stat.psu.edu/reports/2005/tr0504.pdf)
(ref: http://www.springerlink.com/content/v658447r1k162hjv/)
(ref: ncse.com/rncse/18/5/long-term-solar-oscillations-age-sun)
4. “Is atmospheric composition cyclic?” Wow, believe it or not… strike, fucking, three as guess what? THERE *ARE* atmospheric composition cycles. (In all honesty, I didn’t know that either, but… well, *I’m* not the one who looks ignorant for not knowing it, and YOU are since you brought it up.)
June 4, 2010, 12:59 pm(ref: orion.it.luc.edu/~mschmel/Handout3.pdf)
(ref: http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/fall05/atmo551a/pdf/CarbonCycle.pdf)
(ref: http://www.docbrown.info/page21/GeoChangesANS01.htm)
(ref: http://www.iac.ethz.ch/education/master/curriculum/modules/com)
Doc_Navy:
Hunter (The troll),
Wow. Where to begin? I guess I’ll take it in the same order that you post:
1. Calling *me* illiterate because I have a hard time piecing together *YOUR* crappy middle school grammar, and lack of simple English skills is… well, ironic. (look that word up)
2. “Are Volcanoes Cyclic?” I’d ask what that has to do with the discussion, but I have a better answer: Speaking of Fuckwits … YES THEY ARE.
(ref: http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/about/history/cycles.php)
3. “Are long term solar changes cyclic?” Once again, speaking of illiterate fuckwits, YES, THEY ARE.
(ref: http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html)
4. “Is atmospheric composition cyclic?” Wow, believe it or not… strike, fucking, three as guess what? THERE *ARE* atmospheric composition cycles. (In all honesty, I didn’t know that either, but… well, *I’m* not the one who looks ignorant for not knowing it, and YOU are since you brought it up.)
(ref: http://orion.it.luc.edu/~mschmel/Handout3.pdf)
I have about six references per point but there seems to be a limit on the number of links. Look it up yourself.
Cont…
June 4, 2010, 1:03 pmDoc_Navy:
Hunter (The troll),
Wow. Where to begin? I guess I’ll take it in the same order that you post:
1. Calling *me* illiterate because I have a hard time piecing together *YOUR* crappy middle school grammar, and lack of simple English skills is… well, ironic. (look that word up)
2. “Are Volcanoes Cyclic?” I’d ask what that has to do with the discussion, but I have a better answer: Speaking of Fuckwits … YES THEY ARE.
3. “Are long term solar changes cyclic?” Once again, speaking of illiterate fuckwits, YES, THEY ARE.
4. “Is atmospheric composition cyclic?” Wow, believe it or not… strike, fucking, three as guess what? THERE *ARE* atmospheric composition cycles. (In all honesty, I didn’t know that either, but… well, *I’m* not the one who looks ignorant for not knowing it, and YOU are since you brought it up.)
I had a ton of reference links, but apparently the filter on this site doesn’t like them, so look it up yourself.
Cont…
June 4, 2010, 1:06 pmhunter:
1. Yes, you are illiterate. You failed to understand a very simple statement. Your problem, not mine.
June 4, 2010, 2:02 pm2. Wrong.
3. Wrong.
4. Wrong. What a fucking idiot.
5. Do explain further.
6. Wrong. Life likes the conditions it has adapted to, not ones it has never experienced. Pretty fucking obvious when you think about it.
7. Duh. Do brown bears live at the equator?
8. Call me a troll, if you like. Why would I give a shit? I’ll call you a paedophile granny-raping shit-eating retard in return. Isn’t this fun?
Wally:
Doc_Navy,
I like your rant against hunter there. Very entertaining.
The most interesting part of much of this climate debate for me doesn’t really center around what the climate is going to do but what its effects on life will be.
The DAGW advocates like to spew about how we’ll see X number of extinctions or Y human deaths from Z amount of warming, but they don’t care talk about A number of species that diverge and thrive or B number of human lives saved or improved in some way.
For life in general, you’re absolutely right, warm = good. Life generally doesn’t do well with frozen water or temps that come even close to freezing water. Enzymes aren’t active, even diffusion is slow, membranes are rigid, etc. And considering that our planet contains much more area where temps are at or below freezing are normal vs. where temps are high enough to hinder life (we’re talking 110+ at minimum), it should be pretty obvious life has more to lose from our planet getting colder than warmer. Plus, warmth generally means more H20 in the air. Outside of non-freezing temps, the next thing life needs is plentiful water. As the Earth warms more water evaporates from the oceans. Meaning more rainfall on land. Yeah, sure warming could cause certain areas to have less H20 because global trends don’t necessarily transfer to micro-climates, but on average it will mean more rain. Then of course, warmer temps also mean milder winters or longer spring-falls seasons. This mean longer growing seasons. Combined with more water, this leads to better life for humans, along with pretty much every other organism. (And gosh, wouldn’t longer growing seasons and northern expansion of greenery mean more CO2 consumption?)
Then we have these extinction issues. Well, we’re coming out of an ice age and are likely leaving a cold period that’s lasted millions of years. Life adapted to colder climates in that time period. This is why, for example, we don’t have 2 ton sauropsids anymore. They simply can’t be that big on a cold planet and be “cold” blooded (or “lukewarm blooded”). Anyway, so as we leave this cooler period, we should expect that species that have adapted to specialize in cooler climate to die, while those that can handle it will live, even thrive as they replace the dieing species. This idea that polar bears going extinct is a bad thing is just totally bogus. Eventually all species will go extinct or diverge into a new species that can deal with current conditions, what ever they are. This is not good or bad, its just life and its natural, we can’t fight it.
And on a bit of a tangent, environmentalists fancy themselves liberals right? To fight for today’s living organisms is one of the most pure “liberal” tenets right? Unfortunately, it is, in truth, a conservative ideal. To be conservative is to resist change. This is how we define conservatives, they resist change to give gay people rights of marriage, or legalize abortion, or give women and black people votes, to allow divorce, etc. Well our environmentalists are fighting to resist an even more unstoppable force than social progressivism, evolution. Polar bears will likely die or adapt to likely become unrecognizable as polar bears (no more white fur for sure) as the Earth inevitably warms in the next how ever long. It is an unwinable fight. Or at best, its an unnecissary fight, as polar bears may be perfectly able to adapt to warmer climates, but just haven’t needed to until recently.
In the end the Earth will get warmer with our without anthropogenic GHGs. History has shown that much to be true. Unfortunately for DAGW advocates, history has also shown that life, and especially human life (notice how the great cultures of the past have occurred during relatively warm periods?), thrives in warmer climates. So even if AGW is happening, I have an extremely hard time believing its a bad thing for us in particular, and life in general. In deed, instead of dangerous (or catastrophic) anthropogenic global warming, it may truly be “beneficial anthropogenic global warming”.
June 4, 2010, 2:12 pmnetdr:
ALAN
THANKS FOR THE LINKS.
Actually I knew about the 4 th power problem but Hunter didn’t so I let it slide. [sneaky ?]
Using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation again (E=kT^4) , the likely warming resulting from a +1.5 wm-2 energy flux increase can be calculated by increasing `E’ in the equation from 387 wm-2 (the present mean flux at earths surface) to 388.5 wm-2 , (the expected flux after a CO2 doubling).
This method gives a warming of +0.28 C for a doubling of CO2.[without the mythical feedbacks]
So even Dr Hansen’s estimate if 1 C for a doubling of CO2 is too high ?
Thanks again.
June 4, 2010, 4:16 pmAlan McIntire:
Actually, if CO2 blocked 3.7 watts, as stated by the IPCC, surface radiation would increase by 3.7 watts. According to Trenbeth’s figures,
the earth’s surface gets about 490 watts/ square meter, and radiates away 390 in sensible heat, 100 in convection and the latent heat of vaporization.
With no greenhouse effect, the earth would get about 240 watts. We get an additional 250 watts from the greenhouse effect, but 40% of that, 100 watts, goes into latent heat. If 40% of that 3.7 watt increase goes into latent heat, we’d get a temperature increase of
June 5, 2010, 9:42 am(392.92/390.7) = 0.41C with a doubling, still small, and that’s before taking into consideration the increased albedo from that increase in clouds from the 78 watt level to the 79.48 watt level in latent heat of vaporization.
netdr:
Alan
The difference between 1.5 W/m-2 and 3.7 W/m-2 illustrates the lack of agreement on even the basic facts of the debate.
Which is correct ?
As you stated:
“that’s before taking into consideration the increased albedo from that increase in clouds from the 78 watt level to the 79.48 watt level in latent heat of vaporization.”
The effect of clouds is where the real body is buried and the models are inadequate to calculate this [it is even more complex than simple albedo change]. There are even experiments which suggest that the overall feedback is negative.[Lindzen and Choy 2009] In this case the increased albedo would make even the “Gray body” estimate too high.
I don’t know exactly why the cooling effect of the Maunder Minimum [LIA] was so great if the temperature difference was as the 4 th power of radiation. Whatever the cause, when the minimum was over the earth slowly returned to it’s pre LIA warmth. It is hard to believe it is a coincidence.
The climate alarmists attempt to claim that all warming since the invention of the thermometer was caused by CO2 is plainly wrong.
June 5, 2010, 11:51 amWaldonet:
****”on occation something does get through even if they don’t agree and choose to ignore most of the argument (see Waldo)”
Hmmmm…I’m trying to remember what I “ignored,” Wally…
There was the discussion about the CRU investigations in which we disagreed on how damaging the lack of professional statisticians was to the science (but in that case I followed the investigators and not your dismissal of the entire report, so ignored nothing)…
Or perhaps there was a post directed at me to which I did not respond? Please remember that sometimes there are a great many posts and I can’t possibly respond to them all. Be fair.
****”The climate alarmists attempt to claim that all warming since the invention of the thermometer was caused by CO2″
Is that what they claim? This comment, and ones like it, are why a number of us do not believe you are an engineer, netdr. Why does your moniker link back to CS?
June 6, 2010, 9:16 amnetdr:
waldo [or pseudo hunter]
What you believe is your problem.
If the entire .7 C rise in 100 years is not caused by CO2 then CO2′s effects are truly tiny. Even the whole amount is not enough to be a problem without significant acceleration in the future. “Positive feedback starts tomorrow” is like “Free beer tomorrow”.
