I want to discuss the recent Kaufman study which purports to reconcile flat temperatures over the last 10-12 years with high-sensitivity warming forecasts. First, let me set the table for this post, and to save time (things are really busy this week in my real job) I will quote from a previous post on this topic
Nearly a decade ago, when I first started looking into climate science, I began to suspect the modelers were using what I call a “plug” variable. I have decades of experience in market and economic modeling, and so I am all too familiar with the temptation to use one variable to “tune” a model, to make it match history more precisely by plugging in whatever number is necessary to make the model arrive at the expected answer.
When I looked at historic temperature and CO2 levels, it was impossible for me to see how they could be in any way consistent with the high climate sensitivities that were coming out of the IPCC models. Even if all past warming were attributed to CO2 (a heroic acertion in and of itself) the temperature increases we have seen in the past imply a climate sensitivity closer to 1 rather than 3 or 5 or even 10 (I show this analysis in more depth in this video).
My skepticism was increased when several skeptics pointed out a problem that should have been obvious. The ten or twelve IPCC climate models all had very different climate sensitivities — how, if they have different climate sensitivities, do they all nearly exactly model past temperatures? If each embodies a correct model of the climate, and each has a different climate sensitivity, only one (at most) should replicate observed data. But they all do. It is like someone saying she has ten clocks all showing a different time but asserting that all are correct (or worse, as the IPCC does, claiming that the average must be the right time).
The answer to this paradox came in a 2007 study by climate modeler Jeffrey Kiehl. To understand his findings, we need to understand a bit of background on aerosols. Aerosols are man-made pollutants, mainly combustion products, that are thought to have the effect of cooling the Earth’s climate.
What Kiehl demonstrated was that these aerosols are likely the answer to my old question about how models with high sensitivities are able to accurately model historic temperatures. When simulating history, scientists add aerosols to their high-sensitivity models in sufficient quantities to cool them to match historic temperatures. Then, since such aerosols are much easier to eliminate as combustion products than is CO2, they assume these aerosols go away in the future, allowing their models to produce enormous amounts of future warming.
Specifically, when he looked at the climate models used by the IPCC, Kiehl found they all used very different assumptions for aerosol cooling and, most significantly, he found that each of these varying assumptions were exactly what was required to combine with that model’s unique sensitivity assumptions to reproduce historical temperatures. In my terminology, aerosol cooling was the plug variable.
So now we can turn to Kaufman, summarized in this article and with full text here. In the context of the Kiehl study discussed above, Kaufman is absolutely nothing new.
Kaufmann et al declare that aerosol cooling is “consistent with” warming from manmade greenhouse gases.
In other words, there is some value that can be assigned to aerosol cooling that offsets high temperature sensitives to rising CO2 concentrations enough to mathematically spit out temperatures sortof kindof similar to those over the last decade. But so what? All Kaufman did is, like every other climate modeler, find some value for aerosols that plugged temperatures to the right values.
Let’s consider an analogy. A big Juan Uribe fan (plays 3B for the SF Giants baseball team) might argue that the 2010 Giants World Series run could largely be explained by Uribe’s performance. They could build a model, and find out that the Giants 2010 win totals were entirely consistent with Uribe batting .650 for the season.
What’s the problem with this logic? After all, if Uribe hit .650, he really would likely have been the main driver of the team’s success. The problem is that we know what Uribe hit, and he batted under .250 last year. When real facts exist, you can’t just plug in whatever numbers you want to make your argument work.
But in climate, we are not sure what exactly the cooling effect of aerosols are. For related coal particulate emissions, scientists are so unsure of their effects they don’t even know the sign (ie are they net warming or cooling). And even if they had a good handle on the effects of aerosol concentrations, no one agrees on the actual numbers for aerosol concentrations or production.
And for all the light and noise around Kaufman, the researchers did just about nothing to advance the ball on any of these topics. All they did was find a number that worked, that made the models spit out the answer they wanted, and then argue in retrospect that the number was reasonable, though without any evidence.
Beyond this, their conclusions make almost no sense. First, unlike CO2, aerosols are very short lived in the atmosphere – a matter of days rather than decades. Because of this, they are poorly mixed, and so aerosol concentrations are spotty and generally can be found to the east (downwind) of large industrial complexes (see sample map here).
Which leads to a couple of questions. First, if significant aerosol concentrations only cover, say, 10% of the globe, doesn’t that mean that to get a 0.5 degree cooling effect for the whole Earth, there must be a 5 degree cooling effect in the affected area. Second, if this is so (and it seems unreasonably large), why have we never observed this cooling effect in the regions with high concentrations of manmade aerosols. I understand the effect can be complicated by changes in cloud formation and such, but that is just further reasons we should be studying the natural phenomenon and not generating computer models to spit out arbitrary results with no basis in observational data.
Judith Currey does not find the study very convincing, and points to this study by Remer et al in 2008 that showed no change in atmospheric aerosol depths through the heart of the period of supposed increases in aerosol cooling.
So the whole basis for the study is flawed – its based on the affect of increasing aerosol concentrations that actually are not increasing. Just because China is producing more does not apparently mean there is more in the atmosphere – it may be reductions in other areas like the US and Europe are offsetting Chinese emissions or that nature has mechanisms for absorbing and eliminating the increased emissions.
By the way, here was Curry’s response, in part:
This paper points out that global coal consumption (primarily from China) has increased significantly, although the dataset referred to shows an increase only since 2004-2007 (the period 1985-2003 was pretty stable). The authors argue that the sulfates associated with this coal consumption have been sufficient to counter the greenhouse gas warming during the period 1998-2008, which is similar to the mechanism that has been invoked to explain the cooling during the period 1940-1970.
