Oreskes, N., 2004. Science and public policy: what's proof got to do with it? Environmental Science & Policy, 7:369-383

You can get it here.

I strongly recommend everyone with an interest in how science gets used for policy read this.

Anyone who wants to do even rudimentary research on the Internet will find that statement to be at best misleading. Yes, if you only consider the opinions of those scientists who agree with each other and discard the opinions of scientists who disagree, there would appear to be a consensus. Isn't that be a peculiar sort of consensus?  

There is debate about whether the human contribution to the CO2 levels is going to significantly impact future climate. There is debate about whether the current warming trend that started around 1850 is natural or anthropogenic. We would expect for sea levels to rise with the warming since the end of the Little Ice Age but even that is debatable.

If you only go to RealClimate.org for your information, you will find that there is a consensus of opinion--the talking points. You really need to dig deeper than that. Some folks claim to understand climate completely and many of them are probably sincere in their belief. The truth is that we really don't know yet.

It seems to me that the talk of consensus is just an attempt to declare that the debate is over. If the science about anthropogenic global warming is robust, why not just lay it out and let the facts speak for themselves. It shouldn't be necessary to engage in misrepresentation and exaggeration. It shouldn't be necessary to try to shut down opposing points of view either.

Since when are talking points or "consensus" a part of the scientific method anyway?


C. B. Richardson Jr. Houston, Texas

This is a massive list:
The Consensus on Climate Change: From Science to Industry

And the somewhat related:

Quotes from Energy Experts - Energy Research, Peak Oil, Terrorism and more

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm

I note that the counter balance offered to the extensive list proided in the article is a blog comment from "cbrtxus", which is why simple internet searches are not a good way to gauge the state of a scientific topic.

Since when are talking points or "consensus" a part of the scientific method anyway?

Consensus is not a part of the scientific method, it is, however, the result of the scientific method.


"What if this weren't a hypothetical question?" -- unknown

There is debate about whether the human contribution to the CO2 levels is going to significantly impact future climate. There is debate about whether the current warming trend that started around 1850 is natural or anthropogenic.

Well, if you do your research on the internet, you would probably also conclude that there is no consensus on the correctness of evolutionary theory.  The point is that one has to look in the peer-reviewed scientific literature to see what, if any consensus exists, and there one finds there is a strong consensus.  This doesn't mean there are no other opinions, as Coby notes, but they are a small minority.  

One can never expect unanimous agreement.  For example, Fred Singer is not going to stop claiming that AGW is a non-issue.  He is perfectly happy to spend years arguing that the satellite record shows little or no warming...and then turn on a dime when this claim becomes untenable, and immediately switch to the claim that the warming is part of an "unstoppable" 1470 year (natural) cycle.  How can you hope to convince such a person?

I think when the scientist who is probably the most respected of the climate change deniers, Richard Lindzen, starts publicly making statements so deceitful as the claim that there has been no warming since 1998 then it is clear that the real scientific debate is long over.  If Lindzen had real scientific arguments to make, he wouldn't be reduced to the claim that is equivalent to a statement like "Today in Rochester it was warmer than it was last Saturday.  Therefore, this unproven idea of seasons, and that we are currently heading toward winter, is unfounded."

Do you believe that the warming that ended the Little Ice Age around 1850 was anthropogenic or natural? Do you believe that humans were producing enough carbon dioxide around 1850 for the warming to be anthropogenic? If the 1850 climate change was natural, would it be unreasonable to assume that continued warming was natural also?

How can we know that any warming that occurred (on average) during the twentieth century was anomalous? Wouldn't we have to be able to compare it to the warming that occurred during the Medieval Warm Period? How would we do that?

Peer review? I would assume that you mean peer review by the paleoclimatology community (Mann & Co.). I doubt that would happen. My impression is that anyone with the temerity to question the mantra of the "consensus" is ignored, ostracized, and often subjected to ad hominem attacks. I don't know that the "consensus" would ever seriously review a paper that they considered climate change sacrilege. Besides they are probably far to busy peer reviewing each others papers to bother with a paper from outside.


C. B. Richardson Jr. Houston, Texas

You ask many questions, but they seem to be rhetorical and not seriously looking for an answer.  They do however have answers and your best resource is here.

I am not aware of a temperature record that shows warming starting in 1850, it does not get going until around 1900.  At this time CO2 forcing was indeed a factor but so was solar variation and a decline in volcanic aerosols.

The best evidence suggests that yes indeed this temperature variation is quite far outside natural variation, at least those without dramatic causes like asteroid impacts or the eruption of the Deccan Traps etc.

"My impression is that anyone with the temerity to question the mantra of the "consensus" is ignored, ostracized, and often subjected to ad hominem attacks"

Heh.  Very ironic, I leave it to readers to notice how so.

"What if this weren't a hypothetical question?" -- unknown

Instead of asking these lawyerly rhetorical questions, just cite your research.