Conversion to alternate energy, and soot cleanup, can be accomplished without tens of trillions of dollars in unnecessary taxes.
June 6, 2010, 3:44 pmAlan McIntire:
A little clarification here- Pseudo hunter, that should be “Turing Test”, NOT “Touring” Test- Named after Alan Turing.
Contrary to pseudo-hunter’s assertion, it doesn’t make any difference whether you take log 10, log e, log 13.5, or whatever- they’re all equivalent.
Assume the effects of doubling CO2 are logarithmic, and there are no feedbacks, and a doubling raises temperatures X°.
ln 2 = 0.693147 ln 1.05 = 0.04879 0.04879/.693147= .070 so a 5% increase will increase temperatures by 0.07X.
log 2= 0.30103 log 1.05 = 0.021189 0.021189/0.30103= ,070 so a 5% increase will increase temperatures by 0.07X regardless of whether you use log 2, log 10, or log 12.3456789- all logarithmic scales are equivalent
June 6, 2010, 6:02 pmPsuedo Waldo:
Why does you moniker link back to CS, netdr?
June 6, 2010, 9:07 pmhunter:
It is always wonderful to see the stupidity rise up a notch. Just when I think it’s not possible, someone posts something yet more inane. Alan McIntire, choosing a different base makes a very significant difference, in fact. In the equation F = 5.35 × ln (C/C0), you will quite obviously get the wrong answer if you don’t know what ln means and use the wrong base. I pity you for being so stupid.
I don’t pity you quite as much as I pity netdr, though, who ineptly tried to use that equation, but used the wrong base and then inserted his own bizarre multiplication factor. He actually calculated (wrongly) that a 5% rise in CO2 concentrations would cause a 0.68°C rise in global temperature, but was too stupid to even realise what he was calculating, let alone that he’d fucked it up.
He also appears to think he has to type in the name of the website he’s reading into the comment form box. hen asked before why his name linked to http://www.climate-skeptic.com, he had no idea at all and seemed totally bewildered. This is yet another indicator of a very inadequate mind.
June 7, 2010, 12:55 amAlan D McIntire:
Obviously the 5.35 is a fudge factor.
They wanted an answer of 3.7 watts with a doubling,
so they plugged in 3.7/ln 2 and got 5.35.
Read earlier versions of the IPCC report, and you get different fudge factors.
use base 10 and you get a fudge factor of
3.7/log 2 = 12.29, so
12.29 = log (Current CO2/original CO2).
As I stated previously, doubling CO2 should raise temperatures X.
Assuming no feedbacks, and a logarithmic effect on temperatures, both assumptions being questionable, you get an increase in temps of
( Log 1.05/Log2)*X for an increase of 5% rather than a doubling, and the answer works in any log base you choose.
June 7, 2010, 7:34 amhunter:
Sorry to have missed the fun.
June 7, 2010, 8:23 amDoc_Navy:
Hunter(troll)
1. Whatever. Your “simple english” is really exactly that. Simple. Like the kind a junior highschool kid would use. Sorry, that’s not my problem. It’s on you, the writer, to be clear; not me, the reader, to have to translate your true meaning out of junior high scribblings.
2. Google, “volcanic cycles”. (If you can figure out how to type it.) Read. Punch yourself in the testicles for looking like a fool.
3. Again, the internet IS your friend. Google, “Long term Solar cycles” or you can use your EXACT phrase, “Long term solar changes” read… after icing your aching testicles…punch ‘em again. Hang your head in shame.
4. As I said before, you brought this one up. I just looked it up to see if you were wrong… and you were. There ARE cycles in atmospheric composition. I didn’t know that, so.. bonus, *I* learned something. Too bad nobody can say the same thing about you. I’ll be magnanimous (I know, big word. Don’t strain yourself) and give you the search string so maybe you might learn something too. (ref: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=atmospheric+composition+cycles&aq=f&aqi=g-sx1g2g-m1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= )
5. I shouldn’t HAVE to explain… and using your own logic from earlier, if you can’t figure it out on your own, you have no right to have an opinion about Climate Change. Sucks having your own words handed back at you, doesn’t it?
6. You’re funny when you try to twist your logic to make an argument against something that is a fact prima facie. (look that phrase up.. it’ll make you look smarter)
7. No they don’t, but that is besides the point. You asked, “Why don’t polar bears live at the equator?” as some sort of hypothetical proof that destroys the strawman argument you put in my mouth concerning Natural Selection. I answered your lame question… with facts. Polar Bears don’t live on the equator because, well.. they’re *POLAR* bears, and if someone were to transplant a polar bear subpopulation to the equator, the cuddly little guys would do just fine, in fact, they’d probably thrive. Cuz.. you know, warmer is better.
8. So, umm… am I a pedophile and an attracted to children, or am I a ” Gerontophile” and like raping grannies? See, they are usually mutually exclusive sexual disorders. If you are going to toss out vulgar epithets, and crass sexual accusations, might want to at least SOUND like you know what you are talking about.
Finally, I guess I will continue to label you a “troll” for as long as you present positive evidence to that fact. Honestly, all the swearing and sexual stuff really makes you look yobbo, mate.
Doc
June 7, 2010, 10:27 amWally:
Waldo,
You ignore pretty much all the evidence against DAGW. You may think you deal with it, but in reality you don’t. Attacking authors, the location of publication, or falling back to what you think a majority of scientists might say, is not “dealing” with an argument, at least not rationally. And after your faults being explained to you so many times, and you continuing this behavior, I’m left concluding that you truly just want to ignore the evidence that supports our argument. You likely do this because you can’t understand it, or because you have some personal bias that has abolished any rational thinking you might be capable of.
June 7, 2010, 11:03 amhunter:
Woohoo Alan D. McIntire! Didn’t think it was possible, but you’ve upped the stupid level again. “They wanted an answer of 3.7 watts with a doubling”. Hahahaha! Classic. Possibly even better is “12.29 = log (Current CO2/original CO2)”. Thanks for a good laugh!
Doc_Navy, you hapless little shit:
1. No, if you can’t read, that is in fact most definitely your problem.
June 7, 2010, 1:46 pm2. Still wrong.
3. Still wrong.
4. Yes, still wrong. A rather spectacular misunderstanding, it seems. I think you’ve read the words “carbon cycle”, and thought, in your simple-minded way, “Aha! A cycle! I must show off my new found knowledge on the internet!”. Neither global volcanic activity, nor long-term solar variation, nor atmospheric composition vary in a cyclic matter.
5. How interesting! You can’t even explain what you found so amusing. I am, of course, very surprised!
6. Looks like it bears repeating then: “Life likes the conditions it has adapted to, not ones it has never experienced. Pretty fucking obvious when you think about it.”
7. See previous point. Only someone with abysmally low intelligence could imagine that polar bears would “probably thrive” at the equator.
8. I’ll continue to call you a paedophile granny-raping shit-eating retard for as long as you come across as such. Isn’t this fun.
Alan McIntire:
pseudo-hunter, learn something about logarithms.
The 1996 IPCC report gave a factor of 6.3 ln (CO2/CO2 original), giving 4.367 watts for a doubling, so the figure is OBVIOUSLY a fudge factor. When the IPCC figured that a doubling would result in only a 3.7 watt incrrase, the multiplier factor was changed- in the 2001 report.
I discovered where Hansen got that large feedback factor.
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/
~wsoon/ChristopherMonckton08-d/Hansenetal84-climatesensitivity.pdf
If my link doesn’t work, do a google search on “Hansen climate sensitivity” and you’ll quickly come across his 1984 paper.
Specifically check out equations (6) through (12) and the related commentary.
Here’s a puzzle for everyone reading this:
find the mistake- it involves only simple algebra.
hint: see
http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
June 7, 2010, 7:24 pmWaldignore:
****”Waldo,You ignore pretty much all the evidence against DAGW.”
Oh, so we are back to this are we? On a number of different occasions, Wally, you have accused me, more or less, of being dense because you’ve failed to convince me of some point which you seem to feel is apparent. I will not insult you with the same sort of rhetoric here, but I will say that we have been around this tree a number of times…and it’s not me who is either unable or unwilling to grasp a simple concept. So -
Allow me to retort: I do not ignore the qualified voices – Pielke in particular; I used to be a believer in Lindzen but recent criticisms of his work have thrown doubt over his objectivity and motives; Singer is undeniably brilliant but he has unfortunate ties to Big Oil; then there is Botkin – who I really like, and Easterbrook, Lomborg and others who I find convincing if maybe not the final voices in the debate.
So no, you are simply and plainly wrong there.
Who I do ignore are the snakeoil salespeople of the deniosphere. I am not willing to put my trust there. And as my presence on CS should demonstrate, I ignore as little as I can.
I might suggest that it is you who is ignoring the evidence you don’t like such as the reconstructions of people like Keith Briffa or Wahl and Ammann or even the fact that codes and data are freely available online.
June 7, 2010, 7:39 pmWally:
Waldo,
We’ve been around this tree so many times because your idiocy has yet to end. How many times have you attacked the author and not the arguement or the data? The answer is nearly every time.
“Allow me to retort: I do not ignore the qualified voices – Pielke in particular; I used to be a believer in Lindzen but recent criticisms of his work have thrown doubt over his objectivity and motives; Singer is undeniably brilliant but he has unfortunate ties to Big Oil; then there is Botkin – who I really like, and Easterbrook, Lomborg and others who I find convincing if maybe not the final voices in the debate. ”
This is your flaw. It doesn’t matter if you are skeptical of someone’s motives or not, what matters is the substance of the argument. This is exactly what I mean when I say you ignore the skeptical argument. You in fact, just admitted you do so unless it is coming from someone you trust. And of course how you gain and loss the trust of certain individuals is highly nebulous.
“Who I do ignore are the snakeoil salespeople of the deniosphere. I am not willing to put my trust there. And as my presence on CS should demonstrate, I ignore as little as I can.”
This totally hypocritical, to the point of irony even. How are you listening to what is said in the comments section and by Meyer if you relegate use to the status of snakeoil salespeople? You and logic are as oil and water.