I don’t find this explanation to be convincing because the increase in sulfates occurs only since 2004 (the solar signal is too small to make much difference). Further, translating regional sulfate emission into global forcing isnt really appropriate, since atmospheric sulfate has too short of an atmospheric lifetime (owing to cloud and rain processes) to influence the global radiation balance.
Curry offers the alternative explanation of natural variability offsetting Co2 warming, which I think is partly true. Though Occam’s Razor has to force folks at some point to finally question whether high (3+) temperature sensitivities to CO2 make any sense. Seriously, isn’t all this work on aerosols roughly equivalent to trying to plug in yet more epicycles to make the Ptolemaic model of the universe continue to work?
Postscript: I will agree that there is one very important affect of the ramp-up of Chinese coal-burning that began around 2004 — the melting of Arctic Ice. I strongly believe that the increased summer melts of Arctic ice are in part a result of black carbon from Asia coal burning landing on the ice and reducing its albedo (and greatly accelerating melt rates). Look here when Arctic sea ice extent really dropped off, it was after 2003. Northern Polar temperatures have been fairly stable in the 2000’s (the real run-up happened in the 1990’s). The delays could be just inertia in the ocean heating system, but Arctic ice melting sure seems to correlate better with black carbon from China than it does with temperature.
I don’t think there is anything we could do with a bigger bang for the buck than to reduce particulate emissions from Asian coal. This is FAR easier than CO2 emissions reductions — its something we have done in the US for nearly 40 years.
Malcolm says: ‘I agree Gavin is not obliged to talk to me or anyone else, but the fact remains, it is him who isn’t willing to talk, not the skeptics.’
Nonsense. Out of anyone in this debate he has done an enormous amount of communicating, both through peer-review and online.
Does it make you feel better to know that many of my posts on Realclimate have been rejected too?
Have a little common sense. RC is probably the most popular CC blog in the world. We are not alone in our interest in CC science, so one would expect that the RC admin have to filter an enormous amount of material. Further Gavin is one of the most well-known climate scientists and probably the most contactable. Do you think he has time to reply to everyone??
Here is a hint, if you would like to communicate to a climate scientist then email/ call your nearest University Climate science Department.
And if they don’t decide to help you out don’t jump to the ‘silencing-debate!’ conclusion. Not everyone has the time, and some answers might be too complicated. I wouldn’t expect a professor in neuroscience to explain to me fully what a memory is. I’d best become a student.
Chippas, I disagree. Yes, Gavin Schmidt is not obliged to respond to everyone. I said as much. But since he does take the time to review large amounts of posts, letting posts that praise the science behind CAGW through, and censoring posts that run counter to that by either peppering them with snide remarks or just throwing them away, one would think that his failures to respond to skeptics are not due to the lack of time on his part. He does have the time. He just chooses to spend it on censoring the debate instead of on actually participating in it.
No, it does not make me feel better to know that many of your posts on RC have also been censored.
Also, Chippas:
RC is probably the most popular CC blog in the world. — Just in case, realclimate.org has significantly less visitors than either climateaudit.org or wattsupwiththat.com. So, if you want to say that RC is the most popular blog related to CC, you would have to invent some boundaries, like “the most popular blog run by real scientists” or “the most popular blog for normal people who support the consensus, not deniers”.
Malcolm :’But since he does take the time to review large amounts of posts, letting posts that praise the science behind CAGW through and censoring posts that run counter to that by either peppering them with snide remarks or just throwing them away,’
No, the admin (not just Gavin) censor comments that are abusive, or off topic, or caught by a spam filter.
What evidence do you have that they specifically censor counter argument posts? Give evidence that Gavin has any worse a manner on forums than anyone else, and then try explaining why that difference matters for you getting your answers.
If you don’t like Gavin, fine, but don’t sulk about him, go talk to someone else.
Re. wether RC is the most popular I don’t know for sure, you could be right. It doesn’t bother me. The point is that they can’t be expected to respond to everything.
Again, if you don’t like RC, why not check out your nearest Uni?
Oh an Malcolm, Seeing as you are rightly against those that actively avoid reasonable debate, maybe you could convince netdr to respond to my several attempts to get him to substantiate his claim:
‘Over 50 % of the scientifically literate population is skeptical of CAGW as they should be.’
(I am interpreting ‘CAGW’ as the general IPCC hypothesis, because no one uses that term in the science.)
sock puppet
The paranoia of the Looney left about “big oil” is silly when it is counterbalanced by far more money and time from the alarmists . Despite their advantage in money and time they are losing because the facts are not on their side.
[That is an important fact, Lord Moctin demolished the alarmist in their recent debate simply because he was right. Spending hundreds of billlions of dollars [Australian] to avoid .02 ° C in 100 years is stupid.]
According to the report, conservative think-tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations raised some US$907 million during 2009, and spent a total of $787 million on their activities, with $259 million of that devoted specifically to climate and energy policy issues.
Over the same period, national environmental groups had revenues of $1.7 billion and spent $1.4 billion on their programs, which included $394 million devoted to climate and energy issues
Those who claim that the public’s belief in CAGW is being undercut by industry need to see how much the alarmist side is outspending them.
The is on top of the billions of dollars of grants given to universities to keep their research departments operating.
According to a study in “Nature “
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110419/full/news.2011.248.html
Study Finds Higher Educated Less Concerned About Warming
Warmists very frequently claim that skeptics are dummies and that if only they understood “the science”, they would become Warmists. These results shoot that down. The authors waffle on in an attempt to explain the finding in ways that preserve Warmism but the parsimonious explanation is simply that Warmism is wrong. In science, the most parsimonious (simplest) explanation is normally the one chosen
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2011/07/study-finds-higher-educated-less.html
I myself believe [like the British Royall Society] that doubling CO2 would cause .4 ° C of temperature rise. Amplification can be shown not to have happened in the past why should it happen in the future ? [Have faith ?]