If I had a rhetorical question to ask you, it would be, can you do better than the White House-commissioned National Academy of Sciences, or the IPCC, who have been over this ground many, many times before?

This page shows a set of nine studies, from several different sets of data, all showing the signature of anthropogenic warming:

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/...

http://www.ozean-klima.de/

...you will find a "climate change fact sheet", which explains the situation very short but easily understandable, and several other sources. Hope you can use it!

Toji

and

Eos,Vol. 85, No. 4, 27 January 2004
(pages 38 and 41): "Cosmic Rays, Carbon Dioxide, and Climate" by Rahmstorf et al.

both of which challenge the cosmic ray business in a very serious way.

I have just recently watched "An Inconvenient Truth" for the first time and one thing I noticed was the lack of scientific experts to appear in the film and endorse the films messege "in name".  Contrarily, the british documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle" was endorsed by an impressive array of climate scientists.

"if CO2 continues to rise over the next century, the warming will continue"

while correct appears to be incomplete.  One can also accurately include this consensus point: "if CO2 does not continue to rise over the next century, the warming will continue", due to the warming in the pipeline.

So what do you really mean for the consensus point there?  It needs more modifiers.  Maybe something like: "If CO2 continues to rise over the next century at the current rate, the overall warming will be greater than if the rate of increase in CO2 is reduced or eliminated."

Here's the place;

http://logicalscience.blogspot.com/2007/07/consensus-on-c ...

On yer bike, lazybones!

Let's say I know a guy, named Joe, who I think is a really good drummer. Just because I write about it in my blog doesn't mean he is. Maybe he's my little brother and I'm just proud of him.

Let's say that I, too, am a drummer. That hardly means much... how good am I? Who says so? I might be the worst drummer ever. I might not know a good drummer from a hole in my butt.

Let's say that I am a drummer who has played on a lot of well-sold albums. This gives a certain level of popular approval to my drumming, though plenty of mediocre drummers have played on platinum-selling albums. So my opinion of Joe may matter a bit more, but it's not exactly gold.

Let's say that I am a studio drummer who gets called by all the big producers, the ones who have a lot of money to pay. That kind of money doesn't go to just any unproven schmo. Now it's pretty certain that I'm a good drummer, and my opinion of Joe suddenly looks likely to be true.

Let's say that eight hundred other equally proven drummers all feel Joe is a talented guy. You're not a drummer yourself... will you trust me and my eight hundred professional drummer friends, with our expert knowledge, and with our reputations to uphold? Or will you listen to the music critic who writes in Rolling Stone that they weren't too fond of Joe's band's latest album?

THIS is consensus. My opinion of Joe doesn't do a damn thing for his actual drumming ability. It doesn't make him a great drummer. The fact that 800 of us agree about it just means that you, not a drummer, can feel pretty safe in thinking Joe is, indeed, a shredder on the skins.

The scientific community, one based on proving and re-proving (and disproving) the foundations of their knowledge so that the work built on top of it is as solid as possible, agrees that climate change is happening fairly quickly. And they agree that we humans are very likely having a measurable influence. This doesn't make it any more true. It just means you can trust in the fact that lots of scientists, with their expert opinions and their reputations to uphold, feel that climate change is a problem.

p.s. I know it's a really old post, but I have to address it: Alastair... REALLY??? Did you follow these links that Wacki and Coby are posting?

THIS is consensus. My opinion of Joe doesn't do a damn thing for his actual drumming ability. It doesn't make him a great drummer. The fact that 800 of us agree about it just means that you, not a drummer, can feel pretty safe in thinking Joe is, indeed, a shredder on the skins.

There are lots of musicians who are "respected" by other musicians.   Many times, they can't sell a single CD, because they do stuff that sounds really good to other drummers...but which is not music.

Music is something that happens when a car goes by and its windows are open and its radio is on and you hear 2 or 3 seconds of a song, and that song stays with you for days until you can find it and hear the rest of it.


Texeme.Construct(Participant)

Can you name any significant scientific organization in the entire world that says that manmade emissions aren't a primary cause of the warming we've experienced in the past few decades?

Can you name one independent scientist who says they are absolutely sure of that?

Texeme.Construct(Participant)

Transcript:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/320/5873/250b/DC1/1

Supergreenhouse temperatures in the geologic past meant higher ocean temperatures and less of a temperature gradient by latitude - meaning there wasn't as much difference between tropical and polar temperatures as today. In a paper in this week's Science, Lee Kump and David Pollard describe a new model for how the Earth got so hot, in particular, by taking into account cloud albedo, or how much of the Sun's radiation is reflected back into space. What accounts for the less dense cloud cover that permits more solar radiation to reach the Earth? Fewer biogenic cloud-condensing nuclei on which water droplets form. I spoke with Kump from his office at Pennsylvania State
University.

Podcast Page:

http://www.sciencemag.org/about/podcast.dtl

Texeme.Construct(Participant)

If they were asked to write it up in a peer reviewed journal any competent scientist would only posit a probability of their own existence as an independent entity in three+ dimensions.