“might suggest that it is you who is ignoring the evidence you don’t like”
Bring me whatever evidence you like, and lets see just how I ignore it, shall we. This is essentially what I asked before. For you to pressent me with a paper (or papers) that support DAGW. You gave me nothing of the sort. If there is something from Braffa, or others, you think I’m not understanding, by all means, post it, explain how it ties into the larger argument. You, the one making the argument for DAGW, have the burden of proof. Not I. You make the claim, you prove it.
June 7, 2010, 9:33 pmDoc_Navy:
Hunter (troll),
What’s “Pretty fucking obvious when you think about it.” is that you don’t realy know anything. Tell you what… If I’m so wrong, how about a reference that proves it?
For every reference you find that says there are no long term solar cycles (And we’ll go by the definition of “long term” that the folks studying the Sun go by), I’ll find three that say otherwise, m’kay?
Same with volcanic cycles. cuz, you know… there’s no such thing as a “volcanic cycle” or a volcano that erupts in a cyclic fashion or geysers that are so cyclic that you can almost set your watch to them.. no sir. Doesn’t exist.
As for atmospheric composition cycles… well, if you understand the papers that are there to be read.. I can’t help you. (by the way.. the carbon cycle IS a cycle that affects the composition of the atmosphere. Just to let you know. So is the biogeochemical cycle, something you would have read about on the first fage of the first listed paper.)
Here’s an interesting workshop by a PRO-AGW group that has a focus on your non-existent cycles in atmospheric composition. (Ref: http://www.agci.org/programs/past_scientist_workshops/about_the_workshop/sciSess_details.php?recordID=179)
Look let’s just get honest here… you are trying (in vain, I might add) to argue that cycles don’t really exist in a system made up of various… CYCLES! Next I suppose you are going to say that there are no lunar cycles (you’ve already tried to say that there are no Solar ones.), No seasonal cycles, no weather pattern cycles, no oceanic temperature cycles… seriously, what do you think, that everything is just a random walk? You need to get back on your medication.
I can play your stupid little game too, you know. You are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and incredibly wrong.
Try putting out something that supports WHY I’m so wrong. Besides, because you say I am.
Only someone who’s entire family has the combined IQ of a ping pong ball would try and argue that life based on carbon, left-handed amino acids, and the Krebs cycle would try an postulate that cold conditions are equally capable of supporting life as warm. (Here’ the main reason… Energy. Warm has more, cold has less. It’s physics, man.)
By the way, here’s a question for you… why is ALL life based on left handed proteins? If Evolution works as you think is does, shouldn’t something, somewhere on this planet have evolved the ability to use right-handed proteins? Considering that chemically both left and right handed proteins occur with equal chance and ease.
Yes, this is great fun. Of course, between the two of us… I have a feeling that I come off a little more reasonable and stable.
Doc
June 8, 2010, 7:46 amhunter (the real one):
It is interesting that the two trolls are so good at misleading and hiding at the same time.
June 8, 2010, 8:14 amMy little shadow literally offers nothing but displays that show a desperate need for him/her/it to receive long term and powerful psychiatric help.
And Waldo, well- good ol’ Waldo wouldn’t know an original thought if hunter(troll) slapped him in the face with it.
Doc, you fight the good fight very well. But then using facts truth and integrity always puts those like hunter(troll) in a bad light.
Wally, you are far too patient. Waldo is worth ignoring completely, after you finish laughing at him/her.
Wally:
I wonder if Hunter (the fool) is claiming their are no cycles knowing full well he’s wrong, or if maybe he thinks by cycles we mean only of the very simplistic form of y=A*sin(B*t + C), where A, B and C are constant with respect of time. When of course you likely have cycles built on cycles where we have something much more like y = Sum[An*sin(Bn*t + Cn)] where any An, Bn, Cn could be functions dependent on time, as well as other factors. Regardless of which it is, DAGW advocates tend to very simplistic in their thinking.
June 8, 2010, 9:05 amWaldy:
****”How many times have you attacked the author and not the arguement or the data? The answer is nearly every time….what matters is the substance of the argument”
And now we’re back to this.
What am I supposed to attack, Wally? Let me re-post something: “Mr. Meyer’s post up-top is a plaint about a magazine article in which the deniosphere gets a dose of its own medicine; the next post is about lawyers and flood claims which somehow equates to Al Gore’s movie; the next post is a 100 word-ish summary of Monkton at Heartland [unbiased sources there!]; after that is a cross-posting from another blog; after that, an excerpt from USA Today about lion warning calls which also somehow relates to AL Gore; and finally a picture of a park which Mr. Meyer oversees.” What science should I, or anyone, attack?
There is very little science on this blog unless you count the repartee taking place overhead [and I must admit, the "punch yourself in the testicles" motif, while extremely juvenile, is kind of funny] which has become so ridiculous it is amusing. There is very little actual science here, Wally.
And this is what bothers me. This site proposes all sorts of very inflammatory stuff with very little substance while maintaining the guise of scientific objectivity. It’s kind of like reading Conservapedia. I am happy to let the scientists debate, Wally, that’s the whole point. The deniosphere is simply the spread of bad intentions.
And again, be fair: I am reading papers as I can, as you can tell, but it is slow going for me with a good deal of backtracking – my last selection seems to have bored you.
But if you want to knock them out of the water, how about this stuff?
http://www.pewclimate.org/federal/congress/testimony/gulledgej/examining-hockey-stick-controversy
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/ccr/ammann/millennium/CODES_MBH.html
Which brings me back to the put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is-problem.
You are the one who has variously claimed you understand the statistical problems better than the climate scientists, and you have even gone so far as to claim your evaluations are on a par with the climate science professionals.
Okay. Prove it.
Write a paper and put it out there for peer review. Obviously this will take a while but I suspect I and the others will be around for the next year or so, and obviously this will require that you reveal you actual identity (which is never a good idea online) but you are also very fit so have nothing to worry about. Go ahead – be that rogue scientist who blows the whole DAGW scam. Otherwise you too fail to deal with the science involved.
June 8, 2010, 11:49 amWally:
Waldo,
Save the reposts, I’m not reading it. You can reread my response to your previous bouts of idiocy if you like.
And yes, your previous paper bored me because I specifically asked for something peer-reviewed, from which you were using to support your DAGW beliefs. That paper did not appear to support such a thing. And to condense our conversation, you asked me if I find the paper valid. Well, yes (and before you try any trickery here, this does not mean I believe what ever interpretation you might have of it is valid). It is mostly a reporting of temp measurements. Now, we could dig ourselves into just how they come up with the forcings for the various factors, but we might as well go to the primary lit where those forcings were described. This paper just references them and uses them in their temp comparisons. Or to put slightly differently, this is perfect example of a extremely small incremental gain in knowledge article.
As for your two hockey stick sites, I don’t care to critically evaluate them. We’ve been over this ground before, and frankly others have blasted the hockey stick to pieces far better than I could through this text box. I suppose you know were to find those.
“You are the one who has variously claimed you understand the statistical problems better than the climate scientists, and you have even gone so far as to claim your evaluations are on a par with the climate science professionals.”
Hahaha, when they create something like the hockey stick, yeah, pretty sure there waldo.
“Okay. Prove it. Write a paper and put it out there for peer review.”
Isn’t this why we were to go through peer-reviewed lit that supports DAGW? I’ve already explained I don’t care to go through the trouble to write a climate science paper. I have better things to do. I simply can’t write a primary research paper for every topic I’m interested enough in to educate myself in that subject. Plus, as I’ve also said, even if my knowledge of the field and scientific abilities are better then their’s, retooling to do primary research in a new field is costly and time consuming. My life couldn’t handle the uprooting.
“Go ahead – be that rogue scientist who blows the whole DAGW scam. Otherwise you too fail to deal with the science involved.”
Oh the naivete. The whole is blown open and expanding as we speak. Further, writing a primary research paper is not the only way to “deal with the science.”
You know what, maybe I was wrong. Maybe you aren’t an idiot. Maybe you’re just so naive of this subject and how to actually “deal with the science” while also holding such strong opinions regarding this subject and the scientific process in general, that you just come off as an idiot. Though, some might call that idiocy I guess. Oh well.
June 8, 2010, 12:48 pmWaldout:
Cop out, cop out, and a cop out.
June 8, 2010, 1:10 pmWally:
Wow, waldo, that new low for you. Which is a difficult thing to do.
June 8, 2010, 1:18 pmhunter (the real one):
Doc navy – are you going to stop digging any time soon? Apparently not content merely to say something so stupid as “Global climate has historically run in CYCLES of various types, lengths and causes”, you now feel you have to believe that every climate influence is somehow cyclic.
No, global volcanic activity does not vary cyclically. No, long term solar variations are not cyclic. No, atmospheric composition does not vary cyclically. You have been confused by the word ‘cycle’ and thought that it meant ‘cyclic’.
And what can anyone say, really, if you want to persist in believing the natural selection somehow selects for traits which aid survival in conditions which have never existed. Nothing to say except that you’re an idiot.
You never did explain what you found so funny about the simple statement that “the climate has no equilibrium state, and climate variables do not oscillate about a central value”. People who laugh at nothing at all are generally regarded as simpletons. I think calling you a simpleton drastically overestimates your intellect though.
June 8, 2010, 4:19 pmhunter:
It is a perfect micro-model of CAGW that our true believer trolls are unable to converse honestly.
June 9, 2010, 5:32 amBargHumer:
Is it possible to summarise the debate at this stage by defining the top three reasons supporting AGW and the top 3 reasons against it.
June 9, 2010, 7:21 amDoc_Navy:
Hunter(troll)
I think this convo has pretty much run it’s course.
You keep declaring some sort of ultimate victory without EVER having established why? It kinda makes you look like one of those poor kids at a special olympics competition who LOST the race but not only doesn’t know it; they think they won, and stand there at the end of the track jumping up and down screaming “Yeah! Yeah!”.
Here’s a clue for you: wipe the drool off your chin, go back to elementary school and relearn your basic maths, and biology, ice your swollen testicles, mate. You are looking dumb.
Lastly, I don’t know if others have pointed this out, but you have a real bad habit of putting words in other people’s mouths, and you seem to like strawman and red herring argumentation… ALOT.
Finally, think about this…how can you make arguments for AGW using words like “unprecedented”, “catasrophic”, or “tipping point” if you have no baseline or some sort of “equalibrium”? To even be able to say that “temp X” is bad because it’s higher than “temp Y” you have to have a baseline to start from. What is “optimal”? I will agree with you that there is no one central temp with perfect sine wave like cycles pirouetting around it, that is true.
