BBO Discussion Forums: Climate change - BBO Discussion Forums

The problem is more one of "show your work" than it is of what is done with the data. From the "Team's" (mis)use of Bristlecone pines to the insertion of inverted Tiljander proxies, once the errors were spotted and corrections requested (that essentially invalidated the initial conclusions of the research) the desire to share became not only non-existent, efforts were made to impede access. As Phil Jones infamously stated after sharing his data with Steve McIntyre and being schooled on statistical methods: "Why should I share my work with you when your only intention is to find something wrong with it?"

Complete disclosure of data and methods, so that replication and further elucidation can be achieved, is a fundamental part of the scientific method. This is a legal requirement where public funds are used. Questions and questioning are good. Agenda and dogma are for other fields of endeavor.

Al_U_Card, on 2011-June-29, 07:00, said:

The statistical failings in mann's work was minor, and has not significantly altered the results. At least 5 teams have repeated mann's analysis and all of them have found similar results.

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The key to the exercise is that there is a dispute in academia regarding methods AND results. Continued use of Mannian PC methods leads to papers like Steig et al which showed Antarctic warming where there was none (smearing of one warm weather station over an entire continent) Climate changes and cycles and phases (including glaciation) come and go. The issue, initially, was UNPRECEDENTED rising global temperatures and a direct, seemingly causal relationship with [CO2].

It continues to be the case that model results are the source of the speculation about the causal nature of [CO2] regarding global temperatures. Actual temperatures are not following [CO2] and that appears to be, in part, due to the climate sensitivity that the models assign to [CO2]. All of the activity in this area is a good thing for scientific knowledge concerning global climate change and any relationship that it might have with any number of "forcings".

Good science is not about a consensus regarding an agenda (policy, maybe...) but it is all about finding out about what is really going on.

Al_U_Card, on 2011-June-30, 15:20, said:

i think pretty much everyone would agree with that... the only ones who wouldn't are those who actually have an agenda

I had an agenda, but the meeting's over, so I threw it away.

blackshoe, on 2011-June-30, 15:51, said:

So did they (the CAGW crowd) but their "consensus" is over and the agenda is going to be thrown away.

This was on the powerpoint presentation from that meeting....



no wonder the meeting was cancelled!

p.s. note that the envisat plot for the last 8 years is almost flat.

p.p.s. Senator Wirth is certainly convinced

You have produced a graph saying that sea levels are rising since the industrial revolution when CO2 started rising in a big way. Now we have pretty good data going back thousands of years from sediments, and that shows that sea levels were essentially flat for that last two thousand years - se the graph on teh other page. So, even though sea levels were flat, and have only been rising since the industrial revolution started a lot of coal burning, the fact that new satellite measurements make the recent rise even more than previously thought somehow you think that this is evidence against AGW?

You makes no sense. I would imagine that the reason they used the satellite data is because it is much more reliable than tidal guage measurements. Can you imagine how difficult it is to make measurements of the order of mm/y when the daily variation due to the tides is of the average of 6 meteres, with variations of 1-2 meters common due to variations of atmospheric pressure. The satellites can measure the sea level way out to sea where tidal movements are less severe.

Yet this is exactly what Mann and his cronies have come up with for their latest hockey-stick effort. They used NC tidal records to show significant rise in sea-levels in the last 50 years! There is an interesting critique of the paper at in case you missed it

In my lifetime (nearly 60 years) sea-level in the Montreal area hasn't budged but then again, changes on the mm/yr scale not easily remarkable. Thankfully, more accurate measurements are available that we can rely on, as long as they are interpreted accurately.

I wonder if Phil Jones is reading this, he's a bridge player at my local club

Al_U_Card, on 2011-July-01, 09:04, said:

I would once again like to point out that it has been years since Al has done anything but spam the message board with Global Warming commercials.

I hope that we wouldn't put up with random individuals joining the site and spamming us with Viagra ads and offers for discount tee shirts.
I don't understand why we let this troll do the same thing...

Al is not a real member of this forum or this community.
Why are we forced to deal with this constant annoyance?

I have yet to see anyone who dismisses AGW present an explanation of the known facts. All I see are a bunch of Notters: It NOT this, it's NOT that. One can not define what something is by explaining what it is not.

There seem to be three concrete facts: 1) CO2 levels have risen dramtically since the start of the Industrial Revolution 2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and 3)average global temperatures are trending higher.

