What Do We Think About Climate Change

G the value of consensus in science is well established
you may not like it since it so clearly goes against what you want to believe concerning climate change
but it is what it is
a useful tool to convey what science agrees on to the public and a way in which large amounts of data can be collated within the scientific community

 

G while I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion we attempt to keep things a little cleaner around here I feel that it is absolutely essential that we keep a discussion about science to what qualifies as science

it is not possible or practical to mix industry spin into a scientific debate

it wasn't until independent studies of the harmful effects of cigarettes were conducted by scientist outside the tobacco industry that it was discovered just how bad cigarettes were
the industry scientist knew it for a long time before the rest of us did
but were they going to tell us

the oil and gas industry is obviously involved in the same kind of hide the data game and clearly guilty of producing spin designed to muddle a debate such as this with agnotism
you play into there game when you suggest using there data

scientific date is data collected using the scientific method

public relations is what the industry does when its product is found to be harmful the the general good of the public

if you want to discuss public relations thats cool
but lets be straight up on the difference between what science is
and what public relations and agnotism is

 

Among eruptions, some of the more dangerous are the flood basalts, which can cause mass extinctions of life. What do we know about them?

http://www.le.ac.uk/gl/ads/SiberianTraps/FBandME.html
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php

 

This reply is in answer to a question I posted on another forum......

There is a new comment on the post "Missing Climate Headlines from May 2009". http://joannenova.com.au/2009/05/26/missing-climate-headlines-from-may-2009/ Author: Brian G ValentineComment:The first question that needs to be answered, is why did CO2 diffuse from the assumed time period to another time period in the ice, and then stop there? Why didn't the diffusion just continue on until the CO2 wasn't present in the ice any more? The whole thing has collapsed into nitwitism, trying to make any excuse fit the world. I wish the whole thing could be dispelled once and for all - but it keeps resurfacing decannaly since 1890 and it is time for the whole thing to go away for good. Unfortunately there is too much utopian socialism at work that prevents this from happening

 

You answer on the poll question fall way short of definitive. But at least I found out who you were talking about. The poll was among climate scientists, at least one of them anyhow. Now, as anyone who recieves compensation is a hack in your estimation why wouldn't it hold true for those whose livelihoods depend on the success of the AGW theory. I just don't buy the theory that everyone can be bribed into denying their principles and tossing away their education and respect.

 

Another on the ice core issue........
: co2isnotevilComment:Fasteddy, There is no assumption about the direction of causality when examining the ice core data with the correlation analysis I described. The purpose of the analysis is to objectively determine which came first, the temperature or the greenhouse gases. On the other hand, if Boston assumes that CO2 causes warming and that the data must agree, his conclusion that the data is wrong is the only explanation that fits his bias. As a scientist, you must be prepared to modify your hypothesis if the data doesn't fit, not spin the data to fit your hypothesis. This is why turning science into a political debate is so dangerous. The ice core data is only the tip of the iceberg. There is absolutely no data that supports the AGW hypothesis. While the climate is certainly changing (it would be broken otherwise) and man is putting CO2 into the atmosphere, there is no known data or scientific argument which can establish any kind of causal link between them. In other words, the current warming trend is within the uncertainty limits of what would have happened anyway, even if man had never discovered fire. It's really too bad, since another ice age is inevitable. It would be nice if we could mitigate it, but unfortunately, CO2 is not the ticket. We would need some other gas to absorb energy in the other 2/3 of the energy spectrum that is not absorbed by CO2, H20, CH4 and O3. Maybe we should paint the ice black... The warmists hype the inconvenient consequences of a warming climate, but the consequences of a cooling planet are far worse. Remember, for about half of the last few million years, spanning dozens of glaciation cycles, much of N America and Europe has been buried under a kilometer or more of ice. It's only been since the end of the last ice age that mankind has established any kind of presence in the latitudes subject to glaciation. George

 

Back to the 97% figure. From the answer you posted I can see that a number of polls were taken. The participants were all taken from a select field. The way you present the 97% number is very misleading. 97% of scientists do not support AGW. A large majority of those polled in a selected sample do. Big difference there. The participants are not identified and the questions used are not stated. I can take a poll in Catholic Church and if I play the sample correctly I can come up with a majority who think Jesus Christ is the son of satan. I have conducted a number of polls over the years in the political arena, the results can be pushed into whatever conclusion I want them to just by messing with sample and the questions. I think your 97% figure is misleading at best and deceptive at heart. Some what less than 1000 scientists were polled. You have referred to thousands upon thousands of scientists in previous posts in response to posts about "The Petition Project". When I just recently posted the names of a whole bunch of folks who disagree with AGW you responded in a similiar deceptive manner again using the 97% claim. Your busted on this one. Qualify the 97% number each and every time you use it, or don't use it. If you want to use the 97% figure, you should be saying, as your own post does, that "97% of the climate scientists surveyed believe that global average temperatures have increased during the last century. Thats hardly a revelation and a far cry from 97% of scientists think human activity is causing global warming. That number is only 74% and that is among the sample replies from perhaps a thousand scientists whose identity and qualifications remain anonymous. Hardly an overwhelming consensus among all scientists.