Since water vapor is the instrument of the amplification and it has gone down since 1950 how could it have amplified anything ?
The better informed and educated know these facts.
Chippas:
What evidence do you have that they specifically censor counter argument posts? — Some time ago I have been on RC and have submitted several comments which contained a couple of specific scientific inquiries, contained no foul language, were on topic, were not repeating other comments, etc. My comments never made it to the site. Out of the interest, I submitted a fluff comment which was basically restating that ‘the science is settled’ without adding anything useful to the discussion, and that comment did appear on the site. I repeated the experiment twice, using two different new names, with the same results. I have talked with other skeptics and their experiences were largely the same. Not all comments get filtered, but it looks like the majority does, and a significant portion gets cut and edited. This is my evidence. Is there other evidence you’d like to see?
Again, if you don’t like RC, why not check out your nearest Uni? — You’d be surprised, but my Uni does not support the concept of CAGW. My Uni is in Russia, perhaps this explains it.
… maybe you could convince netdr to respond to my several attempts to get him to substantiate his claim: ‘Over 50 % of the scientifically literate population is skeptical of CAGW as they should be.’ — I am not sure I have seen any decisive numbers on that, maybe I have missed something. I would suggest though that the fact that the leading web sites of the proponents of CAGW are much less popular than the web sites of the skeptics speaks in favor of the netdr’s point.
The skeptics have an unfair advantage over the alarmists, they happen to be correct.
That is an important fact, Lord Monckton demolished the alarmist in their recent debate simply because he was right. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars [Australian] to avoid .02 ° C in 100 years is stupid.
The fact is that it won’t help alarmists to explain their position better if the positions themselves aren’t valid.
Ad Hominem attacks against Monckton are just signs of desperation at losing
A child could have defeated the alarmist if he had that one fact so a good debater isn’t required.
Al Gore or any spokesman [like Dr Hansen] saying freakish weather is caused by CO2 could be shot down by any mildly intelligent child.
BTW: I have posted the link about literate people not believing in CAGW before but you continued to demand it. Why ?
I thought I would look into the actual response from industry to GW. There actually is not as much forthcoming as I would have thought (considering how dire some of the predictions are) but Mr. Meyer’s spambot deleted my post with the links (note: apparently any post with more than one link gets deleted). So you might just Google “industry response to GW” or something to that effect. I did not find any industry captains who thought heavy industry was going to be destroyed.
This is from the Chairman of Dupont:
Addressing Climate Change Can Reinvent American Industry
DuPont Chairman Calls for Legislation to Include Cap-and-Trade Program
We need sound policy that takes broad, coordinated, economically sustainable actions across the entire economyQuote end
Washington, D.C. (Vocus) April 22, 2009
Addressing climate change may be the single greatest opportunity to reinvent American industry while putting the United States on a more sustainable path forward, DuPont Chairman Charles O. Holliday, Jr. told the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee here today.
“We need sound policy that takes broad, coordinated, economically sustainable actions across the entire economy,” Holliday said. “We need clear, strong and workable emission reduction goals that will show us the pathway to a low-carbon economy. And we need a cap-and-trade program that focuses our efforts on the emission reduction opportunities that offer the most environmental benefits for the lowest costs.”
Holliday spoke on behalf of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a group of companies and non-governmental organizations which have come together to forge a consensus view regarding the United States’ actions on the challenging issue of climate change. DuPont and other USCAP members believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence on climate change to warrant prudent action.
Between 1990 and 2004, DuPont reduced greenhouse gas emissions 72 percent globally from its operations through a variety of innovative efforts. The company has further committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2015 from a base year of 2004.
“The current economic situation has served as a reminder to the importance of our resources and how efficiently and wisely they must be used, and a federal climate change program must be both environmentally effective and economically sustainable,” said Holliday. “At the same time, we cannot allow the current economic conditions to slow our efforts. A federal climate change program has the potential to create real economic growth through innovation.”
DuPont – one of the first companies to publicly establish environmental goals 19 years ago – has broadened its sustainability commitments beyond internal footprint reduction to include market-driven targets for both revenue and research and development investment. The goals are tied directly to business growth, specifically to the development of safer and environmentally improved new products for key global markets.
DuPont is a science-based products and services company. Founded in 1802, DuPont puts science to work by creating sustainable solutions essential to a better, safer, healthier life for people everywhere. Operating in more than 70 countries, DuPont offers a wide range of innovative products and services for markets including agriculture and food; building and construction; communications; and transportation.
The most interesting one, however, is the KPMG survey of mining executives.
http://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/Climate-Change-Mining-Survey-2010-final.pdf
About 1/3 were “wait and see”; about 1/3 had already taken action; 19% had done nothing.
From the report:
****”Key findings
Generally, mining organizations are adopting a “wait and see” approach to actions involving climate change. According to the survey:
• Less than 20 percent of respondents stated that climate change is a significant driver for new initiatives in their organization.
• Almost 50 percent of the respondents said that their organization has not quantified the potential cost of climate change on their business.
• Approximately 60 percent of the respondents said that their organization has not implemented structural changes to address climate change issues.
• Over 60 percent of the organizations, according to respondents, have not measured their carbon footprint and do not include climate change in dealings with suppliers and customers.
To be clear, many of the organizations have already implemented sustainability measures. In other cases, a lack of progress is not from skepticism about climate change but from the difficulties of building a quantifiable business case for addressing climate change.
