What Do We Think About Climate Change

[Dave Gudeman]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

I have not said it is statistically significant but that it was a cooling period ( 7 years). And I sustain that.

Your assumption of the meaning of "statistically significant" as "errors are large enough..." is not correct. What it means is that the period is not long enough to be representative of a multidecadal tendency.

Guillermo, I don't know what other data you may have, but when someone says "the measurements show X but it is not statistically significant" what that means is that they did some sort of error analysis that showed that they could not rely on the measurements to be accurate more than some threshold (typically 95%). So what that means is that, although the measurement showed a cooling, there is at least a 6% chance that there was not cooling. And usually it's more than 6%.

Now, you may have some other information from which you make your statement that there was cooling --I know that I've read it elsewhere-- I'm just saying that this from quote you cannot make that conclusion with any confidence.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by Dave Gudeman

I believe you, Troy. I've always maintained that the large mass of support for global-warming alarmism comes from people who just have a normal and healthy respect for the authority of established science. That's why I think the tactic to change your mind is not to attack your motives, but to convince you that in this particular case established science has allowed itself to be taken over by politics and cannot be trusted.

However, in this you are wrong. There are people who want to do just that. Some of them are modern nature-worshipers or have other anti-human religious convictions that I suspect would make even you yearn for the warm, human-loving embrace of creationism. Look up "Khmer Rouge" if you don't think that people like this actually exist or actually want to do terrible things to humanity.

One thing that I've noticed about you, Troy, is that you tend to judge things based on associations. You despise AGW skeptics because you associate them with creationists, for example. But what about the association of AGW alarmism with anti-human, eco-terrorist, and communist groups? Shouldn't that, according to your own principles, cause you to be suspicious of it?

No, I'm not 'judging' AGW skeptics based on any supposed association with creationists; I'm comparing them to creationists. Big difference....

And as I'm sure you've noticed, the fact that fruitcakes believe something doesn't automatically make it false. Otherwise, the simple fact that some AGW skeptics believe it's a deliberate, world-wide conspiracy would be enough in itself to prove it true.

Yes, some fruitcakes have attached themselves to the subject--on both sides. But the average scientist, politician, activist or everyday citizen who believes AGW is a threat isn't just saying it as part of some agenda to destroy progress or repress humanity. I have no respect and little tolerance for the average conspiracy buff, no matter which particular conspiracy he happens to be pushing at the moment.

[Marco1]

Troy...how did you come to believe that GW must be true?

Did you come to that conclusion after exhausting all possibilities from both sides without any bias or favouritism reaching such conclusion using the scientific method?

You would be from out of space if you did that. Humans choose a side BEFORE based on association with values that can be completely unrelated, stored in their subconscious and then scramble for "proof" to support their choice. All this is of course not a conscious decision, yet it is inescapable and such is how the brain works take it or lump it.

It is rather simple and there is ample literature to support this concepts that go several decades back. Certainly not a new discovery.

Similarly I chose to oppose GW alarmist for exactly the same reasons. Association to values I have stored and I use for my own choices. The difference perhaps lays in the fact that I know that such is how my mind works and I have made a conscious effort to weed out the values that do not serve me and use only the one I want. So I can say that my choice, when still based on the same principle we all use, is based on values I have made a conscious effort in choosing.

My proposition, and lets be clear, NOT A CRITICISM, since you until now had no choice in the matter, is that anyone that has chosen a side over another must fist understand why he did so. A set of values that have lived in your mind since before age 10 and that have shaped all your decisions for a long time without allowing your own intellect or logic to have a say.

So perhaps the fervour or blindness exhibit by some in spite of overwhelming evidence can be explained simply because the person can not accept the other side to be right or it will contradict his core values. However said core values in most cases are completely obscured to the conscious mind.

A fascinating subject and certainly at the root of a lot of unnecessary disagreements.

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by Marco1

Troy...how did you come to believe that GW must be true?

Did you come to that conclusion after exhausting all possibilities from both sides without any bias or favouritism reaching such conclusion using the scientific method?