That said, if there are no cycles, and there IS NO baseline, and there is no “equalibrium state” and the climate has just had a non-cyclic, random walk in temperature AS -YOU- IMPLY…
***How can you POSSIBLY say that the curent temp rise starting in 1980 or even any temp rise, is the result of mankind or even slightly linked to CO2, (which apparently ISN’T a random walk) and that it’s all going to be catastrophic?***
Get it? Mystery explained? Good. The gasoline is in the shed, get to it.
Doc
June 9, 2010, 8:23 amDoc_Navy:
Barg,
That sounds like an interesting proposition. Let’s see, as I see it the top three arguments FOR AGW are:
1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and there has been a rise in it since 1850 but particularly since 1930…which corrolates with the western industrial revolutions and also a 0.6C/century rise in global temps. (logical error: Corrolation is not causation. Scientific method 101)
2. Incredibly expensive and complex GCM’s (General Circulation Models) cannot explain these rise in temps after the input of all known natural forcings. Put simply, after accounting for everything we can think of…without Man, we can’t explain it. Therefore, it is mankind’s fault. (Logical error: Argumentation from ignorance/Occam’s razor. Which is more likely: A science that is still in it’s nascent infantcy has, in less than thirty years learned *EVERYTHING* there is to know about the Global Climate, and all it’s inner workings and details OOOORR, Climate scientists are human, driven by human emotions, temptations, and subject to human weaknesses, and they are missing/don’t fully understand something?)
3. This rise in temperature is catastrophic and totally proven in nature because… well, because we say so. You are too stupid to understand it anyway, and frankly we know best. If you are not a Climatologist, don’t even bother speaking… unless it’s to support us, then it’s ok. Now, open up those wallets and fund my next project so I can scare you some more. (logical Error: None. I welcome my new insect masters.)
Those sound about right?
Doc
June 9, 2010, 8:51 amhunter:
Ha ha ha!
“you have a real bad habit of putting words in other people’s mouths”, you say.
And yet what do we have in your very next sentence? “how can you make arguments for AGW using words like “unprecedented”, “catasrophic”, or “tipping point” if you have no baseline or some sort of “equalibrium”?”
Had I even used those words, I would have spelt them all correctly. But I didn’t. You are putting words into my mouth.
And obviously what I said about equilibrium went in one ear and out the other. Yet again you fail to understand really simple things. There is rather a huge difference between an equilibrium state and a baseline. Your inadequate mind lets you down, again. When are you going to shut up?
June 9, 2010, 10:24 amWaldarg:
With all due respect, Barg, as has been demonstrated amply on these boards, no one here understands things well enough to complete your lists – at least not accurately (including me) – and there will simply be more of the sort of amateurish, uncited, antagonistic babble we’ve become accustomed to.
On a lighter note, as I’ve posted before, the deniosphere is getting media-slapped in turn:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
I don’t like Maher but this is yet another example of how things are turning.
June 9, 2010, 10:40 amDoc_Navy:
Hunter(troll),
That was the OBVIOUSLY “royal” use of the word you. As in “you, those who agrgue for AGW”, not YOU as in Hunter(Troll), and you called *ME* a “fuckwit” for supposedly not understanding simple english. Sheesh.
Well, I certainly hope you would have spelled them correctly, as supposedly you are smarter than me, but nevertheless, I type fast and made an obvious spelling mistake.
The fact that you called me on it puts you in a difficult position, as from now on, ANY TIME you misspell something it becomes proof positive that YOU are a mental deficient. (Did I spell that correctly?) If that is the sum total of your basis for declaring victory… well it’s pretty weak.
You know..maybe you are right.. maybe I DON’T understand anything… hmm… Maybe you should enlighten me. I think EVERYONE here would absolutely LOVE to see you actually present a real argument, with an actual point, supported by verifiable information. Right now, all we’ve gotten is “I’m right, you’re wrong… nyah, nyah, (insert curse word here)”
So.. you have any, umm… actual information to pass? Or is the only thing you are passing merely, gas?
Doc
June 9, 2010, 11:22 amDoc_Navy:
Arrgh, these dyslexic fingers! I curse you.
That would be “Argue”, not “agrgue”… don’t want to offend your sense of spelling etiquette.
Doc
June 9, 2010, 11:26 amDoc_Navy:
Waldarg,
See #3 on my post above.
Where would you like me to place your larvae children, Oh Master?
Doc
June 9, 2010, 11:29 amDoc_Waldo:
Well Doc, I wouldn’t have used the word “stupid” – clearly you are not – but the rest of that I couldn’t have posted more frankly. I’d say you’ve got it pretty accurate there.
Then again, since you obviously take umbrage at deferring to the experts, I’d challenge you to do the same thing Wally will not: peer-review it. Prove your point. Put your money where your mouth is. It is fairly easy to come here and posit all sorts of double-talk, then play the martyr while calling people names, but can you convince those scientists with the training and expertise in the subject? Or is it better to trade infantile insults and argue over spelling?
June 9, 2010, 12:08 pmWally:
Doc, regarding the use of that “you” it should be pretty obvious you weren’t directly talking about Hunter(troll).
Here’s your quote for reference: “Finally, think about this…how can you make arguments for AGW using words like “unprecedented”, “catasrophic”, or “tipping point” if you have no baseline or some sort of “equalibrium”?”
In particular you said, “how can you make arguments.” Hunter(troll) does not make arguments. So it is impossible you are actually referring to him.
June 9, 2010, 1:23 pmBargHumer:
So, let me get this right, one side says the planet is in dire peril and the other says no, the consequences of trying to save the planet in dire peril will put millions of people in dire peril. Such an important watershed moment in world history yet all the blogging “experts” would rather engage in mud wrestling. Perhaps Nero’s higher priorities were justifiable after all.
June 10, 2010, 4:23 amDoc_Navy:
Wally,
Thank you.
You know.. I had my wife and 12y/o son read my post just to make sure I wasn’t being vague with the you/you vs you/AGW proponents thing. They got it. (Full disclosure, they know me, and propbably find it easier to understand my speaking/writing nuances.)
It’s nice to know that there’s at least one other unrelated person out there who read it and understood it.
I guess I’m not crazy.
Doc.
PS. You are exactly right, and understood the unspoken message in my “enlighten me” challenge. He DOESN’T make arguments… only obscenity laden pronouncements.
June 10, 2010, 7:27 amDoc_Navy:
Barg,
Actually, I think you have it only partially correct.
One side (the CAGW, Warmalists) say that the planet is in dire peril caused by our own “irresponsible” actions, and we MUST do something, anything RIGHT NOW… no matter how much it costs. Don’t think about it, just ACT NOW!! (kinda sounds like an infomercial featuring Billy Mays, doesn’t it?)
The other side (Everybody else) says, “mebbe we should, you know, be sure this is actually happening the way you guys are selling it to us before we go committing trillions of dollars to fixing a likely non-existent problem, the magnitude of which (if true) is akin to trying to sweep the waves back into the sea with a broom. On top of that, adaptation is probably a better option than mitigation.”
You see… it is the implaccable “Either you’re one of us, a true believer, or you are a hellspawn DENIER!” attitude of the PRO-AGW advocates that has created the mudslinging situation you bemoan. Consider the treatment that Dr. Judith Curry is getting from the “consensus establishment” (of which SHE’S A MEMBER OF!) because she has the audacity to actually engage with the Deni.. err, Skeptics.
you see, it’s NOT the skeptics who won’t try and have a scientific discourse with the other side, or a debate, or even acknowledge that the other side has a valid viewpoint.
Think about it.
Doc
June 10, 2010, 7:46 amhunter:
Ha ha, nice attempt at digging yourself out there, Doc Monkey. “Royal” you? And yet you used that “royal” you in a sentence where you directly quoted me (albeit with misspelling for good measure). Either way, you’re putting words in people’s mouths, even as you protest about people putting words in other people’s mouths. It’s always amusing when people contradict themselves so drastically, and especially comical when they can’t even see it.
And you’ve bred? I pity the poor offspring and hope it didn’t inherit too many fuckwit genes.
June 10, 2010, 8:40 amDoc_Navy:
Ahh, yes… Knew the infantile stab at my family would be forthcoming from the Troll. Predictable. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that if you have to resort to name-calling and ad hom you are losing the argument? Guess not.
I’m suprised you didn’t start with “yo mama” jokes, but I have a feeling that you grew up in AUS/NZ or GB and they really don’t have those kind of jokes there. (BTW, my wife is Auzzie which is where I’m betting you are from too, but honestly, it doesn’t matter whether you are or not. I don’t really care, and if I am right, I expect you’d lie anyway.)
And yes, it was a “you” as in “you all” or more appropriately, “y’all”. ;P
And the point still stands. You are denying (lamely) that global climate is -basically- cyclical in nature, made up of various other NATURAL cycles with extreme events interspersed. (like an asteroid strike, or super volcano.)
These cycles create a measure of equalibrium and are dominated by mostly negative feedbacks. (As is most EVERYTHING in the physical universe) Examples of these cycles include, but are not limited to:
-The Schwabe solar cycle (11yr)
-The Hale Solar Cycle (22yr)
-The Gleissberg Solar cycle (87yr)
-The de Vries solar cycle (210yr)
-The Hallstatt solar cycle (2300yrs)
-A possible 6000yr solar cycle (unnamed) (ref:http://www.springerlink.com/content/v856256j65142l48/)
-Cycles in Solar wobble
-The Milankovitch Cycle (ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Milankovitch_Variations.png)
-The carbon Cycle
-The Biogeochemical Cycle
-The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (The big word on the end means “Cycle”)
-The North Atlantic Oscillation
-Thermohaline Ciriculation cycles
(ref:http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/KnightetalGRL05.pdf)
-Volcanic Cycles
(ref:http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/about/history/cycles.php)
I could go on, but there is no point. By trying to say that there are no cycles in climate (or Solar physics for that matter), you just look plain ignorant.
Doc
June 10, 2010, 10:47 amWally:
Here, I’ll save Hunter the trouble:
-The Schwabe solar cycle (11yr)—WRONG!