However, the survey shows a surprising diversity of opinion among senior executives about climate change and the best strategies for dealing with sustainability and regulatory compliance.”*****
None of the respondents, Ted, mentioned that climate initiatives were going to destroy their industry.
Once again, I respectfully submit that you have overstated your case.
COME ON, NETDR, YOU REPEATEDLY IGNORE THE CHALLENGE. IF GW SCIENCE IS SO EASILY DISMISSED A MODERATELY INTELLIGENT CHILD COULD DO IT, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO TOO!!! YOU ARE IGNORING THE CHALLENGE. YOU ALWAYS HAVE. PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS.
IGNORE NO LONGER. GREATNESS AWAITS YOU.
By the way, I love Lord Monckton. I think he’s hilarious.
Go Netdr, peer-review. And if not, why not?
I am not a climate scientist, so I am not in a position to make strong statements about the validity of the CAGW idea. However, anyone with a technical or scientific background can ask the obvious questions. To say that so and so has more degrees than a thermometer in climate science, therefore shut up and sit down, is absurd. I would think that those most knowledgeable would be delighted to explain their work rather than merely defend it.
As a computer modeller of much experience, I am VERY leery of programs with fudge factors and missing many variables, many of which we aren’t even aware of. Basing critical decisions on them is absurd (see my previous posts).
The argument about which side can muster the most adherents is nonsense. An opinion by any number of people on a model full of fudges and holes certainly cannot be argued to be able to predict the future 100 years ahead.
One can also play the “name the zealots game”. There are any number on both sides. So what? Simply ignore them and try to find people who have well thought out comments and ideas.
It is impossible to prove a negative. I certainly can’t prove that the AGW modela CAN’T predict the 100 year future. But the adherents can’t prove that they can either. Again, so what?
I encourage climate research. I am glad this AGW thing has triggered much activity in the field. Unfortunately, it has also triggered a huge number of idiotic USG sponsored expensive projects. This in turn has corrupted the research establishment. Jillions of professors have grants to study things that any engineer can quickly show to be nonsense. Virtually all the work on alternative energy, energy storage, carbon sequestering, etc. falls into this category. For those who don’t believe me, run some calcs of your own. Don’t just quote the Spaniards or the USG.
We need to go back to the drawing board and approach all this in a manner well established and practiced in private industry.
An additional comment. Peer review is fine, but what does it accomplish in this discussion? The opinions of peers re a model full of fudges is meaningless.
Well, if you say “Jillions of professors have grants to study things that any engineer can quickly show to be nonsense,” this is what peer-review is for. Prove them wrong. No one says “shut up and sit down”; what we are saying is “put your money where your mouth is” and even “beat them at their own game.” Otherwise you run the risk of armchair quarterbacking.
I’m always slightly amused at the apparent arrogance (sorry, Ted, just trying to be straight) that some engineers have.
By the way, netdr, not everyone is convinced of those numbers you posted re: spending. You really should follow the links in these things.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/04/19/207910/climate-shift-data-reanalysis/
Chippas: [SOCK PUPPET ]
Oh an[SIC] Malcolm, Seeing as you are rightly against those that actively avoid reasonable debate, maybe you could convince netdr to respond to my several attempts to get him to substantiate his claim:
‘Over 50 % of the scientifically literate population is skeptical of CAGW as they should be.’
(I am interpreting ‘CAGW’ as the general IPCC hypothesis, because no one uses that term in the science.) [Slight warming has happened get over it. Did mankind cause a substantial part of it ? No one knows.It is the “catastrophe” which has been manufactured with smoke and mirrors and non-existent positive feedback. — NetDr]
*************
Consider yourself replied to : See above [July 25, 2011, 7:34 am]
Ted Rado:
I appreciate the common sense approach you take to this issue. One does not need a PhD in climate science to understand the fundemental problems with existing climate models.
I found it interesting to read something Judith Curry wrote the other day. She is the Chair of the Department of Atmsopheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. She said she began to question the climate models when she was invited to host a discussion on Climateaudit.org regarding the climate models. In doing so, she had the opportunity to interact with professionals in other fields who work with computer models. People like you. This opened up her eyes to how flimsy the climate models are compared to industry standards used in the private sector. Her mind was opened by the comments to this post. http://climateaudit.org/2008/02/03/curry-reviews-jablonski-and-williamson/
The comments she found to be eye-opening were consistent with the common sense points you have been making here.
Netdr, has Pauld just cited an “authority”?
And since “It is the “catastrophe” which has been manufactured with smoke and mirrors and non-existent positive feedback” why don’t you prove this. PEER REVIEW, NETDR! YOU ARE STILL IGNORING THE CHALLENGE!!
One of the reason that laymen typical do not submit articles for peer-review in scientific journals is that they have better things to do.
Publishing is an important professional expectation for professors and research scientists. That is why they publish. It is their job. Laymen typically have other types jobs and do not gain professional recognition by publishing outside of their field.
Moreover, comments made in blogs do not contain the type of content that typical warrants publication in a scientific journal. Scientific journals want to publish articles that contain original research. Occasionally, they might publish unique and interesting prospective by prominent scientists on an existing controversy.
Thus, for example, while the point made in Warren’s main point is a valid one, it is not based on his original research and therefore not likely to be accepted for publication in a scientific journal. Moreover, he has other things to do with his time than write up an article for free.
If you think it is important that any idea involving science be peer-reviewed, then don’t hang around blogs. If you are going to hang around, don’t make silly comments asking laymen to write up their blog comments and submit them for publication.