You would be from out of space if you did that. Humans choose a side BEFORE based on association with values that can be completely unrelated, stored in their subconscious and then scramble for "proof" to support their choice. All this is of course not a conscious decision, yet it is inescapable and such is how the brain works take it or lump it.

It is rather simple and there is ample literature to support this concepts that go several decades back. Certainly not a new discovery.

Similarly I chose to oppose GW alarmist for exactly the same reasons. Association to values I have stored and I use for my own choices. The difference perhaps lays in the fact that I know that such is how my mind works and I have made a conscious effort to weed out the values that do not serve me and use only the one I want. So I can say that my choice, when still based on the same principle we all use, is based on values I have made a conscious effort in choosing.

My proposition, and lets be clear, NOT A CRITICISM, since you until now had no choice in the matter, is that anyone that has chosen a side over another must fist understand why he did so. A set of values that have lived in your mind since before age 10 and that have shaped all your decisions for a long time without allowing your own intellect or logic to have a say.

So perhaps the fervour or blindness exhibit by some in spite of overwhelming evidence can be explained simply because the person can not accept the other side to be right or it will contradict his core values. However said core values in most cases are completely obscured to the conscious mind.

A fascinating subject and certainly at the root of a lot of unnecessary disagreements.

I have nowhere near the fervor you have, Marco. I'm not emotionally invested in the theory of climate change (or whatever the current phrase is) being true. I do have my opinion. If it turns out to be complete bs, it won't faze me a bit. It won't affect my daily life, or rattle my self-esteem. I don't proselytize, I don't donate money to the cause, I don't attend meetings or lobby my Congresswoman. Frankly, most of the time I could give a rat's ass, because nothing I say or do is likely to affect the issue one way or the other anyway.

I'm not sure you can say the same. Anyone who believes that the evidence on his side is "overwhelming," when the vast majority of mainstream scientists have come to the opposite conclusion, is much more invested than I am and has a blind spot of his own. Maybe you should be considering your own irrational attachment to one side of the argument, instead of making snide remarks about the disfunctionality of those who adhere to the other side.....

If you really believe all that mumbo-jumbo, pseudo-psychological bs you're spouting about 'core values' that are obscured to the conscious mind, maybe it's time you shut up about mine--and started trying to get in touch with your own.

[Zed]

Most people I meet in real life seem to believe that man is driving climate change and I have yet to find one of them that is confident enough to explain it beyond some very basic questioning. Mostly it comes down to the media told me its true so I believe it, they definitely don't understand it.

[Guillermo]

Polynomial Cointegration Tests of the Anthropogenic Theory of Global Warming
Michael Beenstock1 and Yaniv Reingewertz, Department of Economics, The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Israel.

http://economics.huji.ac.il/facultye...aper091209.pdf

Abstract:
We use statistical methods designed for nonstationary time series to test the anthropogenic theory of global warming (AGW). This theory predicts that an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations increases global temperature permanently. Specifically, the methodology of polynomial cointegration is used to test AGW when global temperature and solar irradiance are stationary in 1st differences, whereas greenhouse gas forcings (CO2, CH4 and N2O) are stationary in 2nd differences. We show that although greenhouse gas forcings share a common stochastic trend, this trend is empirically independent of the stochastic trend in temperature and solar irradiance. Therefore, greenhouse gas forcings, global temperature and solar irradiance are not polynomially cointegrated, and AGW is refuted. Although we reject AGW, we find that greenhouse gas forcings have a temporary effect on global temperature. Because the greenhouse effect is temporary rather than permanent, predictions of significant global warming in the 21st century by IPCC are not supported by the data."

More:
"We show that when these shortcomings are corrected, there is no evidence relating global warming in the 20th century to the level of greenhouse gases in the long run. We show that although greenhouse gases share a common stochastic trend, this "greenhouse trend" is not cointegrated with global temperature and solar irradiance. Therefore greenhouse gas forcings do not polynomially cointegrate with global temperature and solar irradiance. Consequently, the putative evidence in favor of the anthropogenic theory of global warming turns out to be spurious.