 

But the very point is to try to FORCE YOU to address the literature, the merits of the science being discussed (or lack thereof) without thought to the extraneous factors.

Instead you just use the extraneous as an excuse to avoid the substantive.

Then you re-post that MMVS blogosphere CRAP as if it were authoritative! Did you not think I would notice??!! How insulting!

Jimbo

 

BTW, you never answered the question of WHY, if that MMVS poppycock is soooo authoritative, why the IPCC DOES NOT USE IT, but instead uses the Beer-Lambert equation ONLY??!!

Work back through the math yourself and you'll see. That's how they get the 1.7 watts/M^2 attributable to CO2. No mention of the bolgosphere junk science you keep posting.

So if the IPCC does not put any stock in it

WHY SHOULD WE:?:

Jimbo

 

Reading info on flood basalts ocurrences it's easy to conclude that although they released enormous amounts of CO2 which should have caused terminal greenhouse global warmings, the also huge amounts of SO2 and SH2 reacted with athmospheric water vapour and sunlight to form massive quantities of SO4H2 aerosols nuclei, which entered the lower stratorphere and cooled the planet for the duration of floods and at least for several decades after them.

Although aerosols and their effect to cool the planet have already been mentioned in this thread, I continued googling around and found these interesting pearls:

"Observations and models show that northern tropical Atlantic surface temperatures are sensitive to regional changes in stratospheric volcanic and tropospheric mineral aerosols. However, it is unknown whether the temporal variability of these aerosols is a key factor in the evolution of ocean temperature anomalies. We used a simple physical model, incorporating 26 years of satellite data, to estimate the temperature response of the ocean mixed layer to changes in aerosol loadings. Our results suggest that the mixed layer’s response to regional variability in aerosols accounts for 69% of the recent upward trend, and 67% of the detrended and 5-year low pass–filtered variance, in northern tropical Atlantic Ocean temperatures.

Since 1980, tropical North Atlantic Ocean temperatures have been rising at a rate of nearly 0.25°C per decade . Studies have attributed this increase, explicitly and implicitly, to global warming, mean Northern Hemisphere temperature variations , changes in the thermohaline circulation, or some combination of these factors . However, many of these studies fail to provide either a mechanism for or direct evidence of how these variables control tropical North Atlantic Ocean temperatures. At the same time, models and observations demonstrate that local changes in aerosol cover should have a non-negligible impact on Atlantic Ocean temperature via the scattering of sunlight and reduction in surface solar insolation. "

Amato T. Evan, et al, "The role of Aerosols in the Evolution of Tropical North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Anomalies," Science, 324(2009), p. 778

So, between two thirds and three fourths of the warming of the late XX century has been not due to CO2 but to aerosols. Over the past few decades the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere has declined and that has led to the main part of the warming of the surface.

Also:

“GOODBYE air pollution and smoky chimneys, hello brighter days. That's been the trend in Europe for the past three decades - but unfortunately cleaning up the skies has allowed more ofthe sun's rays to pierce the atmosphere, contributing to at least half the warming that has occurred.”
“Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1°C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland and colleagues took aerosol concentrations from six locations in northern Europe, measured between 1986 and 2005, and compared them with solar-radiation measurements over the same period. Aerosol concentrations dropped by up to 60 per cent over the 29-year period, while solar radiation rose by around 1 watt per square metre (Geophysical Research Letters, 001: 10.1029/2008GL034228). "The decrease in aerosols probably accounts for at least half of the warming over Europe in the last 30 years," says Rolf Philipona, a co-author of the study at MeteoSwiss, Switzerland's national weather service.”

“The latest climate models are built on the assumption that aerosols have their biggest influence by seeding natural clouds, which reflect sunlight. However, the team found that radiation dropped only slightly on cloudy days, suggesting that the main impact of aerosols is to block sunlight directly.”

Anonymous, “Europe's cleaner air makes for brighter days but hotter climes” New Scientist, July 5, 2008, p. 16

But....wait a moment! don't Science and New Scientist are in the 'warmists' camp....?

Cheers.