To believe the Notters, one has to assume that there is not even a correlation among the three areas of substantiated data, much less a causation. If there is no correlation or causation, then there must be a mechanism at work that is explainable as a theory.

I have yet to see a single Notter present a cohesive explanation of the mechanism that is responsible for producing this data.

From my perspective, I have no trouble with any of your three observations. How they relate and inter-relate is a concern as the supposition that [CO2] is the main driver of climate (according to CAGW alarmists and the climate models that they use to project doom based on that premise) is very much up for debate. There are lots of cogent explanations for global temperature forcings (amongst which [CO2] appears to be minor but present) that are backed up by lots of actual data and not just model runs. Were [CO2] to be the magical misery tour it is claimed to be by those that want to tax us into poverty then it would be causing ever-increasing effects of disastrous proportions. This is exactly the meme that is offered up to scare dissent and opposition away.

You are in Oklahoma. Models predict terrible consequences in terms of drought for rising [CO2] and the warming that it is most assuredly bringing. Since that concentration has increased greatly over the last century or so, perhaps it must surely be reflected in precipitation statistics? Here is an an example for your current ([CO2]-induced no doubt) drought.


Seems to be less than conclusive, as far as a significantly ever-increasing trend goes.

There are lots of CAGW skeptics in the climate field looking for answers. They are there to be found if you look.

Local variations cannot be a proxy for global events. Again, where is the non-AGW theory that explains global temperature developments?

I'm really impressed Al, how you manage to avoid the point and create a diversion.

If the world is getting warmer, from the large surfaces of the oceans more water will evaporate.
So there is more water in the air that can rain down.
This and the temperature will change the locations where the rain will occur.
So you expect regions where there will be more rain and others where there is less rain.

The primary component of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere is water vapor. CO₂ is second. It's also interesting that the three primary sources of anthropogenic atmospheric CO₂ are the burning, respectively of petroleum, coal, and natural gas. This seems to me a pretty good argument for alternative sources of power. Of those, solar, wind, and geothermal are, it seems to me, insufficient to meet the needs of the world. Nuclear power would be sufficient, but nuclear power has become the energy industry's "Reefer Madness", a boogie man whose dangers are trumpeted every time there's the slightest excuse. I'm not, btw, saying that what happened at Fukushima, or Chernobyl for that matter, is no big deal. I'm saying that increased use of nuclear power would reduce anthropogenic production of CO₂, and that as I recall it (M.S. in Nuclear Engineering, 1975) an objective assessment of the relative risks comes down pretty firmly in the nuclear power camp. Maybe things have changed since 1975. No, certainly they have — modern plant designs are safer than the thirty to forty year old plants we currently have. So why can't we approach this rationally? Is it, as my coal mining engineer uncle suggested to me back in 1974, that the existing energy industry wants to maintain the status quo, and not see any radical change to new sources?

blackshoe, on 2011-July-02, 11:56, said:

This may be the case but I think the main reason is the lobbying of organizations like Greenpeace which (afaik) are not sponsored by big oil.

Some 25 years ago lots of people were afraid of computers. A similar technofobia was directed towards railways in the early 19th century. But computers and railways are things that ordinary people benefit from directly. The benefit from nuclear power, and genetically modified organisms, is more indirect.

Add to this the association between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

blackshoe, on 2011-July-02, 11:56, said:

Makes sense to me. Yes there are risks, but the risks associated with nuclear power are (potentially at least) manageable. The risks associated with climate change are not.

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I hear a similar claim all the time from those who want ID/Creationism taught in classrooms, that there are more and more scientists who reject evolution and accept ID. When pressed, though, they offer no valid details - just a bunch of old Discovery Institute websites long ago debunked as biased.

I have yet to see anyone propose a non-AGW explanation for events that thus far are matching as well as can be determined the forecasted models. The models forecast 7 increases (troposphere warming and various other warmings) and 3 decreases (sea ice, glaciers, snow cover) on a global scale. Any non-AGW theory would have to contain an explanation for all 10, not just question the reliability of the interpretations of a cherry-picked data set or two.

Winstonm, on 2011-July-02, 14:31, said:

Heh. On the old Jerry Pournelle forum on GEnie (which later moved to Bix and may still be around somewhere for all I know) people used to say "PPOR" when people made assertions like this. It stands for "provide proof or retract". Maybe we should start using it whenever and wherever we see such assertions.