Although we do not find permanent effects of greenhouse gas forcings on global temperature, we find that they have temporary, or short-term, effects. This means that an increase in CO2 emissions only has a temporary warming effect. We show that previous investigators have confused the temporary with the permanent. This means, crucially, that a doubling of greenhouse gas forcings does not permanently increase global temperature. The policy implications of this temporary greenhouse effect are obviously much less serious than had the effect been permanent."

Cheers.

[hoytedow]

Don't buy a used hybrid from Phil Jones.

[Boston]

I see the PR campaign is alive and well

I did notice that only G was even remotely attempting to introduce any science into the conversation

although in every case so far its been frighteningly easy to show that science to be generated by the agnotists and on a most amateur level at that.

maybe once he posts the solar data he suggested we will be able to confirm the solar data already presented





simple reality is that the animosity expressed concerning science in general would not likely exist if in that science supported the deniers views. Then Im sure the Deniers would be pointing out the majority of data in support of there cause. Its not, It doesn't and the deniers are pissed off at the science for so obviously leaving them flat footed and without a leg to stand on.

Guess the only thing to do is attack science
or anyone who just happens to have a background in the sciences

makes it a lot easier to play a PR game rather than concentrate on the data

my two cents
we now return you to your normally scheduled disinformation campaign

love
B

[hoytedow]

This is what passes for science? The scientist Phil Jones admitted to the fraud, so what more is there to say. He even tried to keep the Medieval Warming Period out of the records, thereby hiding science and distorting history, all to control the weak-minded among us. Come towards the light.

This is for Boston. Some PR actually is true.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...es_confes.html

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by Boston

I see the PR campaign is alive and well

I did notice that only G was even remotely attempting to introduce any science into the conversation

I like Guillermo. He honestly tries to keep the discussion on-topic, more so than most of us.

[Marco1]

Originally Posted by Zed

Most people I meet in real life seem to believe that man is driving climate change and I have yet to find one of them that is confident enough to explain it beyond some very basic questioning. Mostly it comes down to the media told me its true so I believe it, they definitely don't understand it.

Zed, that is precisely my point. Most support for EITER side of the GW and anti, comes from people who in teir vast majority have chosen one side because it suits a preconceived...lets call it model of what is bad or what is good.
In Italy there was a say many years ago that went a bit like this ... Say it is raining right? The average person would say "It is raining, thieving government!"
Everything is the fault of the government even the rain. This is said as a joke yet fits a universal way of thinking. If a person has a model of who is at fault for what he sees as wrong, he will seek a way to blame that side for anything under the sun. The GW hypothesis fits a certain model that fits a lot of people not only greenies and it is those who will automatically align with GW as soon as the news comes up with the steaming stacks in the background.
It is so fitting that the very background of every single news snippet to do with so called GW has a background that is a bold face lie. Smokestacks emitting water vapour. A lie. A fabrication. A publicity stunt. INTENTIONAL. PREMEDITATED. USED AT SATURATION.
Yet no one seems to get it.
It's pollution because the overpaid idiot reading head is telling you so. When it fits your preconcieved notions your logic is impaired to a point that one can make an elephant dissapear using a crane, and no one will notice.
Furthermore you will probably attract the ire of the anti-psichology....and to think we are in the year 2010, not 1810

[Marco1]

Al Gore Seems To Have No Idea What ClimateGate Is All About
Sunday 13 December 2009 -

email to someone printer friendly

Al Gore recently said on CNN that its pretty silly for everyone to be getting all worked up over 10 year old email messages. He obviously doesn't know much about ClimateGate as these damning emails run all the way up to November 2009! Since he obviously isn't being briefed very well we've decided to do it.


As Anthony Watts pointed out on his website the ClimateGate emails extend from March 1996 all the way up until November of 2009. To help educate Al Gore we have decided to go through some of the more recent email's and include some quotes for him. The following quotes were culled from emails in the January 1st, 2009 through June 30th, 2009 time period. (if you don't know who any of these people are see the ClimateGate Who's Who video)


From Phil Jones Date: Mon Jan 5 16:18:24 2009

Tim, Chris,
I hope you're not right about the lack of warming lasting
till about 2020. I'd rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office
press release with Doug's paper that said something like -
half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on record, 1998!
Still a way to go before 2014.
I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying
where's the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal
scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away.