 

Eddy, Guillo,

I know we've already seen the graph that accompanies the above Jo Nova article before, but I don't need much of an excuse to re-post it

 

Another good one from the same JoNova presentation Eddy linked:






Jimbo

 

now we are getting somewhere
and thanks again for asking some decent questions

your obviously correct in that no pole is truly definitive
a consensus is not definitive
and almost no scientific study is definitive
definitive is an absolute and seldom in science do you get the luxury of anything absolute

not everyone can be bought and paid for and the reality is industry attempts to improve its pr foundation and therefor its profit margin by supporting research, seldom for the sake of the research itself

my own recent experience in this area is a good example of how money should be disseminated for scientific research and education
as I am extremely careful to maintain my scientific objectivity

recently a landed an opportunity to get back to the field of science and apparently, did well in my first six months at the research facility were I am now. They offered me a grant to continue what amounts to a two year training program. I accepted and was given a blind form to fill out. It did not mention who the granter or organization was in any way, nor would it have been appropriate if it had, or for me to ask, what it did identify was a fund, that fund could have been a conglomeration of donations or it could have been a lump sum from some individual benefactor I have no idea and dont want to know.
The result is that I am as of just the other day receiving funds from a blind grant; it would be inappropriate of me to ask who provided those funds as that would taint my scientific objectivity and it would be completely inappropriate for the establishment to inform me of who the donor/donors are. We are both well aware of how important it is to maintain an ethical approach to whatever science we perform

that is the appropriate way to fund research and I haven't even started my research at this facility yet and wont be for another year at least, although I have begun teaching and taking behavioral observations.

what the oil and gas industry does is entirely different
when they fund research they proclaim it to the world "look how much we spend protecting the environment". In many cases the research is done in house by full time employees of the industry and in close supervision of various pr counselors. There is a vested interest in the outcome of the research and there is outside influence being injected into the research constantly by its very nature.

often the environmental impact studies that are required by law are also defined specifically as research done by disinterested third parties which the industry scientists are most definitely not

what is always of interest is how often a company will have to hire multiple independent research firms until they get the answer they want, since they are not able to directly request a specific answer as they do with there own people. however it is common for industry to black list research firms who do not give the desired answer in the various independent studies. So industry has set up front groups and so on. Its a convoluted mess actually but in the end nothing but blind funding is truly acceptable in any well though out scientific study.

your next assertion is a little disappointing since your previous two questions were so completely reasonable

the premise of this question is slightly off
as you are implying that livelihoods depend on the "success" of a theory

the IPCC does not actually conduct any research and the scientists who present work to the IPCC do so in an effort to collate the reams of data available on this subject and are not paid by the IPCC

those few scientist who are on the IPCC panel are paid by the UN if I remember correctly and there is no vested interest in there outcomes

the money would still be there and the scientists would still be working on it no mater what the general conclusion or results of the reports were. So there really is no vested interest in the outcome

the independent grant money that went into the individual study most likely was the type of blind grant that I got recently, were the beneficiary was not even aware of the benefactor, nor was the outcome of the study related in any way to the grant being awarded

there is a basic misunderstanding as to how money is awarded for research that is glaringly evident in the question

all in all a good group of questions and well worth answering
hope that helps
B

 

in reference to post 2899

this is simply false
there are reams of data that support the theory
so much so that it warranted a intergovernmental panel to try to collate it all

that statement constitutes a glaring case of denial

the rest is more of a personal attack than a scientific statement hardly worthy of debate

 

in reference to post 3000
even if I failed to clarify that the polls when taken of climate scientist and resulted in a consistent 97% in agreement
that hardly negates the results
74% on average of all scientists agree and that is still a hefty consensus but since you so clearly pointed out polls can be manipulated then I think it prudent to point out that
that 74% is a manipulated figure
it included scientist who were in the employ of the oil and gas industry
of those only 47% agree ( I think it was )
and so industry influence is skewing the numbers down
just as they intended
when you remove the industry influence the number is more like 81% and when you stick to the climate scientists which I am, you get 97%
so my numbers are accurate and there is no deception involved
if you want to talk about deceptive practices we can talk agnotism all you want
my numbers and the consensus is well established and the study's I quote were independently conducted and naturally only included the number of scientist who responded
as in all polls

what is relevant is that
and if it makes you feel better Ill write in all the qualifications
of all scientist polled the ones who responded and study climate science 97% agree that not only is global warming occurring but that man is influencing the climate

in a conversation concerning climate scientists about climate science concerning the scientific evidence I would think that hardly need defining
97% of scientist agree
and we are talking climate science
and that is a mind bending consensus