arctic ice increases 60%

Which would be great, except that it can be shown that adding a lot of CO2 to seawater does decrease pH, as an actual measurement, in real life seawater with real life CO2. So, if the old textbooks say something different, perhaps there's a reason the old textbooks were changed.

"Should be", based on what assumptions?

The problem I have is that every time I look for corroborating evidence for climate change denial, it seems to be missing.

Give me a link and I'll take a look.

 

No textbooks were changed; seawater has always varied (oscillated) between certain high and low limit pH values, and it continues to do so. There is nothing alarming about today's seawater pH as compared to the geological past.

Based on the basic AGW assumptions about the attribution of recent CO2 rise to anthropogenic ('fossil' fuel) emissions, coupled with the asserted long residence time for atmospheric CO2. These are YOUR assumptions since you have taken up the case for AGW here.

ROFL This is like saying that every time you look for corroborative evidence that pigs don't fly around the barnyard by flapping their tiny ears rapidly is missing The AGW camp (you) are the ones making the extraordinary claims; all we are saying is that there is nothing extraordinary happening at all. How is it that "corroborative evidence" demanded for that task:?: Ours is at its most basic an appeal to Occam's razor: The simplest explanation is most likely to be the correct one. ALL we have witnessed is well within the realm of natural climate variation.

Search for the thread "What do we think about climate change?" in the forum archives. The thread was closed by the moderators a couple of years ago but you can still read the posts. The thread is about 750 pages long

Jimbo

 

Maybe not, but there are some things about the geological past that would be alarming to us, should we have to live through them.

After all, you could argue the infamous "Snowball Earth" was part of natural climate variation in the geological past, but it would certainly knacker hoytedow's beloved captialsim and culture if it happened again.

So, the real question is not what the full range of climate variation might be, but what range do we want to live in? That's more relevant.

Hold the bus. Those are your assertions, at this stage. How about you tell me where you got them from?

Climate science has been a rapidly developing field over the past couple of decades. The modelling for predictions started off very crudely, with very limited possibility for cross-checking. So, before I can assess your claim, I would need to know where it came from.

Two words: quantum mechanics.

So much for the simplest explanation being correct in all cases. It's a good principle, but not ironclad. Besides which, your current use of it is highly subjective. After all, I could equally well say that explaining rising CO2 levels by relating them to human use of fossil fuels is the simplest explanation.

Found it. Will try to sort through it and see what falls out.

 

For starters, some of the most fervent opponents of vaccination are right-wing nuts who believe the shots are part of some New World Order conspiracy. Stop trying to palm all the world's whack jobs off onto the left, OK?

When you lump the overwhelming majority of scientists worldwide in with 'left-wing fanatics' because they take climate change seriously, it makes a mockery of your earnest attempts to sound like you know what you're talking about. It make me a little ashamed of myself for wasting my time responding to you at all.

But let's go ahead and play it out: name the professor you're trying to hold up as typical of scientists who believe climate change is real. When I quote an engineer, or a weatherman or a nuclear physicist, or some other non-climatologist who's getting paid to slam climate change, or is just taking out his rear, I provide an actual name and an actual link...

 

What's funny about him referring you to that old thread is that deniers' arguments were thoroughly and repeatedly shot down - only to resurface time after time, as though they had never been discredited. No wonder the moderator eventually got tired of it and decided it had become circular (as well as contentious and rude).

In fact, participating in that thread, and sorting through all the links to available information and arguments, is what made my mind up on a subject I had previously known very little about. To see it now being held up for display as a shining victory for climate change denial is almost unbelievable.

 

Now why doesn't this surprise me?

 

Ok, so I just looked through the first seven pages of that thread. Once you get rid of the ranting about Hillary and Obama, the wishes that humans would be more perfect in their dealings with each other, the irrelevancies about Mars, and whatever else, there appears to be very little about actual climate science left.

There are some Bob Carter videos, but the problem with Bob Carter is that he couldn't get his clmiate change denial stuff past the peer review process. He's had to resort to publishing it in economics journals and the like, because science journals apparently don't think it stands up to scrutiny.

 

they come from both of the far whacky ends of the political spectrum.

I did not Troy, I was just pointing out that there are lefty loonies as well as those on the right. That does not discredit good science, no matter their personal politics. By your statement above you seem to think that because there are loony fringe "deniers" that makes all of the skeptics loonies too. It was you who lumped everyone together, I was just pointing out there are loonies on both sides of the issue, even those with Phd after their names. It makes your posts not worth reading because you have painted everyone with a broad brush without even a critical considerations of your posts. clearly you did not understand what I was trying to communicate so I had to spell it out for you.

Please do not disparage everyone you disagree by associating them with extreme examples, it does not help your creditability.

 

The critical problem with that statement is, 'scientific consensus' is a nonsense term. Science does not work on consensus. It works on observable data and repeatable experiment.

The moment anyone uses the term 'scientific consensus' I discount their contribution as meaningless. I frankly do not care if 10,000 people of eminent education & experience claim something if a single repeatable experiment or data set contradicts them, done by a single person.

Current theories are fscked simply because observational data cannot be explained by the models. Therefore the models are at best over-simplified and at worst totally wrong. Data wins over theory every time.

Sorry but that's how it works. I suggest that you go & read Kuhn's 'Structures of Scientific Revolutions' if you actually want to learn things about scientific method, and the works of Karl Popper.

None of which is to say that AGW isn't happening. Merely that it cannot be demonstrated by anything other than the classic trap of a correlation. One of the *first* things statistics students get drummed into their heads is that a correlation does NOT imply a causal link. There may be one, but the correlation alone is not sufficient.