Come to think of it I wonder if your postings would get you past a Turing test; they do have a certain consistency. Prove you're not just a kludgy piece of malware. Make us "absolutely sure."

Me, I'm pretty sure that I'm just a complex meme occupying a lump of temporarily organized gases with a nasty heavy metals problem.

Put the Carbon Back

For instance, if you actually read the IPCC reports you will be unable to find any scientific paper which makes a direct connection between CO2 and climate change.  Instead, the IPCC employs models to express a belief that there is such a connection....up to 90% likely we think!

These 'ere models involving some kind of assumptions.  Do you know of any where the code, the nature of the assumptions etc, have been peer reviewed?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for your self description:

"Me, I'm pretty sure that I'm just a complex meme occupying a lump of temporarily organized gases with a nasty heavy metals problem."

Perhaps, if you have a diet of ants, that may explain your problem

Here's where your problem is: The question at hand, in terms of drummers, is, "Does this drummer possess skill and talent?" This is something measurable by other drummers. Can he keep time? How fast are his hands? How accurately can he play in a given style? What kind of dynamic contrast is he capable of? What you think of the drummer doesn't matter. It doesn't affect these quantifiable benchmarks.

Translating into climate science, the question at hand is not whether we like these scientists' ideas or the consequences they imply. It is whether their work is legitimate and robust based on the opinions of other scientists, not Joe Schmo bloggers. You and I are hardly qualified to intelligently critique the work of scientists with thousands of collective years of study, research, and experience among them, and who work in a community that strives for truth because it would die without it.

Your arguments continue to distract from the important issues, just like a slimy politician. This entire series of articles, along with many of the comments from Coby and others, contain a wealth of references to the work of scientists working for universities, environmental groups, governments, and industry groups. I don't know what "independent scientist" means to you, but I think are hundreds of them in all these lists of names. Unless "independent scientist" means a guy in his basement with some homemade equipment and hairbrained theories. You may not find many of those here.

I get the feeling you fantasize about being at some climate science convention, and during a Q&A session you stand up and deliver the enormous uppercut of a question that stumps the panel of experts. "Wow, this random guy from the audience has thought of something that we and our 800 highly educated colleagues haven't considered before." Is that why you're on here posting comments like this?

(Not a rhetorical question.)

I'd like you to answer my question from yesterday's post. As someone who's got only a passing knowledge of drums, will you accept the assessment of me and hundreds of other respected professionals that Joe is a talented drummer, regardless of your opinion of his music?

If not, why not?

I feel this is at the root of your disdain and distrust, and that it's important.

This statement is incorrect.  Coby should check the Hadley record, which goes back well before 1900.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/n ...  

The Hadley record shows a period of slight cooling from 1850, when its record began, to around 1860.

From 1860 through 1879 there was a period of rapid warming.  If Coby were to download the Hadley data into Excel and plot a trend line, he would see that the warming trend over this period was 0.196 degC per decade (while CO2 rose by 2 ppmv), higher than any subsequent period, INCLUDING the much-ballyhooed period starting in 1976 and ending in 1998, which had a warming trend of 0.175 degC per decade (while CO2 rose by 33 ppmv).

The 20-year 1860-1879 period accounted for around 30% of all the warming since the record started.

IPCC (like Coby) ignore this early period of warming.

It is an "inconvenient" period, since it cannot be explained by AGW.  It cannot be explained by unusual solar activity.  In fact, it cannot be explained.

The second period of warming started in 1906 and ran to around 1940.  This period is very briefly mentioned in passing in AR4 WG1 Chapter 9 (p.691): "Detection and attribution as well as modeling studies indicate more uncertainty regarding the causes of early 20th-century warming than the recent warming."

40% of the total temperature rise occurred during this 34-year period, although the linear trend was somewhat lower than in the other two periods at 0.161 degC per decade.  CO2 rose by 14 ppmv over this period.

IPCC states (Chapter 3, p.240): "The picture prior to 1976 has essentially not changed and is therefore not repeated in detail here."

Now IPCC also states (p.681) "The simulations also show that it is not possible to reproduce the large 20th-century warming without anthropogenic forcing regardless of which solar or volcanic forcing reconstruction is used, stressing the impact of human activity on the recent warming" and (p.685) that the warming during the most recent period "can only be reproduced when models are forced with combinations of external forcings that include anthropogenic forcings".

The logic"
1.    We cannot explain what caused the warming of two earlier periods (1860-1879 and 1906-1940)
2.    We are not interested in clearing up the "uncertainties" of any unexplained forcing factors for these periods, in fact we are not going to talk about them at all.
3.    We know that AGW largely contributed to the warming from 1976 to 1998.
4.    We know this is the case, because our models cannot explain it otherwise (i.e. AGW is guilty by "default").