So, it seems, the scientific uncertainty generated by not having good data from the mid-20th century is going to be repeated in the early 21st century



It appears that Mike MacCracken in a message to Phil Jones (and others) is suggesting that raising the acidity of the oceans is not a bad thing. I thought they told us that CO2 was killing the oceans by raising their PH levels? Which is guys, is the increased acidity from CO2 (and SO2) hurting the oceans or not? Sent: 03 January 2009 16:44

That there is a large potential for a cooling influence is sort of evident in the IPCC figure about the present sulfate distribution--most is right over China....Now, I am not at all sure that having more tropospheric sulfate would be a bad idea as it would limit warming--I even have started suggesting that the least expensive and quickest geoengineering approach to limit global warming would be to enhance the sulfate loading--or at the very least we need to maintain the current sulfate cooling offset while we reduce CO2 emissions (and presumably therefore, SO2 emissions, unless we manage things) or we will get an extra bump of warming. Sure, a bit more acid deposition, but it is not harmful over the ocean (so we only/mainly emit for trajectories heading out over the ocean)



Does Mr Phil Jones actually hope that global warming comes back? Of course he does, his funding depends on it! Sent: 05 January 2009

Tim, Chris,
I hope you're not right about the lack of warming lasting
till about 2020. I'd rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office
press release with Doug's paper that said something like -
half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on
record, 1998!



From: Mike MacCracken Sent: 03 January 2009 16:44, he seems awfully worried that their hypothesis is wrong as well as their predictions of warming. So a little damage control seems to be in order and they need to come up with an alternative excuse for the cooling.

In any case, if the sulfate hypothesis is
right, then your prediction of warming might end up being wrong. I
think we have been too readily explaining the slow changes over past
decade as a result of variability--that explanation is wearing thin.
I would just suggest, as a backup to your prediction, that you also
do some checking on the sulfate issue, just so you might have a
quantified explanation in case the prediction is wrong. Otherwise,
the Skeptics will be all over us--the world is really cooling, the
models are no good, etc.



Mr. Schneider in response to FOIA and other requests for data. It looks like they'll just use the lawyers to hide any "glitches or unexplained bits of code". Stephen H Schneider is a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 10:50:56 -0800 (PST)

It would be odious requirement to have scientists document every line of code...This continuing pattern of harassment, as Ben rightly puts it in my opinion, in the name of due diligence is in my view an attempt to create a fishing expedition to find minor glitches or unexplained bits of code--which exist in nearly all our kinds of complex work...Let the lawyers figure this out...
Cheers, Steve
PS Please do not copy or forward this email.



Quoted text in an email on "Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:13:21 -0800" from Phil Jones to Benjamin Santer. Does it bother anyone else that these scientists laughingly "make up statements" to support Obama's "openness in government"?

With free wifi in my room, I've just seen that M+M have
submitted a paper to IJC on your H2 statistic - using more
years, up to 2007. They have also found your PCMDI data -
laughing at the directory name - FOIA? Also they make up
statements saying you've done this following Obama's
statement about openness in government!



In an email message to a Mr. Smith, who is requesting Dr. Santer's modeling code, Dr. Santer rants about Mr. Steve McIntyre (of ClimateAudit) and about Mr. Smith for being critical of him for not releasing his data. So after this long rant he ends it by saying that Mr. Smith doesn't even have his permission to share this email message. This all seems a bit childish for a scientist.
From: Ben Santer To: Smithg Subject: Re: data request
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:33:53 -0800

Your email to George Miller and Anna Palmisano was highly critical of my
behavior in this matter. Your criticism was entirely unjustified, and
damaging to my professional reputation. I therefore see no point in
establishing a dialogue with you. Please do not communicate with me in
the future. I do not give you permission to distribute this email or
post it on Mr. McIntyre's blog.



Are they suggesting to fill in Antarctica data gaps with random data in order to have more convincing data for the IPCC?