-The Hale Solar Cycle (22yr)—WRONG!
-The Gleissberg Solar cycle (87yr)—WRONG!
-The de Vries solar cycle (210yr)—WRONG!
-The Hallstatt solar cycle (2300yrs)—WRONG!
-A possible 6000yr solar cycle (unnamed) (ref:http://www.springerlink.com/content/v856256j65142l48/)—WRONG!
-Cycles in Solar wobble—WRONG!
-The Milankovitch Cycle (ref:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Milankovitch_Variations.png)—WRONG!
-The carbon Cycle—WRONG!
-The Biogeochemical Cycle
-The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (The big word on the end means “Cycle”)—WRONG!
-The North Atlantic Oscillation—WRONG!
-Thermohaline Ciriculation cycles—WRONG!
(ref:http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/KnightetalGRL05.pdf)
-Volcanic Cycles—WRONG!
(ref:http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/about/history/cycles.php)
ALL WRONG YOU FUCKWIT!
June 10, 2010, 12:25 pmnetdr:
BargHumer:
So, let me get this right, one side says the planet is in dire peril and the other says no, the consequences of trying to save the planet in dire peril will put millions of people in dire peril. Such an important watershed moment in world history yet all the blogging “experts” would rather engage in mud wrestling. Perhaps Nero’s higher priorities were justifiable after all.
***************
That is the discredited “precautionary principal”.
There are many perils much more likely and much more damaging than than global warming and it only makes sense to take care of them first.
A meteor/asteroid/comet large enough to cause a nuclear winter will impact the earth. The only unknown is the date. This is as certain as anything can possibly be.
Building a small number of spaceships with the required equipment to turn aside such meteors is so cheap it is almost free and yet it hasn’t been done ? Why not ? Because the “precautionary principal ” is used as a tool when logic fails.
The climate alarmists might be right so we must spend tens of trillions of dollars ! Nonsense !
June 10, 2010, 12:33 pmBargHumer:
The “precautionary principle”(PP) seems to have been enshrined in European law. The burden of proof that any action to reduce one risk does not itself cause harm, falls on those “taking action” (Wiki).
If this “PP” is discredited, it is hard to see how it has become law. On the other hand it is hard to see how it can be applied since those taking action also bear the burden for proving that such action will not harm anyone.
In the case of AGW, the “harm” that reductions in CO2 will cause continue to be ignored by those advocating the action. “PP” may be discredited but only because of the misinterpretation of it by those who seek to use it for their own ends.
In the case of a large meteor heading for Earth, ignoring the likely destruction of a continent may be justified in order to save the planet. Scientific consensus would be necessary that a direct hit is imminent, but wouldn’t that consensus be undermined by the scientists living on the doomed continent? Can a scientific consensus ever be truly scientific? I don’t think so.
June 10, 2010, 1:34 pmhunter:
Ha ha ha, you still think the carbon cycle means “carbon varies cyclically”! You really think that all you have to do is list things with the word “cycle” in, and that will prove that each and every climate influence varies in an easily parametrised periodic fashion. Well, why not carry on? Water cycle! CNO cycle! Carnot cycle! Menstrual cycle! Ring cycle! My god, everything is cyclic! And therefore, CO2 does not cause global warming!
What a despicable cunt you are. You have not got even the faintest idea about how the climate works. You are mentally ill-equipped to understand science. Why don’t you just fuck off and leave it to those who have the intellect to grasp the basics? Your input is irrelevant, tiresome and disastrously ill-informed.
June 10, 2010, 3:41 pmhunter (the sane one):
@hunter(the pathetic troll),
June 10, 2010, 3:52 pmYou should continue this forever. You should keep this up- on your own you are helping people see that CAGW extremism results in terrible personality disorders and loss of intelligence.
But in your case, maybe there was not much to lose?
Keep up the great support of the skeptical cause by way of demonstration.
netdr:
The “precautionary principle”(PP) seems to have been enshrined in European law. The burden of proof that any action to reduce one risk does not itself cause harm, falls on those “taking action” (Wiki).
BargHumer
If this “PP” is discredited, it is hard to see how it has become law. On the other hand it is hard to see how it can be applied since those taking action also bear the burden for proving that such action will not harm anyone.
[ It is discredited because it is invoked only by those who can't prove actual harm. (Hence precautionary ) The second pert is also interesting. Spending tens of trillions of dollars on CO2 reduction is clearly harmful. The question is the supposed benefits.-- NetDr]
In the case of AGW, the “harm” that reductions in CO2 will cause continue to be ignored by those advocating the action. “PP” may be discredited but only because of the misinterpretation of it by those who seek to use it for their own ends.
[PP is not practical because of the large number of problems facing mankind and the limited resources we have at our disposal to solve them. We must pick our battles wisely. -- NetDr]
In the case of a large meteor heading for Earth, ignoring the likely destruction of a continent may be justified in order to save the planet. Scientific consensus would be necessary that a direct hit is imminent, but wouldn’t that consensus be undermined by the scientists living on the doomed continent? Can a scientific consensus ever be truly scientific? I don’t think so.
[I am not saying to wait until a meteor has been spotted I am suggesting building the ships long before one has been detected in the theory that we can never be 100 % certain that we have seen all possible objects. That is where the PP comes in. Just a few years ago a rather large chunk of iron passed between the earth and the moon and wasn't detected until it was past us. The PP specifies that the harm be unproven or it is not precautionary any more. -- NetDr]
****************
As far as “green jobs” are concerned, unless there is an actual problem they are make work.
We could hire 100,000 people to dig holes and 100,000 more to fill them in. We could pay each of our workers $100,000 and the economy and taxes would go crazy.
We could be the world leader in hole theory and could grant PhD’s in Hole. The best and brightest students would go into hole theory and to heck with curing cancer.
June 10, 2010, 6:49 pmWaldoitshotouthere:
Or you could just listen to the experts…oh I forgot, you all are experts. Well, perhaps you’d like to prove the good folks at Real Climate wrong?
The lure of solar forcing
Filed under:
— gavin @ 15 July 2005
It’s obvious.
The sun provides 99.998% of the energy to the Earth’s climate (the rest coming from geothermal heat sources). The circulation patterns of the tropical Hadley Cell, the mid latitude storm tracks the polar high and the resulting climate zones are all driven by the gradients of solar heating as a function of latitude. So of course any significant change to solar output is bound to affect the climate, it stands to reason! Since we can see that there are changes in solar activity, it’s therefore just a question of finding the link. Researchers for over a century have therefore taken any climate records they can find and searched for correlations to the sunspots, the solar-cycle length, geomagnetic indices, cosmogenic isotopes or smoothed versions thereof (and there are many ways to do the smoothing, and you don’t even need to confine yourself to one single method per record). At the same time, estimates of solar output in the past are extremely uncertain, and so there is a great deal of scope in blaming any unexplained phenomena on solar changes without fear of contradiction.
Astute readers will notice that there is a clear problem here. The widespread predisposition to believe that there must be a significant link and a lack of precise knowledge of past changes are two ingredients that can prove, err…., scientifically troublesome. Unfortunately they lead to a tendency to keep looking for the correlation until one finds one. When that occurs (as it will if you look hard enough even in random data) it gets published as one more proof of the significant impact that solar change has on climate. Never do the authors describe how many records and how many different smoothing methods they went through before they found this one case where the significance is greater than 95%. Of course, if they went through more than 20, the chances of randomly stumbling onto this level of significance is quite high.
The proof that this often happens is shown by the number of these published correlations that fall apart once another few years of data are added, cosmic rays (which are modulated by solar activity) and cloudiness for instance.
Sometimes even papers in highly respected journals fall into the same trap. Friis-Christensen and Lassen (Science, 1991) was a notorious paper that purported to link solar-cycle length (i.e. the time between sucessive sunspot maxima or minima) to surface temperatures that is still quoted widely. As discussed at length by Peter Laut and colleagues, the excellent correlation between solar cycle length and hemispheric mean temperature only appeared when the method of smoothing changed as one went along. The only reason for doing that is that it shows the relationship (that they ‘knew’ must be there) more clearly. And, unsurprisingly, with another cycle of data, the relationship failed to hold up.
The potential for self-delusion is significantly enhanced by the fact that climate data generally does have a lot of signal in the decadal band (say between 9 and 15 years). This variability relates to the incidence of volcanic eruptions, ENSO cycles, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) etc. as well as potentially the solar cycle. So another neat trick to convince yourself that you found a solar-climate link is to use a very narrow band pass filter centered around 11 years, to match the rough periodicity of the sun spot cycle, and then show that your 11 year cycle in the data matches the sun spot cycle. Often these correlations mysteriously change phase with time, which is usually described as evidence of the non-linearity of the climate system, but in fact is the expected behaviour when there is no actual coherence. Even if the phase relationship is stable, the amount of variance explained in the original record is usually extremely small.
This is not to say that there is no solar influence on climate change, only that establishing such a link is more difficult then many assume. What is generally required is a consistent signal over a number of cycles (either the 11 year sunspot cycle or more long term variations), similar effects if the timeseries are split, and sufficient true degrees of freedom that the connection is significant and that it explains a non-negligible fraction of the variance. These are actually quite stiff hurdles and so the number of links that survive this filter are quite small. In some rough order of certainty we can consider that the 11 year solar cycle impacts on the following are well accepted: stratospheric ozone, cosmogenic isotope production, upper atmospheric geopotential heights, stratospheric temperatures and (slightly less certain and with small magnitudes ~0.1 deg C) tropospheric and ocean temperatures. More marginal are impacts on wintertime tropospheric circulation (like the NAO). It is also clear that if there really was a big signal in the data, it would have been found by now. The very fact that we are still arguing about statisitical significance implies that whatever signal there is, is small.
Over the multi-decadal time scales, there is more reasonable evidence for an NAO and surface temperature response to solar changes though the magnitudes are still small. Over even longer time scales (hundreds of years) there are a number of paleo-records that correlate with records of cosmogenic isotopes (particularly 10Be and 14C), however, these records are somewhat modulated by climate processes themselves (the carbon cycle in the case of 14C, aerosol deposition and transport processes for 10Be) and so don’t offer an absolutely clean attribution. Nonetheless, by comparing with both isotopes and trying to correct for climate (and geomagnetic) effects, some coherent signals have been seen.