Until IPCC investigates in detail both earlier periods, which together account for 70% of the total warming since records began, they cannot name CO2 (and other GHG) as the culprit by default for the most recent warming period, which accounts for the remaining 30% of the total warming.

This is the fatal flaw in the AGW hypothesis.

Max

Here is a way to get a good visual look at the correlation between atmospheric CO2 concentration and temperature.

Take the data below (from the Hadley global temperature record and the atmospheric CO2 record according to Mauna Loa and IPCC) and plot them into Excel with a 2-axis chart.

The correlation will become obvious.

Period......Dtemp......DCO2
1860-1879...+0.39......2
1879-1906...-0.13......5
1906-1940...+0.56......14
1940-1976...-0.07......25
1976-1998...+0.39......33
1998-2008......0.00......20

Dtemp is linear temperature change over period in degrees C
DCO2 is increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration over period in ppmv

Why do we not see this simple chart in any IPCC report?

Regards,

Max

Translating into climate science, the question at hand is not whether we like these scientists' ideas or the consequences they imply. It is whether their work is legitimate and robust based on the opinions of other scientists, not Joe Schmo bloggers. You and I are hardly qualified to intelligently critique the work of scientists with thousands of collective years of study, research, and experience among them, and who work in a community that strives for truth because it would die without it.

1. There is not such thing as "Climate".  Therefore, there is no such thing as "Climate Science".

2. Climate is a numerical average of weather statistics.

3. There are atmospheric scientists, but that's only part of the puzzle.

4. The analysis of numbers and data and making extrapolations on them are the domain of many disciplines: computer programmers (of which I am one), scientists (which I consider myself to be as well) of many disciplines.

5. The IPCC is not a scientific body, because it's recommendations spill over into all aspects of life and social policy.

6. Therefore, since they opened that Pandora's Box -- which should have never been breeched -- yes, a blogger, your grandmother and every human walking around has a right to open his mouth and criticize.

I'd like you to answer my question from yesterday's post. As someone who's got only a passing knowledge of drums, will you accept the assessment of me and hundreds of other respected professionals that Joe is a talented drummer, regardless of your opinion of his music?

The dynamic of the expert class is always in play.  

Can anyone walk in and perform brain surgery?  

Before you answer...see the movie "Catch Me If You Can"...


Texeme.Construct(Participant)

You got it wrong when you wrote:
"The question at hand is not whether we like these scientists' ideas or the consequences they imply. It is whether their work is legitimate and robust based on the opinions of other scientists, not Joe Schmo bloggers."

Here's what's wrong with that.

The work does not have to be "robust based on the opinions of other scientists (or bloggers)", it has to be "robust based on sound observed physical evidence".

The AGW link between anthropogenic GHGs (primarily CO2) and temperature is not.

This hypothesis cannot explain earlier periods of global warming (late 19th, early 20th centuries), the mid-20th-century cooling period and the current "plateau" in warming.  In fact, over the entire 150+ years of the temperature record, it only shows good correlation for the 22-year period 1976-1998.  22 out of 150 is about a 15% hit rate; not too "robust".

Forget "opinions of other scientists", bring evidence.

Max

1860-1879...+0.39......2,   19 years
1879-1906...-0.13......5,   27 years
1906-1940...+0.56......14,  34 years
1940-1976...-0.07......25,  26 years
1976-1998...+0.39......33,  22 years
1998-2008......0.00......20,10 years

What kind of a way is this to look at data? And also, the last 10 years look very suspicious, which makes me think that you 'fudged' the data

The record shows that there have been three major warming periods since 1860, two cooling periods and one most recent flat period.  Those are the unvarnished facts.

The record also shows that there is no apparent correlation of the temperature change with the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration over these periods.

Just facts, that's all.

Everything else is model gibberish and hype.

Regards,

Max

I'm done talking to you.

I'm done talking to you.

There have been hundreds of papers written in the last 15 years or so in the peer-reviewed literature, and along with the many that support the concept of anthropogenic global warming or that at least leave the door open to it, there are exactly zero that strongly doubt or refute the theory. I have to imagine these hundreds of papers, written by hundreds of scientists, represent exactly what you're asking for: evidence. Here's an article that discusses the consensus and the scientific literature in a clear and logical way: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Now, I'm no expert on all this stuff, and far from being any kind of science nut, let along a scientist. But I do tend to trust experts, especially lots of them who say the same thing. It seems to me these experts were doing a very wise thing when they combined data from many different temperature record sources, rather than simply pointing to one temperature record that appears to be contrary. Your argument seemst to rest upon only one set of observations.

Sounds like you're bitter. Did you flunk out of some advanced degree program and then get mad that no one would publish your work? This is what I'm getting from you--a really deep, chronic resentment for anyone with authority, expertise, or resources to get at truth and reality more effectively than you.

I've read your posts on several different articles on Grist now, and you have a stunning habit of asking unscientific questions about scientific issues. And when you do pose scientific questions, it's as if you have blinders on. You really need to open your eyes to the volume and reputability of the work of scientists all over the world to answer these questions.