From: "peter.thorne" To: Phil Jones Subject: Re: Visit to Met Office
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:54:16 +0000

Antarctic data first piqued my interest with the Science paper on raobs trends which was clearly non-physical but hard to nail down how wrong it was...

Its clear to me that Antarctica is a uniquely difficult environment to collect long-term homogeneous data in. So I have substantial doubts that all the manned station pegs in Steig et al. are adequate. Does this really matter? I'm not sure.

What Steig et al., satellites, and potentially reanalyses does do is allow us, in principle, at least to get around the no-neighbours issue in assessing homogeneity away from the peninsula. For example we could use a bootstrapping of the Steig et al approach by creating say 50 realisations of each station series using randomly seeded combinations of manned station pegs as the S et al. RegEM constraint (excluding the candidate station) to make a neighbour composite ensemble. We could then add in the available reanalysis field estimates and satellite estimates and make a reasonable punt about the existence and magnitude of any breaks based upon multiple lines of evidence (of course, we lose some of these before 1979 ...). We could use this information to assess in a more rigorous way than has been done to date the homogeneity of these sparse stations. Then cleaned up data could be fed back through Steig et al. afterwards to see how it impacts that analysis making for a nice clean self-contained study...

Of course, this doesn't resolve any fundamental methodological concerns about the S et al. approach that may exist but it does give us a reasonable chance of creating a much more homogeneous READER manned station dataset for next IPCC AR and our future products.



Phil Jones is having problems with the Editor of Weather (a RMS Journal) asking too many questions about his papers and requesting the "raw data" behind the papers. Here in his words to Dr. Ben Santer is the pressure he's exerting against the Editor:

From: Phil Jones To: santer1©xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Re: See the link below
Date: Thu Mar 19 17:02:53 2009

I'm having a dispute with the new editor of Weather. I've complained about him to the RMS Chief Exec. If I don't get him to back down, I won't be sending any more papers to any RMS journals and I'll be resigning from the RMS.

Here is Ben's reply:

If the RMS is going to require authors to make ALL data available - raw data PLUS
results from all intermediate calculations - I will not submit any further papers to RMS
journals.



Phil Jones 24/06/2009 13:09 to Nick Pepin

I don't want to put off, but there is an awful lot of things
wrong with NCEP/NCAR.
They are probably OK for month-to-month variability, but if you look at some
of the figures in Simmons et al (2004) you'll see that for trends they are
practically useless before 1979.
There is just so much wrong with the sondes which together with the
introduction of satellite data in 1978/9 makes reanalyses awful.



There are hundreds of such emails. So many of them seem to show that they spend a great deal of time tweaking statements and results to keep the "skeptics" off their backs and changing public opinion. Shouldn't they be spending more time on producing good science?

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/com...mment.news.126

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by Dave Gudeman

Guillermo, I don't know what other data you may have, but when someone says "the measurements show X but it is not statistically significant" what that means is that they did some sort of error analysis that showed that they could not rely on the measurements to be accurate more than some threshold (typically 95%). So what that means is that, although the measurement showed a cooling, there is at least a 6% chance that there was not cooling. And usually it's more than 6%.

Now, you may have some other information from which you make your statement that there was cooling --I know that I've read it elsewhere-- I'm just saying that this from quote you cannot make that conclusion with any confidence.

Dave,
we are talking the same thing, really. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods. In this case the lack of statistical significance is due to the short period of time, in the own words of Prof. Jones.

Cheers.

[hoytedow]

Prof. Jones finally admitted the relevance of the MWP.

[Boston]

Originally Posted by troy2000

I like Guillermo. He honestly tries to keep the discussion on-topic, more so than most of us.

Ive even given old G points for at least trying

the rest is typically a blatant slander campaign
whats funny is that when you point out the obvious frauds the deniers go nuts claiming that somehow we should be debating the phony information. At least G gives up on ones clearly shown to be snake oil salesman. I think G is pretty good at digging up some anomalous data and has presented several interesting points.

Hoyt at least has a good sense of humor

but some of the stuff that gets posted is so obviously PR propaganda its almost funny its so bad

whatever
I stepped back from it a while ago
no sense trying to make sense of nonsense

cheers
B