PDW

(who many many years ago was a student at university level and then postgrad level in the history & philosophy of science, experimental design and statistics.)

 

Agreed, but this seems to be quibbling over semantics. The term "scientific consensus" is pretty common these days for anything where the preponderance of evidence has convinced most in the field of a particular view. That's not really the same as argumentum ad populum.

And that, my friend, would be a logical fallacy too. The use of that term doesn't have any direct bearing on the validity of the claim being made.

Fair point, but real life data is always messy, and methodology can affect results too. That's why the peer review process exists. Now if I called passing peer review "scientific consensus", which is basically what it is, would you automatically conclude that the peer review process must be worthless?

All models are wrong. Some are useful.

Sure, but on the other hand it's fair to say that any scientific theory can never really be proven true. It can really only be proven false. That doesn't stop scientists regarding something as true (even if only provisionally) if there seems to be enough evidence for it.

Can I call "argument from authority" here?

 

The discomfort of certain epochs(like ice ages; the the warm periods were always fantastically comfy) is completely irrelevant. The only relevant point is if it's anthropogenic. The past ones clearly were not.

A completely silly statement unless your basic assumption is that we control the climate, which we do not.

I went through this on the 'big' thread also. You are ignorant of what your own side is claiming. I have told you what your side is claiming. If you choose to defend that side then you own its assertions as well. Educate yourself on the details of what your side is claiming, then you can at least make a defense of 'your' position. I have not misrepresented any of their claims.

The models will be forever worthless as long as they are programmed with faulty assumptions. All the current models cited by the IPCC have certain basic assumptions concerning CO2 attribution and residence time that clash with the reality of actual measurements but coincide with the political consensus of the IPCC.


Two words: quantum mechanics.

That would be the explanation that reveals a profound ignorance of how the atmosphere/oceanic system actually works. Though plausible on its face, the key pieces of corroborative evidence for this assertion are missing as I've already pointed out.

And pay no attention to that *goofball* Troy2000. He now claims that all the refutations of the AGW tenets were soundly defeated. This reveals his basic lack of comprehension of the arguments at hand and how they played out in the thread.

I challenged anyone (well, one person in particular) to cite a study based on empirical data, NOT computer modeling, that supported a long residence time for atmospheric CO2; none was proffered. I'll save you a bunch of fruitless searching; none exists.

I challenged anyone to cite a study based on empirical data, NOT computer modeling that showed that the atmosphere contains 25-30% 'fossil' CO2, which would harmonize with and corroborate the basic AGW alarmist assertion about the source of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2; none was proffered. This is something we can measure directly, RIGHT NOW. Yet none exists.

I challenged anyone to cite a study OTHER than the soundly discredited MBH98 that shows the MWP and LIA were not real past global climate events; none was proffered. (actually MBH98 and it's follow-ons from the same group are the ONE AND ONLY source of this assertion)

I challenged anyone to cite a study based on temperature measurements, NOT computer modeling that shows OLW radiation decreases with rising CO2 concentration (a basic corollary of greenhouse warming); no such study exists. The existing data sets show just the opposite.

And there are several more; I could go on but I think you get the point.

These are all the finer details that a person with real scientific or engineering training would be able to comprehend, even while the average person probably could not.

Jimbo

 

That's silly. The whole earth climate is way too complicated to have a line divide one "side" from another.

 

No, obviously not. I was simply pointing out that something being within the possible natural range does not mean it is in any way desirable. In other words, even if you were correct about this, it still wouldn't be at all comforting.

Well, not control as such, but influence (which I realise you don't accept).

Yes, I know you have told me what "my side" is claiming. I want to know where you got that from. It seems ridiculous that "my side" would be claiming the CO2 level would be twice what it actually is. That's so farcical as to be beyond credibility. So, I can only assume that you are referring to some particular model, not to the actual measurements*. I'd like to know which model you are talking about.

*The actual measurements are what I'm really concerned about.

Maybe so. I'm quite prepared to accept that the modelling is not perfect. I'd be surprised if it was. However, I have to wonder why you seem to think the whole thing is the result of some political conspiracy. What would be the motivation for such a conspiracy?

Of course. How could it demonstrate anything else? I've never trusted him anyway. He's probably a Communist.

I'll accept that for the moment, but have to wonder how it is relevant since we already know temperatures are going up and ocean pH is decreasing. Even if the predictions for the future are badly modelled, the current data is concerning enough.

That would be tricky to measure though, since "fossil CO2" (originally biological or botanical) would be indistinguishable from CO2 produced from any other biological or botanical process. How do you propose to measure it?

Also, what's wrong with just measuring total CO2, if there's no evidence that non-anthropogenic sources have increased? If non-anthropogenic sources are stable, or near enough to it, and CO2 goes up, then it would stand to reason that the difference was from human acitvity.

Hmm. A quick Google seems to show plenty of stuff that uses measurements rather than modelling. In fact, it seems as if the models were started based on observed measurements.

How about if I can find such a study?

 

White House Will Focus on Climate Shifts While Trying to Cut Greenhouse Gases | NEW YORK TIMES

I know that at least two states, VT and CO, which have recently been hit by storm-related flooding, are repairing damaged infrastructure to higher level standards. And at least part of the money for upgrades is coming from the federal government.

 

Perhaps I misread the intent of your post, or took it out of context. It was late and I had a few drinks down me; I thought someone else had written it; and I may owe you an apology. It seemed to me at the time that you were trying to discredit climate change by picturing it as something advocated primarily by loonies... which is a common attitude online.