Some contrarian commentators have recently fallen into the habit of mass mailing any new solar-related abstracts and implying that the existence of solar forcing in the past negates any possible recent anthropogenic impact on climate. Since these studies do not have any implication for the radiative impact of CO2, and don’t change the fact that there has been no effective change in any solar indices since about 1950, it is hard to see a substantial basis for this (implied) argument. For instance, there has been a lot of recent attention paid to Mangini et al. (2005) where a solar link to a new Alpine speleothem record was claimed. However, a quick analysis (right) indicates that the explained variance in the record (smoothed over 25 years) correlated to the 14C-production function (a slightly cleaner solar proxy than the resdiual atmospheric 14C (Muscheler et al, 2005 – see comment/link below)) is only about 5%. Hardly a definitive refutation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing.
A more interesting question is whether our current understanding of how solar forcing works is sufficient to explain the clearest solar impacts in the record. During the most studied period, the Maunder Minimum (MM) in the late 17th Century, sunspots were very rarely seen and that corresponded to a particularly cool period in the Northern Hemisphere (particularly in Europe as is seen in the speleothem record as well – NB. cooler temperatures are associated with increased isotope ratios). In order to assess that, all other forcings that were operating at the same time need to be considered as well. The MM was also a time of enhanced volcanic activity, and the cooling from this was probably comparable with the cooling due to solar effects (an exact attribution is impossible given the uncertainties in both forcings) .Another important factor is that the records of cooling at the MM are predominantly continental and mainly located in North America and Eurasia. This is consistent with the eveidence for a weak NAO at this time in independent reconstructions.
So can models using what we are reasonably sure of match these results? The answer is probably (us climate scientists always need to hedge!). Using the known amplification of the solar cycle (and presumably the long term trend) in the UV band, allowing stratospheric temperatures and circulation patterns to adjust and including the direct radiative forcings from the sun and volcanoes, we found that it gave temperature anomalies and spatial patterns that were in fair agreement with the observations (Shindell et al, 2003). To be sure, there is still some wiggle room – but within the uncertainties in climate sensitivity, the magnitude of the long term trend in the solar forcing and the error bars in the temperature reconstructions, the model-data fit is quite good. Should those error bars be revised in the future, that conclusion might have to be revisited, but as things stand there is no obvious discrepency that requires some new exotic physics to explain it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t some other mechanism we haven’t thought of yet, but it does mean that you can’t claim that there must necessarily be such a mechanism.
In summary, although solar forcing is real, the implications of that are often rather overstated. Since there has been a clear history of people fooling themselves about the importance of solar-climate links, any new studies in the field need to be considered very carefully before conclusions are drawn, especially with respect the warming over recent decades, which despite all of this discussion about solar activity, is almost all related to anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Update (Jul 24): Upon further investigation, it appears that the archived age model for the speleothem (cave record) from Mangini et al (2005) is the version that has been tuned to maximise the correlation to the Delta 14C record they used. Thus any correlation with the 14C production record I used (since it is different) will be minimised. This actually makes it very difficult to assess how significant any particular correlation is (a perennial problem in solar-climate studies) – ideally you would probably want to sub-sample the distribution and see how big a correlation you could get from wiggle matching random data (within the limits of the few measured dates). Thus, my contention that solar doesn’t explain much of the variability in this record isn’t valid. It could explain anything from 5 to 40% (with unknown error bars). Sorry for any confusion.
June 10, 2010, 8:03 pmnetdr:
“Never do the authors describe how many records and how many different smoothing methods they went through before they found this one case where the significance is greater than 95%. Of course, if they went through more than 20, the chances of randomly stumbling onto this level of significance is quite high.
The proof that this often happens is shown by the number of these published correlations that fall apart once another few years of data are added, cosmic rays (which are modulated by solar activity) and cloudiness for instance.”
************
Sounds exactly like our broken climate models.
I know a man that studied old racing forms and when he thought he had found a patten he ran a model of it until the model made money. [In the past]
When he tried to make money in the present the model didn’t work. He then redid the models and tried again. Again it didn’t work.
The models are like driving a car looking in the rear view mirror. When the road turns, as it did, you crash.
June 11, 2010, 6:47 amnetdr:
“Astute readers will notice that there is a clear problem here. The widespread predisposition to believe that there must be a significant link and a lack of precise knowledge of past changes are two ingredients that can prove, err…., scientifically troublesome.”
*************
And yet that is exactly what the CO2 mafia does time and again. All temperature changes are caused by CO2, the trick is to find out how. [The irony is too delicious.The pot is calling the kettle black ?]
This is the new scientific method pioneered by Dr Mann.
They have a hypothesis and try to prove that it is true, which is backwards. The real scientific method is to try to prove that it is false. Dr Mann is the poster child for the new method. He cherry picked his data and massaged it with software that found hockey sticks in “red noise”
June 11, 2010, 6:59 amAlan D McIntire:
Waldy brought up the Mann-Wegamn dispute.
To summarize, Mann created the “hockey stick” using non-centered Principal Component Analysis. McIntyre and McKittrick, and later Wegman, stated
that Mann’s use of non-centered Principal component Analysis was flawed, and that the algorithm in effect was “searching for hockey sticks”.
Mann et al at “realclimate”, on January 6, 2005, stated that McIntyre and McKittrick were mistaken, and cited “Jolliffe” as an authority on PCA, stating that
non-centered PCA was a valid procedure.
Tamino later posted a series on “PCA” on his blog, “Open Mind”. Part 4 was posted on March 6, 2008. In this posting he asserted that
non centerd PCA was perfectly okay, stating,
” You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you should take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA…”
Finally there’s a reply from Ian Jolliffe himself, who in effect said McIntyre and McKittrick’s criticism was correct, and Mann’s hockey stick
was based on dubious statistics.
From the January 6, 2005 “realclimate” post,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/on-yet-another-false-claim-by-mcintyre-and-mckitrick/
“6 Jan 2005
On Yet Another False Claim by McIntyre and McKitrick”…
“McIntyre and McKitrick (MM), in one of their many false claims regarding the Mann et al (MBH98) temperature reconstruction, assert that the “Hockey Stick” shape of the reconstruction is an artifact of the “non-centered” Principal Components Analysis (PCA) convention used by MBH98 in representing the North American International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) data series. “…
“Contrary to MM’s assertions, the use of non-centered PCA is well-established in the statistical literature, and in some cases is shown to give superior results to standard, centered PCA. See for example page 3 (middle paragraph) of this review. For specific applications of non-centered PCA to climate data, consider this presentation provided by statistical climatologist Ian Jolliffe who specializes in applications of PCA in the atmospheric sciences, having written a widely used text book on PCA. In his presentation, Jollife explains that non-centered PCA is appropriate when the reference means are chosen to have some a priori meaningful interpretation for the problem at hand.” ….
On March 6, 2008, “Open Mind” defended Mann’s hockey stick.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/
“First let’s dispense with the last claim, that non-centered PCA isn’t right. This point was hammered by Wegman, who was recently quoted in reader comments thus:
“The controversy of Mann’s methods lies in that the proxies are centered on the mean of the period 1902-1995, rather than on the whole time period. This mean is, thus, actually decentered low, which will cause it to exhibit a larger variance, giving it preference for being selected as the first principal component. The net effect of this decentering using the proxy data in MBH and MBH99 is to produce a “hockey stick” shape. Centering the mean is a critical factor in using the principal component methodology properly. It is not clear that Mann and associates realized the error in their methodology at the time of publication.”
Just plain wrong. Centering is the usual custom, but other choices are still valid; we can perfectly well define PCs based on variation from any “origin” rather than from the average. It fact it has distinct advantages IF the origin has particular relevance to the issue at hand. You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you *should* take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA, author of a seminal book on the subject. He takes an interesting look at the centering issue in this presentation.”
And finally we get a reply from Jolliffe himself:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873
“Ian Jolliffe // September 8, 2008 at 9:36 am
Apologies if this is not the correct place to make these comments. I am a complete newcomer to this largely anonymous mode of communication. I’d be grateful if my comments could be displayed wherever it is appropriate for them to appear.
It has recently come to my notice that on the following website, related to this one, my views have been misrepresented, and I would therefore like to correct any wrong impression that has been given.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/
An apology from the person who wrote the page would be nice.
In reacting to Wegman’s criticism of ‘decentred’ PCA, the author says that Wegman is ‘just plain wrong’ and goes on to say ‘You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you *should* take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA, author of a seminal book on the subject. He takes an interesting look at the centering issue in this presentation.’ It is flattering to be recognised as a world expert, and I’d like to think that the final sentence is true, though only ‘toy’ examples were given. However there is a strong implication that I have endorsed ‘decentred PCA’. This is ‘just plain wrong’.
The link to the presentation fails, as I changed my affiliation 18 months ago, and the website where the talk lived was closed down. The talk, although no longer very recent – it was given at 9IMSC in 2004 – is still accessible as talk 6 at http://www.secamlocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/itj201/RecentTalks.html
It certainly does not endorse decentred PCA. Indeed I had not understood what MBH had done until a few months ago. Furthermore, the talk is distinctly cool about anything other than the usual column-centred version of PCA. It gives situations where uncentred or doubly-centred versions might conceivably be of use, but especially for uncentred analyses, these are fairly restricted special cases. It is said that for all these different centrings ‘it’s less clear what we are optimising and how to interpret the results’.
I can’t claim to have read more than a tiny fraction of the vast amount written on the controversy surrounding decentred PCA (life is too short), but from what I’ve seen, this quote is entirely appropriate for that technique. There are an awful lot of red herrings, and a fair amount of bluster, out there in the discussion I’ve seen, but my main concern is that I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used? Does anyone? What are you optimising? A peculiar mixture of means and variances? An argument I’ve seen is that the standard PCA and decentred PCA are simply different ways of describing/decomposing the data, so decentring is OK. But equally, if both are OK, why be perverse and choose the technique whose results are hard to interpret? Of course, given that the data appear to be non-stationary, it’s arguable whether you should be using any type of PCA.