As so many well-spoken folks on this site have suggested, you should look at the IPCC. You're now thinking, "But that's a bunch of policy-makers and economists!" And I'm now reminding you this is a synthesis, analysis, and summary (by scientists) of an enormous body of work (by scientists) and contains references all over the place to specific research (by scientists).

Everyone who has ever asked to see "a specific study" in support of AGW, once again, read the IPCC. Here is one tiny example, from page 389 of AR4WG1, chapter 5:

"This section reports on updates of this estimate and presents estimates for the upper 700m based on additional modern and historical data (Willis et al., 2004; Levitus et al., 2005b; Ishii et al., 2006)."

Do you see all that stuff in parenthesis? That is a citation to three different papers. If you want specific studies, GO READ THEM. If you can't find them, don't worry, there are HUNDREDS more listed in the IPCC reports. If you're a little intimidated by all this, that's probably normal if, like me, you're NOT A SCIENTIST.

Please, if you're scared of what you might find in real scientific papers in real peer-reviewed journals, then just don't read them. But you can officially stop asking for evidence and lamenting the existence of an "expert class."

Please read the last few paragraphs of my response to J. Bailo regarding specific evidence. That was for you, too, along with all the others who say there's no evidence.

Furthermore, it definitely does matter whether other scientists find the work to be robust and legitimate. Most of our "facts" about anything are really just theories or estimates accepted by the scientific community. A study that reveals "facts" really just reveals one person's measurements of a set of data, and perhaps their interpretations of those measurements. Data does not just leap from the earth into our textbooks and reports; it must pass through human minds first and there is room for error. The purpose of peer-reviewed journals is to provide open and redundant review of the person's methods to reduce the chance and margin of error.

So, from a contrary angle, if a data is seen as contradictory to a scientific theory, it needs to be seen that way by many scientists for it to be accepted as proof against the theory. I can only assume (as I have no idea where I'd find any peer-reviewed discussion of the data you mentioned) that either (A) noone from this enormous pool of experts has seen or addressed this data, (hmmm...) or, (B) it has been addressed and has been found to be less significant, relevant, or accurate than all the other data they've got. Doesn't that make sense?

You still haven't answered that lingering question from earlier in the week. As someone who's got only a passing knowledge of drums, will you accept the assessment of me and hundreds of other respected professionals that Joe is a talented drummer, regardless of your opinion of his music?

If not, why not?

You wrote:
"Furthermore, it definitely does matter whether other scientists find the work to be robust and legitimate."

Not really.

"Other scientists" at the time thought Alfred Wegener's theory of "continental drift" was not "robust and legitimate".  

They were even in "overall consensus" of this view, as is being claimed now for the AGW hypothesis.

And that was before there was a multi-billion dollar AGW industry paying scientists to find the AGW paradigm "robust and legitimate".

Wake up to the facts, jbullfrog.  It's a multibillion dollar scam.

Regards,  

Max

You apparently do not like discussing observed facts (such as the Hadley temperature record), when these facts do not support your preconceived notions.

As I showed you, this record shows that there have been several multidecadal warming/cooling cycles over the past 150+ years that have nothing to do with AGW.

It further shows that the late 20th century warming is not unusual when compared to other warming periods prior to increased CO2 concentrations.

It confirms that warming before this latest period was at least twice as great as during this period.

And finally it shows that warming has essentially stopped since 1998 despite continued increase in CO2 concentrations.

That is the observed truth, even if it is a bit "inconvenient" for you to accept, atreyger.

But cheer up.  We will not fry or drown because of AGW.  (I'm actually more concerned that AGW has reversed and we may freeze, instead, which I view as a much more serious problem for humanity).

Regards,

Max

Until the scientific community strengthens this point of view with more tests and supporting evidence, it remains one of relatively few potentially valid arguments against AGW, in the face of hundreds of studies that seem to support AGW.

Put another way... You and I have no idea if this is a valid piece of evidence. It's up to scientists to figure that out, and the odds seem pretty small right now, though by no means is it impossible.

Is this concept making any sense to you? It's how science works. Evidence gathered by observations is used to form hypotheses, which are tested, and the results of multiple tests are linked together to support theories, which quite often can never be proven beyond all doubt. Scientists must simply judge the relative strength of the collective evidence for a theory while attempting to disprove any hyphotheses that refute it. It frustrates me to think you don't know how the scientific method and the scientific community function, yet you're in a public forum trying to paint the independent work of hundreds of respected biologists, geologists, ecologists, climatologists, meteorologists, and other scientists all around the globe as a scam. What you and I think of the science doesn't matter, Max. It's what experts think of it that matters.

There is nothing you can say to convince me otherwise, so if you continue to insist that you can judge good and bad science for yourself instead of trusting experts, this argument is over.