This “prove them wrong” and obsession with “peer review” is astonishing. One obviously cannot read everything or write a paper on everything. Some seem to think unless you do, you are disqualified from asking questions. If those proposing big changes at huge cost and serious consequences are unwilling to accept questions from those less skilled in their field, we have an autocracy. Why not just have a science and engineering “king” who decides everything and the rest of us shut up.
One other point. Engineers know more engineering than non-engineers. However, we welcome questions from non-engineers. I certainly don’t expect to have my work blindly accepted. In the same way, I don’t expect to blindly follow the teachings of someone else, especially if the consequences are serious. I feel free to ask questions and expect to obtain logical explanations. In some case, such as computer modelling, many outside the climate science field have expertise. The AGW people would be wise to heed their comments.
As an example of where I would welcome comment, I have done much study of hydraulic energy storage. The resulta show it to be totally uneconomical. Something close to ten times the electrical equipment as for the base load would be required. I would welcome seeing someone else’s study of the subject. Instead, all I get is “the USG is sponsoring work on it, so it must be a good idea”.
And by the way, I have “put my money where my mouth is” by trying to explain the reasoning behing my comments. Asking to have a rational response I guess is asking too much.
This lunatic jumping around like a frog on a hot rock is entertaining though. I have a friend who is a shrink. Maybe I’ll float some of this stuff past him for a laugh.
I appreciate what you are saying, Paul, and you are not the first to say it.
However, the people here are not simply commenting on climate science or policy, they are being definitive and accusative about what they perceive as inept, careerist science or government waste; there are a great many accusations and allegations on these boards; there are also a great many definite comments about the science with little actual cited or quoted science (netdr’s obsession with “negative feedback”). They are not particularly temperate in their opinions. All this is out there for the world to see. I am simply challenging these people to test their conclusions.
If these people are confident in their opinions and their conclusions, certainly these opinions and conclusions would stand up to scrutiny. How do we know, for instance, that Mr. Meyer’s opinion above is, in fact, “valid”? At least one poster, “markm” at July 11, 2011, 7:16 pm, seems to think that Mr. Meyer misunderstood the role of plug variables. And this is exactly where the problem lies. Mr. Meyer may actually be wrong. His comprehension may not actually be good. He may not know enough. Yet he has now made a specific argument and posted it.
Not everyone differentiates between carefully studied, qualified, vetted science and the layman’s commentary which, for the price of a website or blog, anyone can post. Some people may be greatly overconfident. A great many people troll the Net looking for validation of their a priori opinions which are often based on political bias and not comprehension of science. Not everyone wants a balanced, factual discussion. All these are why we need scientists and peer-review.
It would not take much more work for Mr. Meyer to turn this into an actual article—and then he could get his opinion critiqued by professionals and we might find out how much he actually knows about plug variables. If Mr. Rado thinks he can explain models to the scientists, let him. Climate Skeptic is not a very good venue for such commentary.
I am with those that think the subject of climate change is an important subject. What I worry about is that people are disseminating simplified and unverified chunks of easily digestible junk science and turning the actual scientists into targets. And I’m afraid that the “little time to publish” excuse is a little like netdr’s excuse for why he hasn’t read more—if you don’t have the time to actually do the work, how can you possibly hope to be confident in your conclusions? And I have noticed that Mr. Meyer has plenty of time to write up his blog(s) and then travel to college campuses and give speeches—couldn’t he use one or two of those evenings to prepare a manuscript?
The truth is, Paul, on some level the posters here know that they would not be able to compete in the actual climate science arena (if they could, I have no doubt netdr, Wally, Alex, even Ted would not hesitate to take a scientist or agency down), and they would probably find that they were not as capable as they claim.
Netdr,
Sorry for missing your link to the paper. It would help if you addressed it to me, Chippas, not ‘sock puppet’.
I don’t think that this (unpublished?) paper backs up your claim:
Firstly, the study doesn’t say anywhere that ‘Over 50 % of the scientifically literate population is skeptical of CAGW as they should be’ It give no indication of CAGW or IPCC. it just gives a scale. 1- 10 with a mean of 5.7, which they say is less worried about the risks than the experts. Even if we say that the IPCC would score around 7.5 You can’t tell anything about the proportions of scores based off a mean, only the central tendency. you need info on the distribution. So it follows that you also can’t describe the proportion of scores pertaining to the subjects high in sci. lit.
Secondly, the data pretty much show that sci. and literacy (as instrumentalised in this study) are bad predictors of perception of CC–that r they found is nothing. So any implication (which you were obviously trying to make) that more education equals more IPCC skepticism is unfounded.
here’s a quote: ‘Our data, how-ever, show that as individuals become more science literate and more proficient in the mode of reasoning featured in scientific inquiry, they don’t reliably form beliefs more in line with scientific consensus. In-stead, they form beliefs that are even more reliably correlated with those of the particular cultural group to which they belong. ‘
Thirdly, this study looked only at US citizens.
If I have missed anything please show me.
Waldo:
The truth is, Paul, on some level the posters here know that they would not be able to compete in the actual climate science arena … — I think you misunderstand. I will use myself as an example. I am not interested in competing in the actual climate science area. I think I see serious, fatal flaws in certain works of some of the existing climate scientists. (If the flaws I think I see are not indeed flaws, I am completely willing to be proven that. Right now I am pretty sure what I see are actual, fatal flaws.) Given that these works are being pushed to become a foundation for certain policy decisions, which are going to affect me, I am interested in exposing these flaws. You say the proper way to do this is to submit a paper into a journal. Some of the skeptics are doing this. Maybe one day I will do this as well. Until that happens I will do my best at educating myself in the matter and talking with other people about what really is going on. This is what I am doing on this and other blogs.