I am by no means a climate change denier. My strong impressive is that the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence and that a group of influential climate scientists have doggedly defended a piece of dubious statistics. Misrepresenting the views of an independent scientist does little for their case either. It gives ammunition to those who wish to discredit climate change research more generally. It is possible that there are good reasons for decentred PCA to be the technique of choice for some types of analyses and that it has some virtues that I have so far failed to grasp, but I remain sceptical. ”
Ian Jolliffe
So you have it from the acknowledged foremost authority on PCA that Mann’s hocky stick was based on dubious statistics.
June 11, 2010, 8:23 amDoc_Navy:
Troll,
Yes… I am a “despicable cunt”, for what exactly, no one knows but you. Whatever.
Again, you put words into my mouth. Apparently that’s the only way you know how to argue. (Other than to spout obscenities) Make up a false position for your “opponent”, claim they said it, and then knock it down.
I never said that the carbon cycle varies cyclically. I said that is a “cycle” that influences global climate. Although, I’d be willing to bet that if you were to actually check… there are aspects of the “Carbon Cycle” that do vary cyclically.
You are doing an extremely poor job of picking my posts apart. You have skipped over 90% of the things I’ve said, and then focused on one or two specific aspects and then MADE UP my position for me. Then you proceed to make a vulgar pronouncement that I’m wrong, followed by more name-calling.
In this whole amateurish process you provide no real information, no citable references, no *proof* of any kind that backs you up in any way. Honestly, you’re an ignorant, vulgar, sad-sack wannabe of marginal entertainment value and even less societal value. I’m surprised that Warren hasn’t banned you.
This discussion is over.
Doc
June 11, 2010, 12:10 pmDoc_Navy:
Waldoitshotouthere:
The most significant part of your whole quote can be found at the bottom of the page.
“Update… Thus, my contention that solar doesn’t explain much of the variability in this record isn’t valid.”
He just shut himself down.
Doc
June 11, 2010, 12:21 pmnetdr:
Waldoitshotouthere:
Incredible !
You didn’t even read what you posted. Simply incredible.
Doc nailed your hide to the shed Fred !
June 11, 2010, 6:58 pmWaldoIsStillHot:
Ummmm…read the entire post again carefully, netdr and Doc.
1) The whole point of the RC post is that we do not know about solar cycles to determine how much effect they have (did either of you actually read the post?).
2) The point of my post was to give Doc and hunter an actual expert on the subject. But most importantly in regard to your above comments…
Ready?
3) Gavin is talking only about one particular study as an example of a claim which overstates its conclusions. He is not talking about his entire post, simply a single study that he commented upon in the body of his post. You did see that, didn’t you? No? Oh, well here, let me help you.
This is para. #8
“Some contrarian commentators have recently fallen into the habit of mass mailing any new solar-related abstracts and implying that the existence of solar forcing in the past negates any possible recent anthropogenic impact on climate.”
In other words, some people are just too ready to declare solar activity the fabled forcing. Gavin says whoa nelly!
“Since these studies do not have any implication for the radiative impact of CO2, and don’t change the fact that there has been no effective change in any solar indices since about 1950, it is hard to see a substantial basis for this (implied) argument.”
Since these studies no not change the nature of CO2, and since there has been no change in solar activity since 1950, it is hard to see that there is a correlation between solar forcings and climate change.
Now here is where Gavin starts talking about the study he will later correct himself on:
“For instance, there has been a lot of recent attention paid to Mangini et al. (2005) where a solar link to a new Alpine speleothem record was claimed. However, a quick analysis (right) indicates that the explained variance in the record (smoothed over 25 years) correlated to the 14C-production function (a slightly cleaner solar proxy than the resdiual atmospheric 14C (Muscheler et al, 2005 – see comment/link below)) is only about 5%. Hardly a definitive refutation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing.”
That’s it. In other words, there is nothing in Mangini et al to suggest that the study of solar forcings refutes any findings about CO2. Gavin estimates that the “production function” is only 5%. This is the only thing he is corrects – this 5% number, that’s it.
Later, because he is an honest commentator (unlike some people we know), Gavin comes back to point out that he made a mistake when talking about the variability of this particular study and writes “my contention that solar doesn’t explain much of the variability in this record isn’t valid. It could explain anything from 5 to 40% (with unknown error bars).” So his original point – that we don’t know enough yet about solar forcings – is still absolutely intact, with a de facto example to boot.
It’s pretty sad, folks, when a guy with my level of scientific training has to point something like this out. You should just begin each of your posts with “Oh yeah, well” before you begin posting about “climate mafias” and the like.
Sorry, netdr, no hides on the shed yet, my friend. Are you sure you’re actually an engineer? Why does your moniker link back to CS – a question you continually ignore.
June 11, 2010, 9:51 pmhunter:
Ah, so clearly you have forgotten why you even became obsessed with cycles. I suppose I’ll have to remind you:
“The cooling portion of a climate cycle that included the LIA ended roughly around 1800, give or take a few years. Now, what happens at the end of a cycle swing? Obviously, it goes back the other direction. Therefor, calling the warming that occurred NATURALLY after the LIA a “recovery” is just fine”
Obviously you think you know of all the supposed cycles you need to add together to understand the climate system perfectly, and you think they all add up to warming after 1800. So go on then, list all the cycles, their periods and their amplitudes. Show that they all add up to global warming. And explain why CO2 is not a greenhouse gas in your understanding.
Alternatively, admit that you said something spectacularly stupid, based on appalling ignorance and grotesque misunderstandings. And then stop bullshitting about subjects you know nothing of.
“I’m surprised that Warren hasn’t banned you”
Ha ha! You think he reads these comments? Have you ever seen even a single response to anything that anyone has said? He’s considerably more stupid even than you, and doesn’t have the intellect to understand the comments, let alone respond.
June 12, 2010, 1:06 amnetdr:
Waldo
Sorry it won’t wash.
“Update (Jul 24):Thus, my contention that solar doesn’t explain much of the variability in this record isn’t valid. It could explain anything from 5 to 40% (with unknown error bars). Sorry for any confusion.”
****************************************************************
The solar cycles could explain up to 40 % of the warming.
Your hide remains firmly nailed to the shed Fred !
June 12, 2010, 6:27 amWaldoroooo:
Okay, now you’re just being stubborn – “could explain” – as in, ‘we don’t yet know’ the variability of “this (particular) record.” Which was the whole point of Gavin’s post in the first place and the whole point of his correction in the second. But that’s fine if you want to run around with your V-sign in the air, netdr, if it makes you feel better.
What I find fascinating is the mentality of the denialist camp. It’s obvious that netdr did not read or digest the post, and yet Mr. M…I mean, netdr’s first reaction is to begin looking for propagandistic statements such as “that is exactly what the CO2 mafia does.” Actually, this is exactly what someone like Limbaugh or Hannity does. Again netdr, you should just begin each post with “Oh yeah, well” and then continue from there. And then there’s Doc Navy who ostensibly has some scientific background who also apparently did not digest the content of the post and who immediately leaps on the idea that Gavin “shut himself down.”
As I’ve posted to Wally any number of times, there is no real science here, simply the adolescent need to declare victory over the bad guys. And this evaporates once we actually look at the what the bad guy scientists say rather than read some highly inflammatory cross-posting from C3 or some other blog-source.
Oh folks, how can you ignore this when it is so obvious?
June 12, 2010, 10:27 amAlan McIntire:
In response to Waldy’s defense of Mann’s hocky stick:
To summarize, Mann created the “hockey stick” using non-centered Principal Component Analysis. McIntyre and McKittrick, and later Wegman, stated
that Mann’s use of non-centered Principal component Analysis was flawed, and that the algorithm in effect was “searching for hockey sticks”.
Mann et al at “realclimate”, on January 6, 2005, stated that McIntyre and McKittrick were mistaken, and cited “Jolliffe” as an authority on PCA, stating that
non-centered PCA was a valid procedure.
Tamino later posted a series on “PCA” on his blog, “Open Mind”. Part 4 was posted on March 6, 2008. In this posting he asserted that
non centerd PCA was perfectly okay, stating,
” You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you should take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA…”
Finally there’s a reply from Ian Jolliffe himself, who in effect said McIntyre and McKittrick’s criticism was correct, and Mann’s hockey stick
was based on dubious statistics.
From the January 6, 2005 “realclimate” post,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/on-yet-another-false-claim-by-mcintyre-and-mckitrick/
“6 Jan 2005
On Yet Another False Claim by McIntyre and McKitrick”…
“McIntyre and McKitrick (MM), in one of their many false claims regarding the Mann et al (MBH98) temperature reconstruction, assert that the “Hockey Stick” shape of the reconstruction is an artifact of the “non-centered” Principal Components Analysis (PCA) convention used by MBH98 in representing the North American International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) data series. “…
“Contrary to MM’s assertions, the use of non-centered PCA is well-established in the statistical literature, and in some cases is shown to give superior results to standard, centered PCA. See for example page 3 (middle paragraph) of this review. For specific applications of non-centered PCA to climate data, consider this presentation provided by statistical climatologist Ian Jolliffe who specializes in applications of PCA in the atmospheric sciences, having written a widely used text book on PCA. In his presentation, Jollife explains that non-centered PCA is appropriate when the reference means are chosen to have some a priori meaningful interpretation for the problem at hand.” ….
On March 6, 2008, “Open Mind” defended Mann’s hockey stick.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/
“First let’s dispense with the last claim, that non-centered PCA isn’t right. This point was hammered by Wegman, who was recently quoted in reader comments thus:
“The controversy of Mann’s methods lies in that the proxies are centered on the mean of the period 1902-1995, rather than on the whole time period. This mean is, thus, actually decentered low, which will cause it to exhibit a larger variance, giving it preference for being selected as the first principal component. The net effect of this decentering using the proxy data in MBH and MBH99 is to produce a “hockey stick” shape. Centering the mean is a critical factor in using the principal component methodology properly. It is not clear that Mann and associates realized the error in their methodology at the time of publication.”
Just plain wrong. Centering is the usual custom, but other choices are still valid; we can perfectly well define PCs based on variation from any “origin” rather than from the average. It fact it has distinct advantages IF the origin has particular relevance to the issue at hand. You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you *should* take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA, author of a seminal book on the subject. He takes an interesting look at the centering issue in this presentation.”
And finally we get a reply from Jolliffe himself:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873
“Ian Jolliffe // September 8, 2008 at 9:36 am
Apologies if this is not the correct place to make these comments. I am a complete newcomer to this largely anonymous mode of communication. I’d be grateful if my comments could be displayed wherever it is appropriate for them to appear.