Who are you to say this one temperature record is correct, or more brashly, to say that it proves anything, when there are so many other temperature records that suggest the opposite? Clearly there is some explanation, but who are you to decide what it is?

You wrote: "This temperature record you keep talking about, Max, is not "observed facts."

IPCC believes in it jbullfrog.  Don't you?  It may have some built in human errors and UHI distortions, etc., especially in later years as AC units were put in next to thermometers and asphalt parking lots were put in.  But these records are all we have as far as observed surface air temperature records are concerned.  So they are as close to "facts" as we are going to get.

IPCC uses this record to sell its AGW story.  Problem is, they cherry pick the part of the record they want to talk about and ignore the part that does not support their AGW story.

You wrote: "Who are you to say this one temperature record is correct, or more brashly, to say that it proves anything, when there are so many other temperature records that suggest the opposite? Clearly there is some explanation, but who are you to decide what it is?"

Which other records "suggest the opposite"?  Please specify what you are talking about.
The two satellite records (UAH, RSS) agree with flat to slight cooling since 1998. GISS is the "odd man out" and shows flat to slight warming. Over the past seven years (2001-2008) all records agree with flat to slight cooling.

The two satellite records can obviously not be used to track the early 20th-century and late 19th-century warming cycles, because they did not exist.

I personally have more faith in Hadley than GISS, in view of the recent disclosures of errors in the GISS record for the USA, which had to be corrected quietly.  I also have a bit of a problem with the objectivity of James E. Hansen, since he has become an AGW activist preaching "tipping point" stories instead of giving the US taxpayers unbiased information on weather and climate.  And, as noted above, I have seen that when comparing trends (particularly over the past 10 years), the GISS record is "odd man out" compared to the other three (Hadley, UAH and RSS).

Hope this clears things up for you.

Regards,

Max

How are you qualified to decide that this particular study was performed and interpreted infallibly?

You keep talking about "climate scientists".

There is no such thing.

There are atmospheric scientists.

There are statisticians.

The lie is that there are experts in this field.

There are none.

Yet they overstep their disciplines to tell us how we should live, work, travel.

It's not "science" they're after...but political control.

As such, everyone has a right...a necessity...to comment!

Texeme.Construct(Participant)

If this whole AGW debate were just a scientific discussion among atmospheric scientists, astronomers and physicists, there would not be too much public interest and these blog sites would not exist.

What has made it everyone's business is that it is a political discussion involving policy measures that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and achieve absolutely nothing.

IPCC was set up by politicians and bureaucrats to help justify these policy measures.

The IPCC charter is not to find the "truth" about what drives changes in climate, it is to find the "proof" for anthropogenic causes of climate change and project that these will have adverse effects unless "measures are taken" to reduce GHG emissions (primarily CO2).

The "measures" involve carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes with very large sums of money being shuffled around by bureaucrats and politicians, hedge funds, carbon trading companies, etc., with "big bucks" to be made.  Al Gore and others are already lined up at the trough, hoping to make a killing on carbon trading.  Other public figures are relishing the thought of the prestige and power (and maybe a bit of financial gain on the side) they will get from having billions of dollars to shuffle around.

Many of the so-called "climate experts" have sold out to the IPCC, responding to the axiom in publicly funded research of "no crisis = no funding".  This has made the so-called "peer review" process a sham (sort of like a court proceeding in the old Soviet Union).

Then there are the activists who pose as "climate experts" (Hansen Schneider, etc.) to spread the message of impending disaster unless we "act now".  "Act now" = take "measures" (see above).

The media love a good hysteria wave because it generates good public interest and profits.

Who will pay for this whole circus?

Everyone.  

The worst hit will be those already at the bottom of the pyramid, who will continue to be denied access to clean drinking water and electrical power, in order to "save the planet" from the added CO2 this would generate.

What positive results will the implementation of these measures have?

None.

That's why jabailo is right when he says everyone needs to get involved in this discussion and not rely on only the opinions of the so-called "climate experts", who have sold out to the IPCC or the climate alarmists, who hope to gain from this wave of hysteria.

Max

"You still haven't answered that lingering question from earlier in the week. As someone who's got only a passing knowledge of drums, will you accept the assessment of me and hundreds of other respected professionals that Joe is a talented drummer, regardless of your opinion of his music?   If not, why not?"
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OK then:  please advise why you have not answered my posts # 20 and 21 @ which have some important issues therein @.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/4/175028/329#com ...
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TIP:  If you were long-term familiar with jbailo's style, you would know it includes satire, and breaks many conventions, which even some fundamentalists appear to have a sneaking admiration for.  He makes you think!  If you ask him an obscure or irrelevant question, you should not be surprised if the response is likewise so, or unexpected in some way.   Please learn to work on it, and enjoy the stimulation that he provides.

[A]  "This temperature record you keep talking about, Max, is not "observed facts." Nothing in science is. It is a set of data collected, reported, and interpreted by humans, using their own senses and some equipment. The tools, actions, and methods involved are all susceptible to error, as is any attempt to measure or interpret data."