That is fair enough, Malcolm—although, by “competing,” I mean that the reasoning and science of most of these blogs would not stand up to fair and objective scrutiny by the scientific community (which I suspect most bloggers know). And if this is so—if the blog science can’t stand on its own in the scientific community—, then you are not really educating yourself but simply reading poorly stated, inexpertly done and ill-informed junk science.
I hate to harp on this, but you won’t get very far with sources like the Petition Project. What do you really learn from that? What has it really proven?
Part of finding out “what is really going on” is good information, no? This phrase suggests your mind is already made up, but I hope I am wrong on this. One hopes that you are also reading the scientific literature fairly and not just the blogs. If you really do find fatal flaws, do us all a favor, prove it to the world: write that paper, do your own scientific work.
Waldo:
I hate to harp on this, but you won’t get very far with sources like the Petition Project. What do you really learn from that? What has it really proven? — That many scientists are very, very skeptical towards CAGW. Scientists are normally intelligent people, who can first and foremost think critically. In my experience, scientists are normally keen to acknowledge when they don’t know enough about something. Consequently, when they see something they think they don’t understand enough about, they don’t say anything about it. They either do their homework, develop their knowledge up to a level where they think they finally understand enough to say something meaningful, and voice their opinion, or they remain silent. CAGW naturally attracted a lot of interest due to the scary scenarios with global calls to action offered by its proponents. That a great deal of scientists, after what I think was doing their homework on CAGW, have chosen not to remain neutral with respect to it, but have voiced their opinion about it in rather harsh tones, is, I think, telling.
We may have to agree to disagree, but I don’t think the Petition Project proved anything of the sort; if nothing else, it is too poorly verified, too small, and avoided those people who are in the best position to critically analyze the evidence. The climate scientists did not sign. Besides, I thought you were educating yourself—what do you care if a handful of scientists not in the climate field signed a petition? You are objective and unswayed by anything but science, aren’t you?
To Waldo and Malcolm,
The paper netdr and I am discussing has some interesting conclusions regarding scientific literacy and opinion on CC in the US. It shows that scientific literacy is a poor predictor of how one will view CC science. What they found was that a better correlate was ideology (my word) and that science literate people just use the evidence and methods that best support their view. so smart members of the US General public, such as in a survey of academics, aren’t any less un-objective on either side.
Another reason to just stick with the experts who publish.
Waldo:
Besides, I thought you were educating yourself—what do you care if a handful of scientists not in the climate field signed a petition? You are objective and unswayed by anything but science, aren’t you? — Right. I don’t care much about petitions. The only reason I brought the petition above up is because of the discussion on consensus in this thread that I thought it was relevant for, however little my interest in discussions of that type is. As I said, I’d gladly talk about the science, but it has been my impression that neither you nor Chippas are ready or willing to talk about that. I understand you have your reasons.
I have to admit it is a little boring to talk about fluff like this. I mean we don’t yell at each other, that’s cool and all, but our discussions seem to lack substance. I feel if we continue further, we will just repeat ourselves, ie, you will say that if I want to talk about science, I should go publish a paper, and I will say what I already said about that a couple of posts above, etc. Meh.
@Chippas:
Another reason to just stick with the experts who publish. — Well, no. The paper was aiming to figure out whether the claim that people who do not support ‘the consensus’ tend to be less educated than those who do. The authors found that not to be the case. If they did find that not supporting ‘the consensus’ meaningfully correlates to low education, you’d be arguing that this is a clear reason to listen to the experts, since, after all, only high school dropouts oppose it, presumably exactly because they can’t make sense of the science. Now that the authors found that the correlation does not exist you are trying to argue that this, too, is a good reason to listen to the experts. You can’t have it both ways. If you are going to say that it is a good idea to listen to the experts no matter the results of a particular study, do not bring that study as an argument.
Malcolm,
You are gonna have to do better to show evidence that RC is biased. The plural of anecdote is not data. As I have said, I have had comments rejected many times too. Further, the contrarian blogs have been accused of censoring too. For example: http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2011/07/anthony-watts-denies-his-mother-ever.html
Like the paper I mentioned earlier, this seems like yet another reason to just stick with the science–blogs are just blogs. So forget about making your accusations unless you have better evidence. Focus your energy on getting answers to your questions, and if your local uni can’t help you out than go to the next one.
Malcolm says: ‘You can’t have it both ways.’
Um, why not? How do they conflict?
Chippas:
You are gonna have to do better to show evidence that RC is biased. — What data would satisfy you?
‘You can’t have it both ways.’ — Um, why not? How do they conflict? — Because that would be arguing that X implies Y, and that not X also implies Y, and this is a logical fallacy.
You are assuming Y can only be inferred from X. What about A,B,C,D?
Re. data to prove RC bias. I guess a sample of all the posting activity including what is rejected and edited in a given time span would suffice. That way you could compare proportions of what is done to agreeable vs contrarian posts.
Chippas:
You are assuming Y can only be inferred from X. What about A,B,C,D? — Unless you somehow tie A, B, C and D into your logic involving X and Y, they do not matter. Arguing that X implies Y and that not X also implies Y does not make sense, since this is logically equivalent to arguing just Y.
I guess a sample of all the posting activity including what is rejected and edited in a given time span would suffice. — Understood. I haven’t kept the posts I made during my experiment above, since I don’t normally keep posts made on forums. From my recollection, I made about 15 posts in total, maybe more, with all non-skeptical posts immediately accepted, and all but one or two skeptical posts rejected. If I ever get around to repeating the experiment, I will keep records for you.
Chippas:
You know, it turns out that there’s a whole blog dedicated to discussing censorship at RC:
http://rcrejects.wordpress.com/
That’s saying something, no? Anyway, if you are looking for evidence of that censorship, this might be a good place to look, or, well, ask for it.