It has recently come to my notice that on the following website, related to this one, my views have been misrepresented, and I would therefore like to correct any wrong impression that has been given.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/
An apology from the person who wrote the page would be nice.
In reacting to Wegman’s criticism of ‘decentred’ PCA, the author says that Wegman is ‘just plain wrong’ and goes on to say ‘You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you *should* take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA, author of a seminal book on the subject. He takes an interesting look at the centering issue in this presentation.’ It is flattering to be recognised as a world expert, and I’d like to think that the final sentence is true, though only ‘toy’ examples were given. However there is a strong implication that I have endorsed ‘decentred PCA’. This is ‘just plain wrong’.
The link to the presentation fails, as I changed my affiliation 18 months ago, and the website where the talk lived was closed down. The talk, although no longer very recent – it was given at 9IMSC in 2004 – is still accessible as talk 6 at http://www.secamlocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/itj201/RecentTalks.html
It certainly does not endorse decentred PCA. Indeed I had not understood what MBH had done until a few months ago. Furthermore, the talk is distinctly cool about anything other than the usual column-centred version of PCA. It gives situations where uncentred or doubly-centred versions might conceivably be of use, but especially for uncentred analyses, these are fairly restricted special cases. It is said that for all these different centrings ‘it’s less clear what we are optimising and how to interpret the results’.
I can’t claim to have read more than a tiny fraction of the vast amount written on the controversy surrounding decentred PCA (life is too short), but from what I’ve seen, this quote is entirely appropriate for that technique. There are an awful lot of red herrings, and a fair amount of bluster, out there in the discussion I’ve seen, but my main concern is that I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used? Does anyone? What are you optimising? A peculiar mixture of means and variances? An argument I’ve seen is that the standard PCA and decentred PCA are simply different ways of describing/decomposing the data, so decentring is OK. But equally, if both are OK, why be perverse and choose the technique whose results are hard to interpret? Of course, given that the data appear to be non-stationary, it’s arguable whether you should be using any type of PCA.
I am by no means a climate change denier. My strong impressive is that the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence and that a group of influential climate scientists have doggedly defended a piece of dubious statistics. Misrepresenting the views of an independent scientist does little for their case either. It gives ammunition to those who wish to discredit climate change research more generally. It is possible that there are good reasons for decentred PCA to be the technique of choice for some types of analyses and that it has some virtues that I have so far failed to grasp, but I remain sceptical. ”
Ian Jolliffe
So straght from the horse’s mouth, Mann’s use of non centered PCA was crap-
**************************
June 12, 2010, 10:38 amAlan McIntire:
To summarize, Mann created the “hockey stick” using non-centered Principal Component Analysis. McIntyre and McKittrick, and later Wegman, stated
that Mann’s use of non-centered Principal component Analysis was flawed, and that the algorithm in effect was “searching for hockey sticks”.
Mann et al at “realclimate”, on January 6, 2005, stated that McIntyre and McKittrick were mistaken, and cited “Jolliffe” as an authority on PCA, stating that
non-centered PCA was a valid procedure.
Tamino later posted a series on “PCA” on his blog, “Open Mind”. Part 4 was posted on March 6, 2008. In this posting he asserted that
non centerd PCA was perfectly okay, stating,
” You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you should take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA…”
Finally there’s a reply from Ian Jolliffe himself, who in effect said McIntyre and McKittrick’s criticism was correct, and Mann’s hockey stick
was based on dubious statistics.
From the January 6, 2005 “realclimate” post,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/on-yet-another-false-claim-by-mcintyre-and-mckitrick/
“6 Jan 2005
On Yet Another False Claim by McIntyre and McKitrick”…
“McIntyre and McKitrick (MM), in one of their many false claims regarding the Mann et al (MBH98) temperature reconstruction, assert that the “Hockey Stick” shape of the reconstruction is an artifact of the “non-centered” Principal Components Analysis (PCA) convention used by MBH98 in representing the North American International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) data series. “…
“Contrary to MM’s assertions, the use of non-centered PCA is well-established in the statistical literature, and in some cases is shown to give superior results to standard, centered PCA. See for example page 3 (middle paragraph) of this review. For specific applications of non-centered PCA to climate data, consider this presentation provided by statistical climatologist Ian Jolliffe who specializes in applications of PCA in the atmospheric sciences, having written a widely used text book on PCA. In his presentation, Jollife explains that non-centered PCA is appropriate when the reference means are chosen to have some a priori meaningful interpretation for the problem at hand.” ….
On March 6, 2008, “Open Mind” defended Mann’s hockey stick.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/
“First let’s dispense with the last claim, that non-centered PCA isn’t right. This point was hammered by Wegman, who was recently quoted in reader comments thus:
“The controversy of Mann’s methods lies in that the proxies are centered on the mean of the period 1902-1995, rather than on the whole time period. This mean is, thus, actually decentered low, which will cause it to exhibit a larger variance, giving it preference for being selected as the first principal component. The net effect of this decentering using the proxy data in MBH and MBH99 is to produce a “hockey stick” shape. Centering the mean is a critical factor in using the principal component methodology properly. It is not clear that Mann and associates realized the error in their methodology at the time of publication.”
Just plain wrong. Centering is the usual custom, but other choices are still valid; we can perfectly well define PCs based on variation from any “origin” rather than from the average. It fact it has distinct advantages IF the origin has particular relevance to the issue at hand. You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you *should* take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA, author of a seminal book on the subject. He takes an interesting look at the centering issue in this presentation.”
And finally we get a reply from Jolliffe himself:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873
“Ian Jolliffe // September 8, 2008 at 9:36 am
Apologies if this is not the correct place to make these comments. I am a complete newcomer to this largely anonymous mode of communication. I’d be grateful if my comments could be displayed wherever it is appropriate for them to appear.
It has recently come to my notice that on the following website, related to this one, my views have been misrepresented, and I would therefore like to correct any wrong impression that has been given.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/pca-part-4-non-centered-hockey-sticks/
An apology from the person who wrote the page would be nice.
In reacting to Wegman’s criticism of ‘decentred’ PCA, the author says that Wegman is ‘just plain wrong’ and goes on to say ‘You shouldn’t just take my word for it, but you *should* take the word of Ian Jolliffe, one of the world’s foremost experts on PCA, author of a seminal book on the subject. He takes an interesting look at the centering issue in this presentation.’ It is flattering to be recognised as a world expert, and I’d like to think that the final sentence is true, though only ‘toy’ examples were given. However there is a strong implication that I have endorsed ‘decentred PCA’. This is ‘just plain wrong’.
The link to the presentation fails, as I changed my affiliation 18 months ago, and the website where the talk lived was closed down. The talk, although no longer very recent – it was given at 9IMSC in 2004 – is still accessible as talk 6 at http://www.secamlocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/itj201/RecentTalks.html
It certainly does not endorse decentred PCA. Indeed I had not understood what MBH had done until a few months ago. Furthermore, the talk is distinctly cool about anything other than the usual column-centred version of PCA. It gives situations where uncentred or doubly-centred versions might conceivably be of use, but especially for uncentred analyses, these are fairly restricted special cases. It is said that for all these different centrings ‘it’s less clear what we are optimising and how to interpret the results’.
I can’t claim to have read more than a tiny fraction of the vast amount written on the controversy surrounding decentred PCA (life is too short), but from what I’ve seen, this quote is entirely appropriate for that technique. There are an awful lot of red herrings, and a fair amount of bluster, out there in the discussion I’ve seen, but my main concern is that I don’t know how to interpret the results when such a strange centring is used? Does anyone? What are you optimising? A peculiar mixture of means and variances? An argument I’ve seen is that the standard PCA and decentred PCA are simply different ways of describing/decomposing the data, so decentring is OK. But equally, if both are OK, why be perverse and choose the technique whose results are hard to interpret? Of course, given that the data appear to be non-stationary, it’s arguable whether you should be using any type of PCA.
I am by no means a climate change denier. My strong impressive is that the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence and that a group of influential climate scientists have doggedly defended a piece of dubious statistics. Misrepresenting the views of an independent scientist does little for their case either. It gives ammunition to those who wish to discredit climate change research more generally. It is possible that there are good reasons for decentred PCA to be the technique of choice for some types of analyses and that it has some virtues that I have so far failed to grasp, but I remain sceptical. ”
Ian Jolliffe
**************************
June 12, 2010, 10:38 amBargHumer:
@Waldoitshotouthere
Firstly, great to see a reasoned post which appears on face value to be from a real scientist.
I am leaning somewhat toward the skeptic side of this debate not because I am a scientist (I am an engineer), nor becasue I have read much of the literature, but because on face value the AGW predictions have failed, and far from “its hot out here”, if sea temperature is anything to go by then it is perhaps just slightly cooler.
Walsoroooo bemoans the lack of science in here (perhaps rightly), but the intention of this blog is not to be a discussion between “scientists”, but a forum for discussion between interested people. It is fair for him to pleade with the bloggers about what is obvious, but what seems increasingly obvious to me, and so far, all other engineers I meet, is that the King has got fewer and fewer clothes on every week. I think the bored shepherd boy has cried wolf twice already too.
A scientific theory which is all about prediction clearly needs to be able to predict to some degree, and not just make excuses for why it keeps failing. Netdr quite rightly uses the “racing forms” analogy. If it is invalid then it should be pretty easy for a real scientist to outline the predictions that have been validated, and for these to then be open for discussion.
June 13, 2010, 6:46 amWally:
Waldo,
“The whole point of the RC post is that we do not know about solar cycles to determine how much effect they have (did either of you actually read the post?).”
For fuck sake Waldo, did YOU read that paper you picked in the other thread? A very large part of it was dealing with how the forcings we know of, LIKE SOLAR CYCLES, effect the Earth’s temperature. How about you go back and read a PEER REVIEWED journal (you know the things you give so much more credibility than a stupid blog like realclimate), and try to actually learn something this time. If that paper doesn’t explain certain topics well enough for you, look up the citations used in the sections where you get confused (ok, you might as well pull the entire reference listing), then see if you can learn something again. If you can’t repeat until you do, or until you admit it to yourself that you will never understand.
June 13, 2010, 12:07 pm