You should try to understand that the IPCC and the World treat the surface temperature record(s) as a fact(s).  Further, that we are stuck with them, at least for the period prior to quality satellite observations.   Furthermore, it is known that they are unreliable in several ways, (See earlier posts) but they are the facts that we have to discuss.

To help you understand how the usage of `Fact' is generally applied, here is a paste from the MS Encarta dictionary:  (I have taken the liberty to bold some words at the start)

fact [fakt]
(plural facts)
n

1.  something known to be true: something that can be shown to be true, to exist, or to have happened  
   
2.  truth or reality of something: the truth or actual existence of something, as opposed to the supposition of something or a belief about something based on fact

3.  piece of information: a piece of information, e.g. a statistic or a statement of the truth  
   
4.  law actual course of events: the circumstances of an event or state of affairs, rather than an interpretation of its significance
   

5.  law something based on evidence: something that is based on or concerned with the evidence presented in a legal case  

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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You go-on to say Bullfrog, [with my emphasis added]:

"Who are you to say this one temperature record is correct, or more brashly, to say that it proves anything, when there are so many other temperature records that suggest the opposite? Clearly there is some explanation, but who are you to decide what it is?"

I find the whole statement baffling, but particularly the bold bit.   I wonder if you should elaborate a bit more

(1) scientists with top academic and scientific institutions are getting paid to do studies and fudge the numbers or their analysis in favor of AGW,

(2) other respected scientists who would naturally question and test these findings are also ALL getting paid to fudge their own numbers or analysis, and

(3) there are no scientists left out of the many hundreds who publish in legitimate, peer-reviewed journals relevant to the topic of AGW who are not in the pocket of the AGW conspiracy.

This is in spite of the fact that there is a long-standing, much better funded industry (oil and coal) that, it seems, would have gotten these same scientists in their own pockets decades ago.

I'll answer a few more specific points next week, as I don't expect to be near the computer this weekend. But for the most part, I'm done. My inclination to deal with such absurd assertions is pretty much gone.

Read what I wrote, don't try to re-phrase it with your spin on it.

IPCC was set up by the UN, a political body, to investigate anthropogenic influences on climate (i.e. primarily the impact of human CO2 on warming) and to report whether these changes would have any negative impacts on humanity and the environment, with the underlying agenda to find ways to mitigate any identified potential problems by implementing political solutions.

The existence of the IPCC depends on (a) the identification of anthropogenic climate forcing factors and (b) the projection that the impact of these is likely to be more negative than positive, unless (c) mitigating steps are taken.  

No anthropogenic forcing with potential for negative impact = no need for IPCC to exist.   Bureaucratic committees do not easily disband voluntarily, so it is a matter of self-preservation to keep a level of alarm alive that AGW could cause serious problems.

 "Climate scientists" must get taxpayer-funded grants to do their work.  If the work meets the political agenda of the IPCC, it will get funding.  If not, it has a lower chance. The motto here is: "no crisis = no funding".  Billions of dollars are at stake here and the smart researchers know what is necessary to get the funding they need.  The most effective reports conclude with statements such as "the problem could become more serious, but additional work is required to identify the magnitude of this potential problem" (guaranteed to get more funding from politicians who also benefit from a potential crisis).

Some of these "climate scientists" have gotten stuck in the AGW paradigm that pays their salaries.  To challenge the paradigm is to risk losing their funding and getting scorn from colleagues who are also stuck in the paradigm or fear for their funding.

In such an "in-bred" society the "peer review" process is often just a rubber-stamping by like-minded colleagues as was demonstrated by the Mann hockey stick scandal.

"Serious scientific journals" also fall into the trap.  Papers that defend or support the AGW paradigm are more eagerly accepted for publication than those, which challenge this paradigm.

This is not to say that many of these "climate scientists" do not truly believe there could be a problem, and some may actually have the warm feeling that they are doing something good to "save the planet".

Some of these "climate scientists" become "activists" or "alarmists".  A classical example is James E. Hansen, paid by the US government to give un-biased weather and climate information to the US public, but instead of doing his job he is spreading scare stories of imminent "tipping points" with horrible consequences for humanity, other species and the planet itself unless carbon taxes are implemented immediately.  In other cases it is the politicians, such as Al Gore or Ban Ki Moon, that do the scare mongering in order to get public support for their personal, financial or political agendas.

We even have Hollywood and the Nobel committee handing out politically motivated prizes.

This is not a "conspiracy".  It is "agenda driven science" and plain old human nature.  Remember that politicians, bureaucrats and scientists are all just human beings.

You accuse the oil and coal lobbies of doing the same.  The managers and directors of these companies are also just human beings.  I cannot disagree in principle that both sides use the same approach.  I have just seen a much lower volume of "agenda driven science" from these lobbies than from the AGW lobbies that are spending billions of dollars annually to sell their message.  