Sorry for making several small posts in a row.
Here is another link for Chippas:
http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2011/07/realclimate-censorship.html
The author theorizes that you might be able to estimate the number of rejected posts by looking at the IDs of accepted posts and counting the discontinuities. I don’t know whether or not this is the case. If it is, the number of rejected posts is significant and on par with my observations.
Waldo says, ” How do we know, for instance, that Mr. Meyer’s opinion above is, in fact, “valid”? At least one poster, “markm” at July 11, 2011, 7:16 pm, seems to think that Mr. Meyer misunderstood the role of plug variables. And this is exactly where the problem lies. Mr. Meyer may actually be wrong. His comprehension may not actually be good. He may not know enough. Yet he has now made a specific argument and posted it.”
I went back and read markm’s comment out of curiosity. Waldo, if you are not able to understand and evaluate the point markm makes and how, if at all, it is consistent or inconsistent with Warren’s post, then you should not be attempting to understand science on your own. I agree with you.
Malcolm,
still not grasping your logic here: ‘ — Unless you somehow tie A, B, C and D into your logic involving X and Y, they do not matter’
So I will bring it back to reality.
If the results showed a good pos. correlation between smartness and CC concern, one might (for the record I prob. wouldn’t because the reasoning is a stretch) use that as evidence to suggest we should listen to the experts because all the smart people are (So long as we can’t find anything wrong with the smart people).
If the results showed (they did) that their is no correlation between smartness and CC concern, one might use that as evidence to show that the smart GP are irrelevant and that leaves us by exclusion with the experts as our best guides.
There is more than one possible reason to reason that the experts are good to listen to. Two different reasons to reach a similar conclusion. –there is no logical fallacy in this.
In the abstract: Y can be infered from X, but it can also be inferred from A
Regarding RC. For your experiment you would need access to the admin’s activities otherwise how could you see what is rejected?
The links you posted are just anecdotes, opinions, stuff–not equal to data. The use of the ID as an estimate doesn’t tell you whether the censored post was contrarian or not.
I have a question to all here but mostly to warmists. When you discover that for example in Al Gore’s inconvenient truth some of it was inconveniently untrue. Also as an individual he is one of the largest emitters in the US. Does this not raise any suspicions? He is not the only one to behave like this. Another thing about any business leaders saying that they are doing something for CO2 emissions. Energy does cost money for an airline it is about 30% of there cost. So if they tell you that they are reducing emissions for the planet, could it just be they want to save money and sounds better to say they are saving the planet? If they are bankers or traders even worse they are large beneficiaries of any trading.
Chippas:
“still not grasping your logic here:” — I will make it very simple. Let’s drop this “I wouldn’t use this argument” stuff, though, you have specifically asked me how the two lines of reasoning conflict with each other. Well, here I am, showing how.
Here goes:
“If the results showed a good pos. correlation between smartness and CC concern, one might (for the record I prob. wouldn’t because the reasoning is a stretch) use that as evidence to suggest we should listen to the experts because all the smart people are …” — This is the line of reasoning used by the proponents of CAGW that the authors of the paper specifically set out to explore. This gives us: X (the smarter you are, the more likely you are to support ‘the consensus’) implies Y (we should listen to the experts).
“If the results showed (they did) that their is no correlation between smartness and CC concern, one might use that as evidence to show that the smart GP are irrelevant and that leaves us by exclusion with the experts as our best guides.” — This is what you are trying to argue. This gives us: not X (support for ‘the consensus’ does not depend on how smart one is) implies Y (we should listen to the experts).
There are no external factors here. The first statement argues Y directly from X. The second statement argues Y directly from not X. Whether you think Y can be argued from something else does not matter one bit, the first statement still argues Y directly from X, and the second statement still argues Y directly from not X.
Now, arguing that X implies Y and that not X also implies Y is logically equivalent to arguing Y. Proof: Suppose Y can be false. Then from the first statement it follows that X is false – if X were true, Y would have been true, since the statement is: X implies Y. But from the second statement it follows that not X is false. Both X and not X can not be false at the same time. Thus, Y can not be false. Thus, arguing that X implies Y and that not X also implies Y is logically equivalent to arguing that Y is not false, or, said in simpler terms, equivalent to arguing Y. End of proof.
So, unwinding this, netdr linked a study, you have written some posts making some points based on that study, but the logic of your points was such that it boiled down to simply restating that ‘we should listen to the experts’ without actually using the results of the study at all. This does not work. You don’t reply to netdr, you just ignore what he is saying.
Do you see it now?
Chippas:
Regarding RC. For your experiment you would need access to the admin’s activities otherwise how could you see what is rejected? — No, the experiment I talked about in the post from [July 25, 2011, 8:14 am] can be done without access to the admin’s activities. I certainly don’t need access to the admin’s activities to repeat it. I can see which of the posts are rejected and which are accepted by looking at the site (doh).
The links you posted are just anecdotes, opinions, stuff–not equal to data. The use of the ID as an estimate doesn’t tell you whether the censored post was contrarian or not. — You might be right. My experience with RC might be different from that of other people. I kind of doubt it, given what other people say their experience was, and given that there are entire blogs dedicated to discussing the issue of censorship at RC, but, yes, I don’t have the data. I don’t know how I realistically could get that data. If you ever get that data, I humbly ask you to forward it my way. Until any of us has definite data, we are left to our pre-conceived notions about the RC. I say they ban skeptics, since this has been my experience. You might, if you want, say that they don’t.
Malcom,
You are ignoring that the reasoning is slightly different in each case (let’s not forget that I only argued for one case in the first place. The other case was your hypothetical). The first one is an argument that is based on the results that scientific literacy leads to support for the consensus, and that skeptics are prob. not worth listening to because they plainly don’t grasp the science. So we should listen to the experts instead, like all the smart people.
The second one is an argument based on the results that scientific literacy is no predictor of support for the consensus or skepticism. Instead it is biased to the individual’s ideology. So, the smart people (and illiterate alike) are not going to give any indication of what to believe in, so by elimination this only leaves the experts as a best indication of what to believe in.
Two different results could be used, using different reasoning, to come to a similar conclusion. It is not breaking any rules.
Your abstractions are nothing but analogies in short hand. Analogies always fail at some point. Just stick to reality and show where the fault lies in my logic.
Regarding netdr. I already discussed his claim before you started this tangent. The argument between you and I is completely different from mine and netdr’s (who hasn’t replied yet). Look it up.
Regarding your experiment. I see your point. But it assumes that you can make 2 sets of posts, that after posting, the difference (if found) in posts rejected would indicate a bias towards censoring debate, and not any extraneous variables such as a post’s argument being too often regurgitated– how would you control for that?
But if you did it I would not automatically ignore your results, because they could be close to the mark. Give it a try, and show us the two sets before hand.
Hi Kelly, I’ll take a shot at your first question about Gore’s movie: the scientists, at least, think his movie was accurate, but the accuracy of An Inconvenient Truth entirely depends on who is evaluating it. The alarmist bloggers? Not so much. The scientists who actually study CC? They praise the film. The film is based on peer-reviewed science. I personally put more faith in the actual experts who know about climate change. However, I do wish Gore would bow out simply because I think he’s a lightening rod and I suspect he is one of the big reasons that the CC debate became a political nightmare. (One wonders how many of these people here would question climate science if, say, Ronald Reagan had made the film instead of Gore.)
As for his being one of the “largest emitters in the US” I’m not sure what you are posting about. Are you referring to air travel or something? I’ve actually never heard this before.
As for the corporations: of course, probably most institute global warming because of PR. But, as someone who’s worked for several big corporations, this is true of almost any business venture—very few corporations do anything that doesn’t help either business or public image. Actually, when I think about it, I’m not sure what you are asking.
Chippas:
You are ignoring that the reasoning is slightly different in each case … — It does not matter, because neither line involves any external inputs. Sequences of X implies A, A implies B, B implies Y are collapsible to X implies Y.
Your abstractions are nothing but analogies in short hand. Analogies always fail at some point. Just stick to reality and show where the fault lies in my logic. — I didn’t make any analogies. I merely assigned symbols to arguments. Without symbols, the fault in your logic is that arguing both lines simultaneously does not allow the statement “we should listen to the experts” to be false (allowing that creates an unresolvable contradiction), hence arguing both lines is equivalent to arguing that “we should listen to the experts” is true, regardless of what the study says.
Anyway, if you still don’t understand why you can’t argue both lines of reasoning about the study simultaneously, fine, let’s leave this alone, since I am afraid I can’t make it any clearer than it already is.
Regarding RC, if I set around to making a controlled experiment, I will let you know.
Kelly: You are, of course, correct that Al Gore’s movie has many significant errors. He attempted to create the impression that it was based on peer-reviewed science and people such as Waldo seems to think it was, but large portions of it were not. As just one example, the movie presents scenarios involving increases in sea levels that far exceed the projections contained in the IPCC. The movie mixes facts that are well-established, such as CO2 is a greenhouse gas, with thinly supported speculations. It thereby leaves the viewer with a highly misleading perception of the state of the science.
I think it is significant that while he asks others to make major sacrifices and wants to adopt policies that will have adverse effects on poorest people in the world, he himself travels by private jet and lives in several large mansions that each consume about twenty times the amount of energy that a typical American consumer uses each year. It is hard to take his concerns about the urgency of climate change seriously when he acts so inconsistently with his own message.
Of course, many corporations try to gain favorable publicity for actions that help the environment and increase their profitability. For the most part, I have no problem with that. That is the way capitalism works. I do have major problems, however, with large corporation that seek government money to adopt policies that would otherwise be unprofitable. Unfortunately, that is becoming more and more common.
Malcolm,
If the crux of your problem is simply that I am supposedly arguing both lines of argument simultaneously, then don’t worry I never did. I only argued from the study’s results. If in another universe, the results were different and actually showed a consensus among the smart GP to support CC science, one could use that as evidence to support the experts. If two similar studies were done, one each showing the aforementioned results, one would have to be wrong. Does this solve the problem for you? If not please persist in describing it because I found it interesting.
you said: ‘arguing both lines is equivalent to arguing that “we should listen to the experts” is true, regardless of what the study says.’
It does matter what the study says. If the results showed that the smart people all disfavoured CC science then that could not be used as evidence to support the experts.
Chippas:
If two similar studies were done, one each showing the aforementioned results, one would have to be wrong. Does this solve the problem for you? — Yes. I have to say I am surprised to hear that you wouldn’t argue that we should listen to the experts if the study did establish that not supporting the consensus positively correlated with poor education, since other proponents of CAGW were trying to argue exactly that, but I will take your word that you wouldn’t.
Damn, I just re-read what you said just a sentence before the excerpt I quoted:
“If in another universe, the results were different and actually showed a consensus among the smart GP to support CC science, one could use that as evidence to support the experts.”
This has me confused. So, since in our universe the study shows no correlation, you are arguing that no correlation means that we should listen to the experts, right? And, if the study did show a correlation, you would have argued that this correlation meant that we should listen to the experts, right? If you reply yes to both questions, I have a problem with that.
This will teach me to re-read everything carefully before posting.