AGW has truly become "big business", and the vast majority of papers out there on climate change support the AGW viewpoint.  Several billions of dollars go a long way toward building "consensus".

And then you have the media (also directed by human beings).  Nothing sells as well (and brings in profits as surely) as a good "imminent disaster" story.  Here again there may be some individuals who think they are doing something good for humanity by alarming the public to a problem that is sure to come.  Others are in it for the "bucks".

No conspiracy required, jbullfrog.  Just plain old folks, billions of dollars and "agenda driven science" at work.

Regards,

Max

Somewhere above you comment on the frailty of human nature in the interpretation of data, which seems to support in part what Max has just explained to you.

However, it would seem that if any of us rationalists point out for example that the so-called global average temperatures between 1998 and now are flat#, then you seem to consider that to be a conspiracy, and/or we have no right to indicate those facts!

WHY?

# that is, in considerstion of the raw data and not using the arbitrary filtering methods adopted by the publishers

You've been sort of quiet lately.  Have you given up the debate?

Regards,

Max

Grist readers who would like to see the effect of different time spans on the shape of the trend lines being calculated can look at the following links:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.C.lrg.gif

The above graph shows the monthly linear trend lines for the monthly average global temperature anomaly for the past ten years, for both the meteorological stations and the land-ocean index.  The unusually high temperature anomalies during the el niño of 1998 and the lower temperature anomalies of the la niña of 1999-2000 are readily visible, as are the lower la niña temperature anomalies of the past winter.

This is to some extent a graph of monthly weather, presented in the form of the anomaly, and obviously the trend lines are a zigzag.  To see the effect on the trend lines when calculating the trend over longer time frames, you can try the next three links:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/crutem3/diagnostics/global/nh ...

The graph at the top of this page apparently shows a smoothed trend through the annual average global temperature anomaly, using a "21 point binomial filter".  For those who don't have a math background, it should be noted that this isn't like laying a ruler across a 21 year time span.  You would only get that kind of "ruler" effect if you were calculating "linear" trends for 21 year (or other) time spans.

Instead, this is a "moving point average" where the "weighting" of each of the 21 years in the "time span" varies like a bell curve with almost all of the weight assigned to the 5 years before and 5 years after the point being calculated.

If you're curious, the weighting is described here:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/smoothing.html

There has been some complaint on this thread and other threads here at Grist that this smoothing takes place over too long a time span to reveal brief perturbations in the weather.  The relevance of those perturbations depends on what you're looking for, of course.  To see what a shorter time frame for the trend calculation looks like, Grist readers can compare the 21-point-smoothed graph to the following graph:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

On this graph, there are two trend lines.  The black dotted line on the graph is the annual linear trend between yearly anomaly points.  This line shows the kind of weather variations seen from year to year, expressed as an anomaly.

The red line is a moving-point average calculated over a 5 year span, which is visibly "lumpier" (i.e. more "responsive") than the 21 point smoothed trend line in the earlier graph.

This red, 5 year average might be the kind of trend calculation that would appeal to readers interested in shorter term trends, such as the trend over the past ten years.  Note, however, that the trend line must always end "two years ago" due to the 5 year averaging method.

Hopefully by looking at these three graphs, showing monthly linear trend, yearly linear trend, 5-year moving-point-average trend, and 21 point smoothed trend, Grist readers can see the effect of the various time spans used in the trend calculations and weigh the significance of the various downswings and upswings in the temperature anomaly over the past 150 years.

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Hoping to be nice.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/gcag/GCAGtsalt?mon1=1&bye1=1 ...

and run the numbers with temperature data from 1880 to 2007.   So, you can see trends and year by year deviations.

Well, of course you want to start with the classic run of all the data:

1880-2007

Now according to the site it shows a trend of 0.05 centrigrade per decade.   So, in a century, you would warm by half a degree.  Now, that's a long way from the IPCC predictions of minimun 2C and possibly 6C or more.

Ok, they must be seeing accelerating warming in more recent years...right?

Well there's the classic cold spell of 1940-1970.   It shows a global cooling trend of -0.04C per decade.  

1940-70

But we're not arguing trivialities here -- we know that those three decades were "an anomaly".   So lets get serious.   Surely there was some extreme warming leading up to the nineties.   Let's start at 1980 to get away from the nasty cooling and run it up to 1995.

1980-1995

We see a more rapid rate of warming -- 0.09C...per decade.   So, now we're warming faster...to almost  0.9C in a century (much more than the 1/2 a degree based on the century long trend).

But gee...still doesn't seem like much.  Ok, how about those "hottest years ever".   Well, certainly the temperature has been trending up over the 20th century (by 1/2 a degree)...but where's the "ooomph".

Ok, let's try

1995-2007

Dam!   Now we're up to 0.23C per decade.   That's the 2C per century we heard about in the initial reports.   But man, how did we get that high so fast.   Well, let's tighten it up

1997 -2003

0.38C per decade!   Wow...it's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes..